Class led by Merv (I led stretch warm up). We went through nidan kihon to start with and then spent most the rest of the class on jiyu kumite at roughly 75% speed, give or take. We finished with looking at a few of the self defense applications or bunkai for heian sandan techniques.
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Class led by Merv. He asked me to lead warm up, first, and then we moved into kihon, once down and back for each technique (i.e. 20 reps). We then went once through all the heian kata, teki, basai, and kanku (which I need to review and practice). Next was a few rounds of ippon kumite, sanbon kumite, and jiyu kumite. We then returned to another 20 times through heian sandon to finish off class.
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Class led by Merv (at his invitation, I led stretch). The focus was on some of the technique needed for the shodan test. We started with an extended look at jyu ippon kumite. As the attacker, we worked on a good oitsuki attack including a leaping and shuffle-to-leaping distance closer emphasising a strong forward knee lift. As defender, we worked on slipping the attack with mai te counter or block the attack and gyaku tsuki counter. We next looked at jyu kumite technique, working on Merv's favorite "fence post" guard and driving in with mai te, gyaku tsuki (with the lead hand back in fence post position), and later added a round punch as a third technique.
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Class led by Blaine. Stretch followed by two times of each Heian kata, then a focus session on Heian Nidan ending with 10 more times on it. We then worked on some attack combos and finished with a small mock jiyu kumite tournament (in prep for nisei week, I think).
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Class led by Merv. I led the stretch. We then worked on oizuki, followed by a focus on kokutsodachi (back stance) and making a minimal shift offline when defending and countering.
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I visited with Sal today and he gave me a tour of his dojo space, then we worked through our full requirements. Unfortunately, I forgot my steel, so I had to borrow a boken. During our session, he made note of a few upates that have come up in his working with Head Kaiden Gad.
* The I Move – the technique is explicitly a full chop now in order to be applied against any target (I pointed out that it is still important to tip the blade first during the pull back to make it faster).
* Kata Ich – the forward moving blocks are right neck, left neck, right leg (made simply sweeping down from the left neck block).
* Kata Ni – the final techniques are dragons tail followed by the illusion, where the illusion's head feignt is made as we turn the 180 about face.Additional notes:
* Tradition – he noted that the (relatively) new clearing technique at the end is as we create distance and should not actually target the uke where they stand.
* I would like to discuss the vertical draw cut with the head kaiden further.It was a good session, and good to see his training space for the Redding dojo.
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Class led by Blaine. Stretch, followed by focus on oi tsuki and heian shodan (a couple of this month's focus items).
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Class led by Merv. Stretch. Basic kihon with counter attacks. Sanpon and Ippon kumite. More, but I forgot to log it right away and don't recall any longer.
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Class led by Merv. Stretch followed by focus session on yoko geri kokome, first practicing slow, then doing 100 regular from kibidachi. We then worked through the nidan combinations, repeating each 50 times (mai geri / yoko geri kokome, mai geri / mawashi geri, mai geri / mai te, oi tsuki / mai geri, mai geri / fumakomi). Next we studied the standing mai te / uchi uki in Basai and worked with partners to apply the short twisting block. We finished with four times through Basai.
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Class led by Merv. Stretch and 100 each of kihon block with reverse punch counter. Ippon kumite with a focus on sliding just off the line of attack and countering with gyaku zuki. Also worked knife hand block with gyaku nukite or nipon/gyaku-nukite or nipon/maegerri/nukite counter.
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First part of class led by Blaine, stretch and Basai. John took over and we went through some kihone, block/attack combos, and multi-attack combos, then Heian Godan and Tekki Shodan.
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Class led by Carolyn (warmup by ?). We went over how to fall well, led by ?, doing straight back falls, falls to the side, and forward rolls. I was then I was asked to lead a couple other students in reviewing Heian Godan, which was the remainder of the time.
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One on one review of requirements with Brennan (99% steel) this morning. We each had notes and thoughts for the other. His notes directly related to my techniques were:
- On battle stance, make certain to keep the hind elbow up.
- The draw cuts should be performed without bending the torso, particularly the vertical ones, instead using the legs, shoulders and arms.
- Expert blocks (instead of Advanced) include the vertical head blocks as well as two new augmented lower leg blocks (performed by putting the blade tip to the ground – I have some reservations about these and will have to inquire further).
- In the deflections, the 7th and 8th are a jodan flat slap (rather than edge on sweep I had been doing). pointed out a few things for me.
- I need to work on my cutting pattern 4 to cement the pattern and be able to teach it to others.
- The Tradition is now taught with an included clearing sweep/cut when rotating to face opponent at the end (which I had been aware of, and he recommended modifying my older technique to add it).
- I need to improve Kata Ni to be more crisp and concise.
- The opening Akira for Kata San uses two cross steps rather than a shuffle-and-cross-step, and then is followed by simply rotating on the lead (right) foot instead of having to do the stance shift I've been doing.
It was a good session and there were many more things that we discussed in general. I also got a chance to meet his student Patrick last night.
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I participated in the rank test today and was awarded 1st kyu. All of the immediate feedback was positive, the various seniors all felt I was well within the rank and tested very well.
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Class led by John, though I was asked to lead warm-up. We went through practice tests twice, going through kihon, kata, ippon kumite and sanpon kumite.
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Class led by Stewart Sensei. Kihon oizuki and maegeri keage. Kata Heian Sandan approx 15 times, Kata Enpi approx 10 times. Machinegun drill (also referred to as being “in the pit”) with attacker moving in with jodan oizuki and defender making chudan gyaku zuki with jodan deflection permitted.
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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.