Class with Sal, Chris, Steven, and Joshua. Jesse observed his second consecutive. Stretch and requirements. I paired Chris and Steven, Sal on his own but assisting them if needed, and I instructed Joshua on stance and head and neck cuts and blocks. I also instructed Steven on Thorn after reviewing his progress. After a break, we had 25 matches of one on ones (Sal, Chris and I) as well as Sal’s final 5 blind matches (with shinai).

Class with Sal, Chris, Charlie and Steven. Stretch and requirements. I worked with Steven, reviewing his basic cuts and blocks, cutting pattern 1, and instructed him on his first practiced move, Jumping Tiger 1. I also reviewed Sal’s Kata Ni. After a break, we cycled twice through a three station drill loop: refined strikes, cutting pattern 1 on a beam, thrust rings. Since the first two were partner drills, we effectively did each of them twice per cycle.
I closed the class and then Sal and I had 25 one on one matches, 10 of which were blind matches for Sal (with shinai).

Class with Sal, Chris and Steven. Joshua observed a second consecutive class. Stretch and requirements. I paired Sal and Chris while I worked with Steven, instructing on Cutting Pattern 1, basic thrust, and thrust block. I also spoke with him on the six traditions, explaining them, and I worked briefly with Sal regarding some notes he had from training with Kaiden Gad. There were some minor differences in the practiced moves that he wanted to discuss. The Casper we practice has a shift off-line, where as Gad’s simply moves in relying more on speed and the opponents reaction. The original Tradition focused on getting close and making a good torso draw, but as practiced by Gad, the new one changes the draw cut into more of a chop cut with follow-through draw and is followed by a leg cut for more assured victory.
After a break, we had a total of 60 matches, 50 of which were with Sal as one of the opponents in order to assist him with reaching his training goals. Of those, 10 of the pairs came from 5 multi-opponent matches with Chris and I against Sal (each one Sal would take out Chris, and I would take out Sal).

Conditions: Hot evening, still around 86 at 9:30pm when we finished.

Class with Sal, Chris, and Charlie. Steven observed a second time. I spoke with him at the end and he stated his intention to begin class next week. We had a brief stretch and then went through requirements once (I reviewed Sal), then switched and I review Charlie with the other two did their practiced moves. After a break, we had one on one matches using a best-of-five approach.

The weather was intermittent heavy rain with some hail at one point, and the dojo was fairly muddy despite the straw hay layer.

Class with Sal, Chris and Charlie, Joe called out. Stretch and requirements once through, plus a focus session on movement. After the break, we had one on one matches totaling 38 matches.

Special session at the Redding Dojo so that Head Kaiden Gad may observe the dojo. Class with Gad, Sal, Chris, Nate, Joe and Charlie. Stretch and requirements, followed by a focus session on Thorn, with particular attention to good clean movement and full pull-back and thrust. After a break, we rotated through several partners for Refined Strikes, then did Evasion, and finished with several rounds of the parry variation with attacker/defender/watcher.

Class with Sal, Chris, Nate, and Charlie. Stretch and requirements once through, then a focus session on The Mantis, discussing the finer points of distance, timing, cut control, and movement. After a break, during which Sal and I both tested our new steel with cutting pattern 1, we rotated through four partners for refined strikes (plus watched one round), then against rotated through three rounds of light closed parry (i.e. attacker calling “switch”). We finished with a round robin of machinegun drill with head or neck target.