Class with Bryce. Stretch, then went through his Green Braid requirements. Did some 1 attack parry, some advanced response training, full circle cuts with steel (50 one handed for him, 100 two handed for me), another set of full circle cuts (100 boken for him, 50 iron sword for me), and then switch parry. I also had him try on the loaner protective gear to make certain we're ready for next week (all good).
Tag: wcos
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Class with Bryce. Stretch, then went through his Green Braid requirements. Added The Tradition (one-handed variant). Did 100 full circle cuts (boken). One-attack parry, then Switch-parry. Ended with balance 1 & 2, using new balance materials I picked up today (4×4's, bricks, semi-rounds, 1×2 cinders that the semi-rounds can slot into, & round cabers, all cabers between 4 – 5 ft for easy transport).
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Class with Bryce, trying out Cedar Hills Recreation Center. Reviewed his requirements, once through with just him, then again with me doing the same as him. Refined strikes. 100 full circle cuts (boken). A little bit of additional focus on Jumping Tiger 1 and The Mantis.
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Class with Bryce. Stretch and then went through his requirements. Spent a little more time on Cutting Pattern 1. Did a few rounds of Refined Strikes, then 100 Full Circle Cuts (bokken). Finished with one attack parry followed by three attack parry.
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Class with Bryce. Stretch and then a couple excercises, first just leap frog, then a leap frog / pushup burpee, traveling down and back on our dojo space. Reviewed Bryce's requirements and added The Mantis to his set of moves. Finished with Refined Strikes.
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Class with Bryce. Stretch then went through his requirements with myself doing them, too. Spent some focus time on Cutting Pattern 1 and also on loosening and turning over the wrist to achieve a better full circle cut. Performed continuous full circle cuts with boken, 50 for Bryce and 100 for me. Finished with each of us doing Refined Strikes once.
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Class with Bryce. Reviewed his requirements a couple times through, then went through requirements together, him repeating his as needed as I completed all of mine (except the cutting patterns he doesn't know).
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Class with Bryce at new location of Multnomah Community Arts Center. Stretch and review of his requirements. Added Thorn. Ended with a very brief bit of minor Balance 1.
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Class with Bryce. Stretch and review of everything he knows so far. Added thrust block, Cutting Pattern 1, and his first practiced move, Jumping Tiger 1.
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I journeyed to the Hayward Dojo and participated in the 2016 Best of the Best tournament. Top rankings went to Gad, Gemini and Vea, however I was awarded recognition for my exhibited skills and versatility.
In addition to the tournament steel matches, I did 20 or so boken matches with a few of the lower ranks, too. -
Class with Bryce. Stretch followed by a brief review of his basic cuts, then full circle cuts, 50 for him, 100 for me (boken). We then went back to reviewing what he knows so far, and then added decap block and leg block. We worked on flow a little and then I gave a sneak peek of Jumping Tiger 1 which we'll cover in full next week.
Conditions: Light rain, moderate temperature
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Class with Bryce. I provided him with a one handed boken in place of the two-hander I had him temporarily use last week. I spoke about the approach and reaons the WCoS has to training in all conditions, followed by a short stretch. We reviewed his basic cuts, working on some of the more subtle difference between two and one handed. Added thrust and the head and neck blocks.
Conditions: Intermitent light rain, cool
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First day of the new Portland Dojo, temporarily to be held at Commonwealth Lake Park. Bryce met me and we went over the format of the class, the desired commitment I'm looking for, one solid color for uniform, the three rules of swordsmanship, the six traditions, the defensive stance, and the six full circle cuts. I lent him a bastard sword boken for this week, but I will try to get him a one hander come next week and will join him in that style.
Conditions: Perfect, roughly 70 degrees or a little under, dry for the present.
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Solo practice, went through all of my Silver Chain requirements (using steel). Included Kodiak and Dragons Bite, and started experimenting with a move tentatively named Vampire (right shuffle in right neck cut feignt spun into left back edge neck cut ("scorpian") with lateral shift to left stance).
I am training in the park, and a guy (Daniel, I think) happened by and gave me a katana that has been sitting in his closet for a couple years ever since his friend gave it to him. I offered to teach him to use it, but he said he wasn't very interested and probably too busy. I provided him a contact method if he changes his mind.
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I journeyed down to the Hayward Dojo for a Day of Combat and to support Sal's 30 minute non-stop battle and Crimson Chain test, and I also was a part of Steel Wind's steel Red Rope test.
We had a good number of fighters present, six in steel and several more in wood. It started with Sal's non-stop, then the main combat event was 5 wood matches, 5 steel matches, 5 wood matches, 5 steel matches, and 5(?) scenario wood matches. -
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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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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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.