A journal of my martial arts training
Class with Rissa. Stretch and once through her requirements. Focus on thrust, advanced thrust, and Dragon’s Tail. Discussed how we present, through force of will, training ourselves to not telegraph when we know we’ve made a mistake, so an opponent cannot take advantage of it. After a break, 100 Full Circle Cuts, followed by Move Builder (we took turns creating a 3 — 6 technique sequence, teaching it to the other, and trying it out), and Balance 1 & 2.
Everything I did was was with steel.
Class with Risa. Stretch and then a couple times through her requirements. Tonight’s theme was “Full Circle Cuts”. Took a break, then started in on a focus session on The Mantis. Next was a few rounds of Refined Strikes with the targets, then 100 Full Circle Cuts. Finished with a focus session on just combat movement, taking it slow and working on awareness of quad and glute activation and weight transfer. Worked in a very brief primer on front punch & front lunge punch.
Entire night was steel for me.
Class with Bryce. Stretch and once through his requirements. Focus on stance, sinking into and lengthening it. Applied while training Double Chop and The Illusion. Break. 100 Full Circle Cuts (myself steel), a few rounds of Refined Strikes against the targets, finished with some repetition of offensive defense moves, going through The Tradition, Kill the Tiger, and Akira.
Class with Rakta Nadi. Stretch and White Rope requirements for both of us (myself with steel, all night except where noted). Did some focus work on Kata Ich. Break. Stance and movement drilling, 100 Full Circle Cuts, a few rounds of Refined Strikes against the targets (boken), and finished with some ad-hoc sequence creation.
Conditions: intermittent light rain
Class with Risa. White Rope Requirements for both of us (myself using steel, for nearly everything the whole class). Focus session on the Full Circle Cut, and then on the basic thrust, revisiting some of the foundations to tune up and refine. Break. Focus session on stance and movement, taking care to move with the hips/quads/glutes and feeling the intentional weight transfer from one leg/foot to the other. 100 full circle cuts (me, steel, as noted). A few rounds of Refined Strikes with the targets (my only boken drill). Finished with further review of Kata Ich.
Class with Bryce. Stretch and once through his requirements, myself matching with White Rope requirements using steel. We then did a study of The I Move and The Mantis, working on deflection angles when we step of the initial line, and on quality and efficient cuts. After the break, we got in our 100 cuts, then did a study of slow motion weight transfer, and we finished with practice move building (technique chaining), exploring combat scenarios.
I continue to perform all of my training with steel.
Class with Risa. Stretch and a detailed once through of her requirements. Additional review of Cutting Pattern 2 and Kata Ich. Discussed blade and cutting angles, and the angles of blocking to maximize defense. After a break, we did 100 Full Circle cuts, a few rounds of Refined Strikes against the targets, and finished with a study of slow motion weight transition.
Class with Sal, Steven, Elijah, Dalton, Michael, Caleb and Nick. Stretch and requirements. I worked with Nick and Caleb, going over leg blocks with Nick and thrust block with Caleb. Before the break, we did a focus session on Thorn (new move for Caleb and Nick). After the break, we started with a few rounds of Refined Strikes, then Dodging 1 (I asked Sal to bring his bean bags), followed by 100 full circle cuts (bokken only), and finished with Balance 1 and 2 (including light contact facing off with Sal, Steven and Elijah on the raised beam).