Class with Sal, Steven, Joshua, Elijah, and Dalton. Michael observed due to personal injury. Nick and Sarah also observed. Stretch and requirements in the first half. Initially Sal and I paired while the other four paired, and then I reviewed Dalton with an eye to his Green Braid.
After the break, we had one on one matches. It was still quite hot, so I set a max of 6 battles per fighter (i.e. two opponents).
Tag: wcos
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I traveled to Hayward to attend class led by Head Kaiden Gad. The Kaiden spoke on a few subjects, foremost on dedication and the amount of time needed to actually become skilled versus just subsisting with minor improvement. I was paired with Kaiden Kris for requirements, each of us going through our Silver Chain requirements. During this, Gad re-adjusted my “Akira” back to the standard two-handed finish and replaced “Gad’s Bane” with “The Raven”, a move similar to Akira but with a horizontal cut and the one handed release. He also made an order correction to my deflections, having the 5th deflection go from the left shoulder, the 6th from the right.
After a break, we reviewed dagger targeting and a few techniques. The focus was on opposite hand/foot stance (e.g. left stance, right hand). We practiced using the leading empty hand to block an income thrust to the outside of our body while countering, then grabbing the opponents empty lead hand to control them while moving behind with an attack. Gad also briefly covered moving inside an attack and countering up the center line and a hand/wrist torte for unarmed vs. armed to remove the opponents weapon.
After another break, we finished class with a round robin set of dagger sparring matches, facing each opponent three times. -
Class with Sal, Steven, Elijah, Ryan, Michael and Caleb. Stretch and requirements. I reviewed Ryan as he’s been out for a while, then instructed Caleb on decap and leg full circle cuts. After the break, we did a few rounds of refined strikes, then did full circle cutting focus work circling the dojo. We finished with balance 1 & 2.
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Class with Sal, Steven, Joshua, Elijah, Michael and Caleb. Stretch and requirements. I covered defensive stance and head and neck full circle cuts with Caleb. After the break, we had one on one sparring.
I discussed class times with the students and will be moving to a 7:30 start time for the remainder of the summer, at least.
Conditions: Temperature was reported as 102 as class was starting.
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Class with Sal, Steven, Joshua, Elijah and Dalton. Caleb and Nick observed. Stretch and requirements. I worked with Elijah, reviewing where he is at. After the break, during which we armored up, I went over knife and dagger fighting, including types and styles of weapons, targets, etc. We then did a couple rounds of Dagger Refined Strikes, then finshed with dagger sparring duels, a few team melees, and a final round of free for all melee.
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Class with Sal, Steven, Joshua, Michael. Stretch and requirements. After the break, we did 360 machinegun at half speed, any target and cut for white ropes and up, only fully circles against Michael (the only present lower rank). Finished with Balance 1 and 2 including a bit of a leap.
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Class. Stretch, requirements, break. Various drills.
Sal will be taking over for the next four weeks while I am out of town. -
Second day of the coliseum event, hosted by me, held at the Ravenswood Faire in Weaverville. First bout with 7 steel melee and 7 wood melee. Steven got to join as a choreographed fighter in the steel. Second bout with 5 steel melee and 5 wood melee. Third bout with 5 steel melee and 5 wood melee.
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First day of the coliseum event, hosted by me, held at the Ravenswood Faire in Weaverville. First bout with 5 steel melee, 5 wood melee, and 5 more steel melee. Steven got to join as a choreographed fighter in the steel. Second bout with 5 steel melee and 5 wood melee. Ferocitas got to join as a choreographed fighter in the steel. Third bout with 5 steel melee and 5 wood melee.
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Class with Sal, Steven, Joshua, Ferocitas, Elijah, Dalton, Ryan, Michael, and Jessi. Stretch and requirements. I worked with Jessi, going over all basic cuts and blocks. Also worked briefly with a few other students on various pointers.
In the second half, with started with a progressional stance, combat movement, continuous full circle cutting drill, then split into two groups by upper vs lower rank. The upper ranks I put with Sal while I took the lower ranks. We first played add-on, where each students repeats everything the previous student did and then adds one more technique, then, in the same groups, we moved to 360 degree machinegun drill, with the upper ranks doing head or neck for the first set, and then any full circle cut for the second set, and the lower ranks starting with just head, and then doing head or neck. -
Class with Sal, Elijah, Dalton, Ryan, Michael, and Jessi. Stretch and requirements. I worked with Jessi, covering all full circle cuts and basic thrust plus head, neck and decap blocks. After the break, we had light contact 1 on 1 matches.
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Class with Sal, Joshua, Elijah, Dalton, Ryan and Michael. Stretch and requirements. I worked with Michael, including adding Jumping Tiger 2. After the break, we did multi-opponent refined strikes, then a student-challenge Balance 1 & 2.
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Class with Sal, Steven, Joshua, Elijah, Dalton, Ryan, Michael and Jessi. Seannah observed again. Stretch and then I went over The I Move, followed by requirements. I reviewed Michael’s progress and worked with Jessi, reviewing her head and neck cuts, adding decap and leg cuts. After the break, we had a special sparring night, holding a 5 minute non-stop battle for each fighter (myself, Dalton, Steven, Joshua and Sal, in that sequence). Everyone completed their five minutes, averaging 25 – 30 opponents each.
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Class with Sal, Steven, Joshua, Elijah, Dalton, Ryan, Michael, and Jessi. Stretch and requirements. I worked with Michael, reviewing his requirements and adding Cutting Pattern 1, and I worked with Jessi going over Defensive Stance and Full Circle head and neck cuts. I also checked in with Joshua and went over Jodan stance, and I had Sal instruct Ryan on Jumping Tiger 1.
After the break, we had Balance 1 plus some altered terrain (significant mud) and the gamut target area, followed by a full round of Blind Man’s Boffer in the mud. -
Class with Sal, Steven, Joshua, Ferocitas, Dalton, Ryan and Michael. Jessi and Seannah both observed their second consecutive class. Stretch and requirements. I worked with Michael, covering the rest of his blocks and how to go through his full set of requirements. I also touched bases with Sal and Ryan on one handed decap blocks. I finished the first half with a review of Thorn (a new move for Michael). After the break, we had one on one matches and a single melee. I had Steven marshal for the night. Conditions were quite muddy, but no rain during class.
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Class with Sal, Joshua, Dalton, and Michael. Jesi and Sienna observed. Stretch and requirements. I worked with Michael, reviewing his progress and covering thrust and head blocks as well as going over the six traditions. After the break, we did a focus session on stance and movement, then did 100 full circle cuts (boken). We moved into a few rounds of Refined Strikes, then a 360 Machinegun drill (head attacks only). We finished with cycling through Balance 1 and 2 and the target gamut.
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Class with Sal, Steven, Joshua, Elijah, Dalton, and Michael. Stretch and requirements. I worked with Michael, covering decap and leg cuts, reviewed The Lightning with Sal, Steven, and Joshua and then worked with Steven and Joshua on Kata Ni (a first for Joshua). After the break, we had 38 one on ones.
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Class with Steven, Joshua and Dalton. Stretch and requirements. I worked with Dalton first, including instructing him on Kill the Tiger. Next I worked with Steven and Joshua, instructing them on The Lightning. After a break, we did refined strikes, then a few rounds of Technique Add-On, and finished with building and trying out a few 3 – 5 technique combos. During the second half, I used the new 50″ over-all long sword / claymore boken that I crafted for Mike.
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Class with Sal, Steven, Joshua, Elijah, Dalton, Mike, and Ferocitas showed up for the second half. Stretch and requirements for the first half. I instructed Mike on defensive stance and full circle head and neck cuts. The second half we had one on one sparring and a couple melees.
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Class with Sal, Steven, Joshua, Elijah, and Dalton. Mike observed a second time. After the stretch, I started with Jumping Tiger 2 (a new move for Dalton), then we moved into requirements. After a break, we did a gauntlet, first with static boken, then 1/8th speed boken attackers and boffer counter, then 1/4th speed attacks with boffer counter. We moved on to Refined Strikes, and finished with Balance 1 & 2.
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Class with Sal, Steven, Joshua, Elijah and Dalton. Mike observed class. Stretch and requirements. After the break we had one on one sparring. There was a bit of mud, but everyone handled it pretty well.
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Class with Sal, Steven, Joshua, Elijah, Dalton and Ryan. Stretch, some warmup jogging (temp in the 40’s), and requirements. I supervised Dalton and Ryan on their requirements, then finished with the whole class reviewing a few tips on The Tradition.
After the break, we took a short jog up the road and back, about a half mile, then did 100 full circle cuts. We then followed with several rounds of Refined Strikes and finished with machinegun drill for head or neck. -
Class with Sal, Steven, Joshua, Elijah, Dalton and Ryan. Stretch and requirements. I supervised Dalton and Ryan, and finished by instructing them on The Tradition. After the break, we had one on one matches.
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Class with Sal, Steven, Joshua, Elijah and Dalton. First class back from the break. Stretch and requirements. Worked with Dalton first, then reviewed a couple of Joshua’s moves. After a break, we worked on stance and movement, unobstructed at first, then adding altered terrain. I then split the dojo and gave Sal one half while I took the other half, doing unarmored altered terrain parry with each student (me first, then passed over to Sal). Finished with Balance 1 & 2.