Class 2007/12/12 (Wed)

Rather energetic class, lots of kicking combos. The #1 is front, pop-up, front, pop-up, the #2 is rear round, slide round, the #3 is ... umm. I had to run intermittently on my way there and back, the outside temperature was about +5C. Thankfuly, wind was weak, below 2 m/s from East.

I got through the night with Advil. It still hurt, but in a dull way deep inside the skull. Seems ok today.

Class 2007/12/05

Tough class today. I had to squat a few times.

Escrima seminar

I'm just back from the seminar on Escrima, the Phillipino stick fighting, taught by Master Max Pallen. It was quite interesting, especially the demonstration match. One curious detail is, during match rounds I didn't see much of any defence, let alone a disarm. Evasion was the main defence.

Class 2007/11/14 (Wed)

The warm-up was energetic today, with shield kicking and rounds of punching. I think I did pretty good, in fact perhaps a shade better than my cohorts Brian and Edgar. It is very unusual for me and so I'm pleased. But I have a terrible secret: I'm going to be sick tomorrow. It was very bad after the last class on Saturday, I spent the Sunday semi-conscious. The onset of headaches begins about 6 hours after the class, nausea usually follows.

Yellow Belt

I received my Yellow Belt today. The test was a disaster, frankly, so this is more of an acknowledgement of my progress than my knowledge of the curriculum. I especially need to know my wrist releases, and Pol Gae 1. But the rest was far from ideal too.

Another thing, I was so swamped with the homework and just work that I started slacking, coming once a week sometimes. I figured that it was going to get better in January.

Class 2007/10/30

What a fun class today: bo. As expected I'm inept, my classmates learn the forms much faster.

I received a postcard from Mr. Young where he advises me to pay more attention to the water element. I appreciate the attention, but it's a veritable puzzle, because it's too implicit for my little mind. Obviously my speed is insufficient (I get reminded about it every time I partner with Edgar), but how can I improve it? Just trainig, I suppose.

Next morning

On Monday I returned to class after a week of illness, and of course I was out of it. Even the knee was giving me trouble. However, after Wednesday class I had no usual 1:30 a.m. headache. It must be the water after all.

Bad class today

I barely survived today. For some reason my body just wasn't in it, maybe because I missed all classes early in the week. The warm-up and conditioning were energetic, but nothing groundbreaking. One way or the other, started sitting between forms in the first half of the curriculum, and I don't think I retained much from the second half (we did replies to grabs).

There will be no Saturday class due to junior belt promotions.

Class 2007/09/11 (Tue)

The workout had a lot of padwork. Our pad patten is a 6-parter:
- Jab, cross, recoil from cross and rear elbow
- Jab, cross, front elbow (this is the normal pattern at Master Reyes' place)
- Jab, cross, rear roundhouse
- Jab, cross, foot switch, roundhouse on the jab side (again, was normal for me)
- Jab, cross, knee
- Jab, cross, foot switch, knee.

Pretty good, but no pushups.

I worked in a pair with Edgar throughout.

Useful words:
めつばし - anything that disrupts enemy's vision, like a fistful of metal shavings and kayene pepper powder
六しくぼ (?) - full name for the bo, meaning "six segments of bamboo".
半ぼ - short bo

Class 2007/09/08 (Sat)

Class was very physical today and I have to admit, I started squatting by the end of the conditioning. But I like it. When conditioning is desired, it is paramount to go beyond one's comfort zone, or else no conditioning is going to occur.

Mr. Young was the lead instructor today.

Class 2007/08/25 (Sat)

The curriculum was all about hanbo. "Bo" is a "staff", and "han" is "half", so it's a "short stick". In reality a hanbo is about 110cm long, so it's longer than an escrima stick.

A stick, properly weilded, is a great force multiplier. We studied a few counters for common punches and I have to wonder just who would be dumb enough to attack bare-handed anyone weilds a stick. The stick allows for very effective counters and easy and natural continuations... It's just scary how unbalanced the situation is. Now, if someone assails me with a stick by swinging it wildly, I can range him and time him and then counter-punch or otherwise penetrate the stick's range and develop from there. But if he's not committing to swings and controls the stick, it gets difficult. Anyway, developing.

Class 2007/08/13 (Mon)

An interesting class today, a bit physical. After the warm-up and conditioning with abundance of kicks and, oddly, no push-ups, we went to work with focus mints first, X-ray sheets next. The X-ray sheet is used in reaction excercises. They are suddenly unfolded or dropped and you have to hit them quickly. I think I did well, all the Tae Kwon Do conditioning came in handy.

Speaking of which, modern TKD is very, very speed oriented. They constantly modify the art to perfect the speed of punches and kicks, and I have to say, it brings results. The art is reasonably easy to study, and proper application can defeat the majority of ham-fisted opponents, as long as you stay alert and do not get suckered into a close fight or, god forbid, grappling.

The Ninjutsu, as I see it after a couple of months of study, is a sort of tricky or intelligent art. I noticed that Mr. Albrecht easily moves quickly and changes deep postures quickly, but he is deeply into a sort of tactical flexibility and general applications.

Anyone who studied car driving knows that a human has a range of reaction time. A simple reaction takes about 0.2s. This is what we try to approach with X-ray sheets. A complex reaction, when a person has to select a course of action, can take all of 1.2s. Naturally, we do not have that much time in a fight. So, how can one be flexible?

I think the answer is two-fold: reactions must be simplified, and they must overlap. We have drills for the first reason. Old Ninjutsu did not have any drills, pupils developed their own approaches with partners. But it was recognized by Dr. Hatsumi that drills can be more effective. It's a part of how he said to teach in 10 years what he learned in 15 years. About overlap, it's when you continue to react even as your body is in motion. It's a bit tricky and I am not good at it.

Anyway, after the X-ray sheets we started working with wide open stance and opening the door, then moving on. It goes against a vertical strike with a weapon. Not as easy as it looks.

This week, classes end at 6 p.m. on Friday and there is no class on Saturday because of testing.

Class 2007/08/01 (Wed)

Interesting class today again. I'm going to scope it in order...

Mr. Albracht talked to the previous class (children) about shuriken. I always assumed that "shuri" stood for "throwing", but apparently it means "small". I knew that "ken" is "sword", or, rather, "blade". Mr. Albracht also mentioned that it can mean "fist". He said, by the way, that unauthorized posession of shuriken or nunchaki is a felony, whereas an unauthorized posession of a gun is a misdemeanor. California is such a nazi state. But after banning .50 cal rifles by Schwarznegger, nothing can surprise me. Soon keeping my Swiss Army knife is going to be a felony.

We have a new guy, Brian. He looks like a beer drinker with a hint of a pot belly, but his upper body strength is amazing. His bridge hand strike hurt my hand through a focus mint quite a bit. I would not want to mistake his punch or otherwise let him too close, it's going to be a one strike knock-out. It was a very good reminder what you can meet in the street. Brian has a tattoo "USMC" on his right arm, so I guess he joined the school to get back in shape. I'm sure he's going to have lots of stamina once his body readjusts to excercise.

Other points
- The raising punch, like before 1920s, versus modern, corkscrew motion.
- Siddiq hurt E.J. during a kicking excercise. E.J. was holding a bridge pad, and Siddiq somehow managed to connect with E.J.'s rib cage. I hope spleen wasn't torn, or E.J. can die from internal bleeding.
- Michelle graduated from yellow to orange belt.

UPDATE: I completely forgot to report that Mr. Albrecht mentioned plans to move out of the strip mall into a separate building with an outdoor training area. This is just awesome, although I wonder if he can afford it. Our tuition is not that high, comparatively speaking. I suppose pupils can help maintaining and housekeeping the new dojo as is the custom in Japan (or so I heard).

Bon Odori

Today a demonstration was performed by the school at the follow-up "bazaar" for the Bon Odori festival in Stockton temple.

Pictured: Mr. Albrecht and his assistant are preparing to p4wn dudes in samurai armor.

Class 2007/07/26 (Thu)

Pretty interesting class today. After the requisite conditioning, kicks on bag, and kamae no kata we went to drills. First was the defence against a low punch, starting with a hicho-like hand position. Second was the defence against a lapel grab. In both cases there were some less than obvious details that were paramount. In the second one, for example, it was essential a) to squat and come close, so as not to use your hand muscles in arm strength contest, but use your legs, and b) take the space out for the throw. The grab drill also places a premium at relaxation, which is my weak point. In this case it's especially counter-intuitive to relax when someone is attacking you. But the most interesting part was the merge (of stances) and continuation.

I did not have a chance to work it on the street, but at least in free sparring (and tournaments) it's essential to keep coming up with something. You can't just do one, two, three strikes and then stop. Here, too, it's essential to keep the pressure, react to counters, set up the situation and win. We are told to string techniques together for this. The trouble is, my repertoire is just too limited, and I cannot recognize the situations to know what to apply. And I feel that I lack a lot of floor time. In the space of an hour we might do 5 to 10 turns of each "drill". That's not enough for a slow learner like myself.

We have a new adult white belt, his name is Matt. He has some experience, I can see him taking and holding lower postures easily. On the other hand, he does not seem to care for foot position much... Interestingly, most newcomers to this school seem to have had some training before.

No class this Saturday

There was no class this Saturday, because the little ones were going through their tests.

Class 2007/06/23 (Sat)

I went for the Saturday class (at 10:30) today. It's fabulous, almost like getting a private lesson. Only 3 students attended: Carter (blue-black about 17 year old), Bobby (a white about 12 year old -- but how did he get into the adult class?), and myself.

Conditioning: 30 push-ups (I did 25 while others ended -- still lagging) crunches, frog jumps, running in place (hurts my broken knee a bit). I am having hard time completing the crunch set (30 count). Muscles do not hurt outright like after frog jumps, but do not work either.

Curriculum: lapel grab counters, first barehanded, then with a stick. Ninjutsu stick is about 80cm long, which is longer than the escrima stick to which I'm used.

After the class, I asked (complained actually) that it's hard for me to be mentally flexible, but this school places a lot of emphasis on mental flexibility. Mr. Young gave me some special excercises to do over the weekend. It goes like this:

1. Start in ichimonji (standard, right hand back)
   Keep the stance low
   
2. Swing right up, extending, over the top, then behind (well, as much as it goes), down and palm forward in front, like a pendilum. The move aims for the three-finger strike under the chin.
   
3. In the same time, step forward. Left hand comes into ichimonji.
   
4. Repeat everything on the other side.
   

As I understand it, the trick is to perform all movements simultaneously. The practitioner has to a) keep the stance low, b) excute the step, c) form the 3-finger hand position correctly, d) swing big circle. This makes the brain to contol a lot of motion and excercises it.

Adding to it, I have to keep myself from tensing up.

We'll see on Monday what the result is going to be.

P.S. Tried 構え(かまえ)の方 before class, and I barely can remember it. Weak sauce.