aurik

This is more of a HEMA (Historical European Martial Art) topic, but definitely weapons-related. Last week I went down to Kilroy's Workshop in Colorado Springs and made.. you guessed it, a poleaxe! The class was originally designed with the venetian poleaxe in mind, but I had a couple of "happy accidents", and ended up with something slightly different (but very cool). We started out with a chunk of 4140 steel (a chromium tool steel, used frequently in car engines). We punched and drifted a hole in it (for the handle), and then squeezed out the back end which was supposed to be a hammer head: https://i.imgur.com/Ih0CMci.jpeg https://i.imgur.com/SN4kZSA.jpeg Next, we were supposed to start flattening out the larger head, which was intended to be the axehead. I ended up flattening out the hammer end, so I went with it and turned it into a spike/hook. After that, I used a power hammer to forge out the axe head into rough shape: https://i.imgur.com/HvOvX1g.jpeg Next stop: the grinder. In this case, an angle grinder with a flap disc. I ground off the forge scale (magnetite, a specific type of iron oxide that occurs at high temperatures) and ground in the profile shape: https://i.imgur.com/b8XZBqu.jpeg Next came the heat treatment. Heat it up to a reddish-orange heat, let it cool down. That relaxes some of the stresses induced from forging. Then heat to an orange-red and quench in oil. That looked like this: https://i.imgur.com/2Ozi2qB.jpeg After that, I took a 12" piece of 1 inch square bar, used an angle grinder to split it in half down 5" down, then forged the tip out into a spear point, and forged the split ends into a pair of langets that fit over the axe/spike head: https://i.imgur.com/rhJgHGT.jpeg I then took a 6' long piece of hickory, rounded it, shaped the end to fit the eye of the axe/spike head, and drilled a hole through the spear tip + axe head + pole. Attached with one 1/4" iron rivet and 4 3/16" bronze rivets. Add in some mild steel langets to finish things out: https://i.imgur.com/3lfHhL4.jpeg https://i.imgur.com/xUZyxMX.jpeg https://i.imgur.com/tAKawuD.jpeg https://i.imgur.com/Us2dFfj.jpeg

My wife has started writing recently. Not her memoirs or anything, but a story she wants to tell. She doesn't know if she'll share it with anyone (even me), but she is writing. If you are toying with the idea of writing your memoirs or the history of the SKAA, or whatnot - go ahead and do it. Just because you don't feel like you're a good writer now doesn't mean you can't learn the skill. And if you decide it is something you want to publish you can always take one of those ghost writers up on their offer, and you will already have something for them to start from. Bob, there's no time to start like the present. That goes for any journey, whether it be writing, self-realization, martial arts, or whatnot.

So has anyone seen it yet? Worth it, or wait until it hits streaming services?

Bob, your mind and your insights are the greatest gifts you can give to your students. In your decades of experience, you can look at someone and see exactly what that student needs to change to get better. That is what I love about training with senior instructors -- not that they necessarily can demonstrate the physical skills that I'm trying to learn. Their value to me is that they can look at the techniques I'm trying to do, and give me those nuggets of insight that makes my karate better. You have senior students that can demonstrate the moves with the right speed, power, and technique. However, what you bring to the table is the ability to look at a student's technique and say "Do this differently", and those little changes and tweaks can improve their technique by leaps and bounds. I was just talking about this a few weeks ago -- we had a guest instructor come to our dojo back in May, and in about 15 minutes over the course of 2 days, he helped my son's technique improve more than I've seen in the past year. Not through demonstration, but through observation and verbal feedback. Something like that you can do from a chair, and can be invaluable to the student in question.

Game 3 was just a bucket of mayhem. 140 penalty minutes between the two teams -- shattering the previous NHL record for PIMs in a Stanley Cup Finals game. By the third period, the refs had just had enough and started handing out game misconducts to anyone who stepped over the line. The Panthers ended up with 6 power plays. If Edmonton wants to have a chance of pulling this off, they've got to get their emotions in check and stay out of the penalty box.

Oshie was one of my favorite Blues' players when he played for them. He played with such heart and intensity -- he was a joy to watch. I was sad to see he'd been traded to the Caps, but I was very happy to see that he won a Cup with them.

You have to wonder though. He took the team to the Conference Finals 3 years in a row. Whoever the next coach is is going to have some mighty hefty shoes to fill.

Sadly, the Hurricanes are 0-13 in Conference Finals games going all the way back to their last Stanley Cup in 2006. They haven't won a single game in the conference finals since then.

As a former Dallas resident, I gotta say "GO STARS!"

So I saw Ian yesterday at his dan grading (he was grading for nidan). I asked him about that sokusen geri -- the third time, Gushi sensei hit him hard. Of course, Ian, being the good Uechi Ryu karateka he is, kept a stolid face. Gushi leaned in and whispered, "That hurt, didn't it?" He definitely nodded. It turns out he had a bruise on that thigh visible from across the room (his mom noticed too.) Fortunately being the young guy he is, he recovered in a few days.

This past weekend was, to put it lightly, intense. We had a guest instructor, Tsukasa Gushi, visit our dojo over the weekend and taught a seminar for both Uechi-Ryu and Matayoshi Kobudo. He is the head of the Ryukokaku Karate & Kobudo Association -- at his dojo you train both karate and kobudo as part of the same program (unlike ours where they are separate programs and ranking). His other job -- a professional race car driver. The last time he was in Colorado he raced in the Pikes Peak Hill Climb. The weekend was, for a lack of a better term, intense. We trained for 2 hours in Kobudo on Friday, 2 hours in kobudo followed by 2 hours of karate on Saturday, and then another 2 hours of Karate on Sunday. There was a second 2 hour karate session on Sunday, but Zach and I had other plans -- we were taking Mrs Aurik out to celebrate Mother's Day. The Kobudo sessions covered material I'd never seen before. We started out with a new bo kata: Seijun no Bo, followed by an Eiku (Okinawan oar) kata: Tsuka Akachu no Eikudi, followed by the Jiffa (Okinawan hairpin) kata. We had trained a bit with the Eiku the previous week, and I have to say that I'm very grateful that I have gotten used to my purpleheart beast. The Eiku is very heavy (even just a traditional oak one), and the balance takes quite a bit of getting used to. Fortunately, one of our instructors brought a batch of his own, and at least some of them were made of poplar, which is oh so much lighter. I would say that over the course of the 4 hour seminar, I started getting the hang of the Eiku, but I still have a long ways to go before I can say I am comfortable with it. And the Jiffa kata reminds me a LOT of some Shuri-Ryu I had done and seen many many years ago -- it reminded me a lot of the Kanku Sho kata, with the crescent kick/spin/duck to the ground sequence. Unfortunately we only had a handful of real jiffa, so we made do with substitutes. The Uechi-Ryu segments of the seminar were very enlightening as well. While we didn't cover anything really new until the end of the second session, he brought new understanding and interpretations to everything we did know. For example, he started by evaluating our hojo undo techniques, providing feedback on issues he saw. For example, he really stressed the fact that every block we do needs to end with our hands in a tiger claw. Why? Because everytime we block/receive a technique, we should get in the habit of grabbing the attacker. Likewise, he had slightly different interpretations of how to perform certain of our techniques, such as seiken tsuki and hiraken tsuki. We then ended the hojo undo session with a discussion of Uechi-Ryu's sokusen geri, or toe kick. Gushi sensei started that section out by demonstrating the toe kick on one of our black belts (Ian) in the outer thigh. He wasn't gentle with it, either -- I hope the bruises aren't too bad. Next, we started working kata, primarily kanshiwa and seisan. One of the things I remember most is when he was discussing the lunging elbow strike. The tendency is to lunge forward, stop, and then do the elbow strike. He then demonstrated on me that the proper way is to lunge and strike in the same movement - it was quite effective. I had to step back several feet to get my balance. I'll need to figure out how to demonstrate that to my students next time without actually hurting them Towards the end of the second session, we worked on their version of dan kumite. It is much like our dan kumite, but they add a few extra moves to each sequence. I liked it, but sadly we had to get out of there in time to take my wife out for her Mother's Day celebration. The best part of the seminar though was what Zach got out of it. As he has grown so quickly, he has gotten "floppy" in his movements. He tries to put power into everything, but it's undisciplined power. Gushi sensei noticed this and pulled him aside several times over the course of the seminar. He said 'for now' (next year or so), focus on doing your techniques without any hip pivot or shoulder pivot. Learn disciplined movements. And he listened. And over the course of the seminar, as he kept getting that feedback from an outside source, his technique improved noticeably. I made a point to tell him how much better his techniques looked, and I made it a point to tell him to keep working on it. Sometimes, getting the right outside opinion makes all the difference.

Uechi-Ryu originates from Pangai-Noon kung fu; when Kanbun Uechi (the founder) trained in China, he learned 3 kata: sanchin, seisan, and sanseiryu. In terms of modern day Uechi-Ryu, these kata are now required at white belt, black belt (shodan), and yondan. I would not say that "sanchin" is a beginner's kata, though. It *is* the foundation of our style. You can learn the basics of Sanchin fairly quickly, but we train it everyday, and we are tested on it at every level, from kukyu to judan. One of our sayings is "all is in Sanchin", or "always return to Sanchin". We can always describe a stance or kamae by "start with Sanchin, and then do this". It isn't so much a beginner kata for us; it is the foundation of our style. After Kanbun Uechi passed and his son Kanei took the reins, he realized that the leap in required understanding from Sanchin to Seisan was too great for many students to handle. Therefore, he and some of his senior students created 3 new kata: Kanshiwa, Kanshu, and Seichin. These "bridging kata" each introduce a small set of concepts which are then assembled into Seisan. Each kata adds a few new techniques to a student's repertoire. Therefore, when a student starts to learn, say, Seichin, there are only 3 new techniques they haven't already seen. Likewise, Seisan only introduces 3 new techniques as well. Once a student earns his black belt rank, there is still quite a gulf in understanding from Seisan to Sanseiryu. Therefore, Kanei introduced two additional bridging kata; Seiryu and Kanchin. Again, each of these kata only introduces 2 or 3 new techniques. And once the student is proficient in Kanchin, there is really only one new technique introduced in the final kata of the system (sanseiryu). However, Sanseiryu is a very long kata, and involves moving in eight directions, instead of just four. So trying to learn new techniques AND learning the movement patterns would most likely be considered overwhelming (I don't yet know Sanseiryu). So to circle back to the original question, in Uechi-Ryu, the kata are sequenced such that each kata introduces a new set of techniques, and each kata builds on the knowledge of previous kata. For example, Sanchin introduces the basic stance, fundamental posture, fundamental striking techniques. Kanshiwa introduces the idea of stepping off the line of attack, receiving and countering a strike, and a few other things. One thing that is fundamental in Uechi-Ryu is also that anything you learn at one rank/kata level is supposed to be performed at *all* of your kata. For example, at shodan, students are expected to start using hip pivoting to generate power. This is expected to be included in *all* of their kata.

Well-done! I know it can't be easy.

No kidding. They were -><- this close to closing out the W, and the Jets scored with 2.2 seconds left in the game. They stayed with them through the first OT, but the second OT they fell back to the "dump and chase" that wasn't working for them. It's like they'd dump the puck and wouldn't get it back, so that was most unfortunate. But they overachieved in a big way, so I can't complain.

In Uechi-Ryu, we have a saying, "All is in Sanchin", and as far as stances go, this is no exception. Almost all of our kata and drills are performed in Sanchin stance, and this stance is pretty basic yet subtle. You can tell someone "feet shoulder width apart, move one foot forward slightly, turn it in about 30-45 degrees." However, that is the beginning of Sanchin. There are quite a few subtleties that you only learn after practicing Sanchin kata for some time and having instructors test your stability. We perform kata almost exclusively in Sanchin, we perform our drills in Sanchin, and to a certain degree, we are expected to fight/spar in Sanchin. The other stances we utilize are all derived from Sanchin, and are used in specific situations for a specific purpose. We have a neko dachi (cat stance), which starts in Sanchin where you basically shift the weight to the back foot and lift the front foot up to rest on the toe (not the ball of the foot). This is frequently used prior to or immediately following a crane (e.g. shin) block. We also have a version of Zenkutsu dachi, where you start from Sanchin and use your rear leg to drive yourself forward, usually to do an elbow strike into an opponent's sternum. Where your foot naturally lands -- that's a Zenkutsu dachi. Finally, we have a low stance, nominally a shiko-dachi, which starts from a sanchin stance, and you slide your front foot forward and to the (out) side enough to drop your center of gravity such you're below your opponent's center of gravity, and an elbow strike will land right at your opponent's sternum. Again, these 3 other stances are transitional stances, and used for specific brief sequences. For the vast majority of our kata and drills, we live in Sanchin