Sal, Sabrina and I traveled to the Half Moon Bay dojo today and I had my 20 minutes non-stop battle with six opponents (Sabrina, Beth, Sal, Vea, Blight, and Gad). Risa logged and a friend of Blight recorded the video. By initial tally, there were just short of 250 opponents, with my win ratio about 20%. It was exhausting, but I stuck to my preferred two handed sword. Truly the worst part was simply being unable to hold my arms out or make an effective and timely swing, the rest of my body was more or less able to continue.
Tag: wcos
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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).
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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.
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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.
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Class with Sal, Chris and Charlie. Joe called out, Steven observed. Stretch and requirements twice through. After the break, both to provide a extra breadth in experience, and to prep for the upcoming special session on Monday, I gave an introduction to the basic cuts and blocks in Myo Sim Kendo, and instructed on Kneeling Iai 1 and Standing Iai 1.
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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.
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Class with Hiroko. I took this class to go over the Western Circle of Swordfighter’s basic cuts and blocks in order to contrast them with the Myo Sim Kendo cuts and blocks. I covered all basic full circle cuts (head, neck, decap, leg), basic thrust, and the corresponding blocks.
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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.
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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.
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Class with Sal, Chris and Charlie. Joe called out. Stretch and 100 cuts (with steel), then requirements twice through ( I reviewed Sal and Chris). After a break, we had 24 one-on-ones, 5 multi-opponent matches for Sal, and 3 mini-melees (last man standing).
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Class with Sal, Chris and Charlie. Joe called out ill. Stretch, followed by a focus session on Jumping Tiger 1, including a discussion on the advanced wrapping technique and its benefits and pitfalls. Requirements once through (myself with Charlie), then a change of partners and repeat of 10 practiced moves (myself with Chris). After a break, we rotated through each partner for Refined Strikes, then did sanbon (three-attack parry with counter) with the attacker making any high attack, and finished with some specific attack patterns that the defender had to work with and find an appropriate response to (Mantis, Illusion/Double-Chop, and leg/leg/head/decap).
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Class with Sal and Chris. I reviewed their requirements with each of them individually, then after a break they had 25 matches between the two of them (I only marshaled due to a healing injury).
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Class with Sal, Chris and Charlie. Requirements twice through (I worked with Chris, then Charlie). During the break, I set up balance 1 and 2, which we went through for a while, then rotated partners for Refined Strikes and finished with my new variable partner Parry drill.
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Class with Sal, Chris and Joe. Stretch and once through requirements (Sal/Chris and Joe/me). Break to armor up, then 53 one-on-one matches using a best of 5 format (three ai uchi forcing tie breakers).
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Class with Sal, Chris and Charlie. Stretch and requirements twice through. After a break, we did some awareness/reaction training with a small circle tossing a ball, first allowing to focus on each other, then just using peripheral as we focused on the center of the circle. Next we did several rounds of Refined Strikes with multiple partners and I ended with the multi-opponent parry drill (defender/attacker/watcher), which half way through I introduced a new twist where the watcher can attack either the current attacker or defender by calling out their name, so that the order changes up and theres another level of awareness added.
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Class with Sal, Chris and Charlie (Chris and Charlie were late). Requirements once through, a break during which we got into armor, and then 47 one on one matches between Sal, Chris and I using a “Best of 3” format for circle ownership (two ai-uchis, Charlie logged due to personal injury).
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Class with Sal and Chris (late). It had snowed, leaving a centimeter or so on the ground and it was still quite cold and with a couple intermittent spates of rain. Quick stretch and requirements with Sal, then worked with Chris on cutting patterns, several moves and kata ich. After a break, we did my new rotational parry both directions, then tried it with daggers and finally had several rounds of unarmored dagger sparring.
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Class with Sal, Chris and Charlie. Joe called out. Stretch and requirements once through (Sal with Charlie, Chris and I). Break and armored, then 33 one on one matches total.
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First class of 2011 with Sal, Chris, and Charlie. Jesse has moved south. I postponed class an hour tonight due to conflicting schedules, and as the first class in a month, I kept it relatively low key. We went through requirements a couple times, and I pointed out a few things from my training with Brennan. I ended with a parry variation where there is a defender, an attacker, and a watcher. The watcher calls “switch” and then begins attacking the previous aggressor, causing all three roles to shift. Since we had four people, I put one on the thrust rings initially. After a few rotations, I added the fourth as a second watcher and had us switching off more rapidly.
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Class with Sal, Chris, Nate and Charlie. Joe and Jesse called out. Charlie had the best attendance percent for the year at 88% (30 of 34 possible classes), while Sal came in second at 85% and had the highest attendance total of 41 of the total 48 classes held this year. After a stretch, we did 100 cuts, then I went over The Mantis (new to Charlie and Nate). Once through requirements and then a break. After the break, I instructed on Gad’s Sword Disarming Move and we rotated through all the possible partners to practice it. Next we took up steel and did 50 full circle cuts with the steel to contrast with boken. Following was a balance contest on a 6″ square caber with Sal as victor, and last a leaping contest with Nate as victor.
This concludes the 2010 season. The dojo will be closed for three or four weeks. -
Class with Sal, Chris, Nate, Charlie and Jesse. Joe called out. Stretch and requirements twice through with different partners. I worked with Charlie and Chris. After a break, we had one on one sparring followed by three melees. Jesse got his first 13 sparring matches tonight from myself, Sal and Charlie.
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Class with Sal, Chris, Joe, Charlie and Jesse. Requirements twice through. I did focus sessions with Jesse (including teaching the I Move), and Joe. After a break, we had three circles of unarmored 3, 4, and 5 attack parry, the focus being attack combinations and good cuts, blocks and control. Initially I did armored (open) parry with Jesse, then we joined the rotations of partners. After the parry, we did a machinegun drill where each attacker made two attacks of any kind they have been instructed on.