I had the opportunity to travel to the SKA headquarters dojo between Santa Barbara and Ventura to train with Shihan Oshima Sensei. There were two classes, first a morning Brown Belt practice lead specifically by Oshima Sensei, then an afternoon all-ranks session lead by Mori Sensei with a lot of input from Oshima Sensei.
During the Brown Belt practice, we did some kihon and reviewed the kata Basai. In the later session we did some more kihon, sanbon kumite, and my rank group worked on Heian Nidan. Notably, he corrected my initial Heian Nidan block, adjusting my upper (horizontal) arm to be a little lower in order to be much more effective. The principle difference that I felt internally was a transferring of the power from the the upper shoulder muscles to more of a core muscles focus. Some other key points were the importance of rounding the shoulders, focusing the strength forward, not backwards out the shoulder blades, and of placing the center of balance in the correct location in front and back stance to avoid sweep susceptibility and ensure smooth movement.
Tag: ska
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Class led by Brad. Stretch, then kihon warm up. Focused on Heian Sandan several times through, then finished with sanbon kumite. After class, I reviewed all of my kata.
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Class led by Brad. Stretch, then kihon in the form of Taikyoko Shodan several times through using the various basic blocks, then went through all the Heian katas, Tekki and Basai a couple or few times each.
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Class led by Brad. Stretch and kihon warm up, then practiced Basai for a while going quarter-speed or slower. Finished with ippon kumite. Also at half to quarter speed.
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Class led by Brad. Stretch, then ippon kumite rotating through several opponents. Finished with focused training on Heian Nidan.
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Class led by Brad. Stretch and then partner drills working on good mah awareness and use, with a focus on jiyu kumite application.
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Class led by Brad. Stretch, then focus drills on the “standing leg” principle. Finished with a few times through on taikioko shodan.
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Class led by Brad. Stretch followed by a focus class on application of escapes as seen in a few of the kata (Heian Shodan, Heian Sandon, couple others).
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Class led by Brad. Stretch and kihon (tendo kata?). Several times through Tekki Shodan. Finished with some ippon kumite.
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Class led by Brad. Stretch with pushups and bulgarian squats. Sanbon kumite at quarter to half speed to work on good technique. Heian katas shodan through godan (1-5).
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Class led by Brad. Stretch followed by learning Kanku and going through it a few times. Finished with a few partners of sanbon kumite.
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Class led by Brad. Stretch, then kicking drills against the pads. Front snap kick, side thrust kick, side snap kick, and round house kick. We finished with several times through on Tekki Shodan.
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Class led by Brad. Stretch, then right into Teki Shodan at least 20 times through. We then rotated through several partners of slow-motion jyu kumite. The idea was for both combatants to go at quarter speed and still be effective. Finished with a few rounds of half to three quarter speed sparring.
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Class led by Brad. Focus on kicks. Lots of front snap and side thrust kicks. Also did Heian Yodan and Godan some.
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Class led by Brad. Standard stretch and pushups. Focus tonight on oi zucki, making the movement all forward, no wind-up, no telegraphing. Finished with several times through Heian Sandon, including a few mirrored.
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Special training event with Godan Sensei Ken Osborne. Focus on assessing your opponent, keeping technique simple, using weight shift and balance (and lack there of in opponent).
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Special workshop with Curt Wvong, an SKA Yodan. We had most of the Redding SKA dojo regulars plus some from Chico, and one of Curt’s San Jose students. The training focused largely on gyaku tsuki (reverse punch), and how to apply it for a variety of ranges, stances, and targets. Some key lessons that I learned were to keep the hands and forearms targeted toward the opponent, rather then in a more contracted defensive position. Creating a target and making it available to your opponent so that they “have to attack”, and then using that to pre-emptively attack or to counter attack significantly improves your effectiveness. If you spend all your time with a tight defense, your opponent will attempt any number of attacks to try to find a hole, but if you intentionally create a hole, you know where they are going to attack. Another item was being able to attack from any stance. He quoted Musashi regarding how your fighting stance should be your everyday stance, and vice versa, or in other words, you should not need a special stance for a specific kind of attack, you should train to make the attack from any stance in order to be the most prepared and effective.
Some of the drills we did pointed out how to effectively apply the defensive position reached at the end of tetsui uke, how just standing in that position can deflect an incoming oi tsuki, and how to use timing and positioning to deflect an incoming jodan mai te or gyaku tsuki with your own. -
Class led by Brad, several students present. Stretch and warm up, then attack combinations with partners, followed by blocking combinations. The combinations were oi zuchi – mai gerri, mawashi gerri – urakken, and yoko gerri kokome – urakken. We finished with some ippon kumite.
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Class led by Brad with six other students. Stretch and warm up. Heian Shodan focus session, starting very slow and steadily increasing the rate, followed by Basai practice. Finished with ippon kumite.
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Class led by Brad. Only three other (new) brown belts in attendance. We did a long focus session on moving with our hips, using our core to pull together smoothly, quickly, and without external clues. Started with no hands, then light hands, then worked with partners as targets, chudan first, then jodan. We finished with some Basai.