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.