I attended the Saturday session led by special guest Godan James Uyeda Sensei. The entire session had a focus on irimi, the concept of moving directly into an attack with your own attack. It is similar to sen sen no sen (preemptive attack that may include evasive movement and additional “counter attacks”), but more direct in that it, in some way, ignores the opponents attack and moves directly in as if into the eye of a storm. There was also some tangential discussion of sen no sen (block and counter at the same time), including a thought that we should be teaching that from the start and not even bothering with the more basic go no sen (block, then counter) which just builds bad habits and ineffective timing.
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I visited the SCA event “Sport of Kings” today and observed a few sessions on SCA fighting presented by various high ranking long time Knights. I was pleased to hear there seems to be something of a movement within their organization to better formalize training, changing from the format of “thrown into combat, learn from your beatings” to “instruction, repetitive practice, and implementation in combat”. On the flip side, however, there was recognition that the strikes they make are meant to be most effective as blunt force impact, not as cutting technique.
Some other take-aways I had were:
* Additional vetting of the mechanics of rotational velocity, arcs, and “cracking the whip” to generate maximum sword tip energy. Use large radius arcs that are then changed to short radius arcs to increase rotational velocity, or put more mundanely, stop your arm near the end of your swing but permit the sword to continue (which causes a change in fulcrum and corresponding increase in rotation).
* OODA – Observe, Orient, Decide, Act. This is something that we effectively teach in the WCoS as well, but I do not recall encountering this specific acronym, which is a good addition/expansion on what I teach to my students. This roughly corresponds to how the WCoS teaches cutting, minus the observation which we break out separately, in that we instruct to circle (or pull back), choose target, and cut.I know there were more, but at the moment this is all that I can actively recall while sitting in my computer chair. If others come back to mind, I’ll try to add them.
The final part of the day I was able to observe some of their Sport of Kings tourney, which was mostly what I was expecting, in that there was a lot of what I would consider bludgeoning and flailing. None the less, I intend to seek out a couple of the local Baronies fighter training days to see how they training and make contacts to decide whether to pursue a heavy fighter certification for next years Pennsic Wars per Head Kaiden Gad’s request.
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Special 3 hour session led by Yodan Nihad Khalaf. Focus on kicks, combinations, and kumite (ippon, sanpon, jiyu ippon). Finished with review of favorite kata.
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Special 2.5 hour session led by Yodan Nihad Khalaf. Focus on kihon, first few Heian series kata, and escape techniques.
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Class led by Haycraft sensei. New yoga-inspired stretch and then a focus on yokogeri kokome (side thrust kick), including chained and multiple kicks. Basai a number of times through, and then favorite kata a number of times (Heian Godan for me).
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Class led by Merv. Stretch and then we moved directly into practicing a combination: mai-te, gyaku zuki, mwasha geri. After a few laps of this, we started some 50% – 80% jiyue kumite. Later we also tried a four technique variant and then continued with more kumite.
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Class led by Merv. Stretch including some suppprted slow mwashageri and yokogeri kokome. Kihon punches and kicks. Half speed jiyu kumite. Finished with a few basai.
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Class led by Carolyn. She started with an extended yoga-informed warm up stretch, then we did some kihon work on maigerri and mawashigerri combos including both solo and partner drills. I then lead a couple students on Heian Godan and we finished with a little bit of sanbon kumite.
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Class led by Stewart. Stretch, then we moved directly into Kanku. We then paired for ippon kumite for a bit and finished with light mock jiyu kumite with a designated attacker and defender/counter.
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Class led by Mirv. I led stretch and then we moved into some kihon. Oizuki, gyakuzuki, maigeri kiagi, mwashageri. We then did some combinations: maite/gyakuzuki/maigeri, and maite/gyakuzuki/mwashageri.
Next the class split and the upper ranks worked on kanku.
We finished with a few self defense technique. -
Started a new tues/thurs lunch workout schedule.
Today to start things off, did a five minute walking warmup, then moved into three repeats of 30/30 sec stations:
– Pop Squats with 20lbs
– Unstable one-arm bench press with 20lbs
– Pull-ups
– Mountain climbers
Finished with a three minute walking cool down. -
Class led by (mirv?). Stretch and then nidan kihon, practicing multi-technique combos: maigerri/mwashagerri, maigerri/yokogerrikokime, maigerri/mai-te, gedanbarai/gyakuzuki, shutouke/niponuchi/nukite, and maigerri/fumikomi/mwashigerri. Finished up with a brief review of Kanku.
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Class led by Haycraft sensei. Stretch followed by some drills going from mai-te to mai-te/gyakuzuki and then defending and responding to that pattern. The later portion I was assigned to work with a couple lower belts on Heian Godan.
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Class led by ?. Stretch followed by extensive repetition of uke/gyakuzuki basics, both moving forward and back. We moved into chudan sanbon kumite for a bit and then jodan ippon kumite, and we finished with Basai ten to fifteen times through.
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Class led by Blain. Warm up run and stretch. With the up coming kyu test, we then focused on kihone, going thoroughly through all of the basics. We finished with solo performances of our favorite kata.
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Second day of the Ravenswood event. For the morning session we started with 15 steel melees and then held 10 bokken melees. For the afternoon, we were down some steel fighters so we began with round-robinned best-of-three steel duals and then held a number of bokken melees, most of them being team scenarios.
Afterward we packed everything back up, including Steven, Elijah and John (from Nevada dojo) helping to load and return the straw bales. -
First day of my Ravenswood Coliseum event. Yesterday Elijah and Michael helped me pick up straw bales from a local rancher and setup our arena, and Sal brought his new structure for our enclosure. We didn’t have enough steel fighters for melees in the morning, so Kaiden David, Ryan E.B. and I round-robinned some steel best-of-three duals and then we moved to bokken melees to include the rest of the present fighters. The afternoon melees included the additional fighters from the bay area, so we started with 10 steel melees, then followed with 10 bokken melees. In the evening, I hosted a feast at my mother’s house.
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Class led by Merv. Stretch and then kihon, performing each technique on average 80 times (one or two 60, a few more more 100). Finished with some partner practice using them as a target to practice faster punches, getting in sooner.