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.