aurik

Preseason starts this month!!

I've been quite remiss in updating this thread. A lot of things have happened over the past few months. I've been keeping up with all of my doctor's appointments related to my incident in May. I had a nuclear stress test in July, which showed that my heart is still pumping blood how it needs to so that isn't an issue I need to worry about right now. I spoke with the cardiologist last week, and she suggested that since what I had was atrial flutter (different than atrial fibrillation), there is a surgical way of correcting it. From what I understand, the surgeon would go in through my femoral vein with a laser and essentially zap away the set of neurons that can go haywire and trigger the atrial flutter. I'm nervous about it, but it would mean I wouldn't need to be on blood thinners anymore. I have an appointment to speak with the surgeon in October, so we'll see what he says. I'm very concerned with complications, but I'll at least see what the surgeon says. The weight is down by 20 lbs since I had my episode. It's not coming off as fast as I'd like, but it IS coming off, which is the important thing. I've had to trim my belt twice, and I'm going to have to start buying smaller pants here soon, so that's a good thing. In terms of martial arts, I'm continuing to teach my weekly Thursday class, and we just got a new batch of white belts in the class so that's fun. My Thursday night now consists of an hour of kobudo followed by teaching my karate class. Saturdays is usually an hour of karate followed by an hour of kobudo, with last Saturday I did an hour of karate, an hour of kobudo, and then a kobudo test. Our instructors tend to give feedback after the test, and one of the pieces of feedback I got will basically mean I'll need to relearn the way I handle the bo (specifically with the grip changes that are involved). I did finish my purpleheart bo, and it's a beast. I intentionally made it long and heavy with the intention that if I can wield this effortlessly, I can pretty much pick up any bo in the dojo and it'll feel like a toothpick. I'll get some pics of it shortly. In the next couple weeks I plan on taking that purpleheart (I"ve still got plenty of it) and making a set of nunchaku. We have a guy in our dojo who has made quite a few weapons and is willing to help me out on that. It also turns out that I've got some pretty unique tools that should help with that. More on that later. I spent the first 2 weeks of August in Colorado Springs taking an "Introduction to Bladesmithing" class. I have to say that in those 2 weeks, my forging and grinding techniques improved by leaps and bounds. I'm now able to take a piece of steel and forge it efficiently into the shape I want, so that there's a lot less time required on the grinder afterwards. I'm also getting to the point where I can draw something on a sheet of paper and forge within an eighth of an inch or so to that shape. (That's about 3mm for you metric folks). There's a LOT left to learn, but I feel like I'm at a point where I'm comfortable making something and giving it and/or selling it to someone else. So this coming weekend I'll be heading down to Colorado Springs again and starting on a few projects: - A set of Japanese scabbard chisels (https://www.waltersorrellsblades.com/product-page/saya-nomi-japanese-scabbard-chisel). It turns out these are also EXTREMELY useful for cutting in the side grooves on a set of nunchaku. I checked with my friend, and it looks like a 5/16" width is just about the right width for it. And it so happens I've got 1/4" stock that will forge out to just about the size I need - Two test blades for the ABS Journeyman test. I made a couple in my class, but these won't qualify since they were made during a test. These are blades only for the purpose of passing the ABS Journeyman performance test: They have to be no longer than 15" with a 10" blade, the blade can't be any wider than 2", and they have to pass the performance test: Slice through a 1" rope in one swing, Cut a wooden 2x4 in half, twice, Shave hair off your arm (to show it's still sharp), and then put it in a vise and bend it to 90 degrees without breaking. It's okay if it doesn't straighten back to true. - We have a few kids in my son's Scout troop who will be completing their requirements for Eagle Scout in the next few months. I plan on making them custom knives to commemorate the event. I've found a really cool idea for a pommel that I should be able to cast out of bronze, and we'll see about other things as well. And I'm going to start making the commitment to work as much on fit and finish as I do forging. For the longest time I'd forge something out and never finish it. From here on out I'm going to finish them.

In both of the arts we teach, Uechi-Ryu and Matayoshi Kobudo, kiais are usually short and from the gut. Each of our katas usually has a couple moves in which you are expected to do a kiai, usually 2-3 per kata. Additionally, when performing hojo undo techniques in Matayoshi Kobudo, we are expected to kiai on the last technique of a set. For example, if you are doing a set of 3 techniques forwards and backwards you would kiai on the third and sixth technique. Every so often our CI will discuss the different philosophies/reasonings behind the kiai -- it can be used to focus your energy at the kime point of the technique, or it can be used before delivering the technique to distract your opponent. I don't think he's ever really corrected students on which way he prefers. What's really funny is the kids and beginners when told to kiai will often shout "KIAI!". Our CI sometimes tells them that what they're doing is essentially yelling "YELL!".

Curtis Joseph, Roberto Luongo, and Adam Oates come to mind. After all, what Blues fan doesn't recall one of the best center/winger pairs of Hull and Oates? And you can't leave CuJo off the list either.

I enjoyed Elantris, but you can tell it's one of his earlier (published) works. His writing has definitely evolved and improved over the years. I've only read the four Earthsea books by Le Guin; how is The Language of the Night?

In preparation for his new book, Wind and Truth, I just started rereading Brandon Sanderon's The Way of Kings

On its surface, that just sounds all kinds of wrong. But I'll definitely need to check it out!

A few years ago, our CI added a new requirement for test eligibility -- students had to re-test over all their kyu-level material and show a dan-level proficiency with them. Once they have done so to his satisfaction, he awards them an "advanced brown belt", or brown belt with black stripe running down the middle. This is one of the ways he has trimmed the black belt test down to a 2 hour (or so) test.

We have two portions of our dan gradings: we have a 12 week prep cycle followed by the exam itself. The 12 week prep cycle consists of an additional class each week where students are basically taught the test. The class will only consist of the items that are tested on, and the instructors will, for a lack of a better term, nitpick the students on what is and is not acceptable on the test. There are specific expectations for our style, our organization, and our dojo for the different components on the test, and the purpose of the prep cycle is to drill these expectations into the student's heads. The instructors will add additional stress to the students by having them perform kata and/or drills solo in front of the class, and they'll then give feedback with the expectation that the student incorporate that feedback quickly. While it is uncommon, it is possible for a student to fail the prep cycle and not be invited to test. Our CI tries to keep the tests to no more than 2 hours. This is mainly accomplished by limiting the number of students in a giving test. During the test, the students generally demonstrate their material either alone or in a pair. Sometimes (such as for kata bunkai) they may have two pairs demonstrating at the same time. However, unlike kyu-level tests, they will never have large groups of students demonstrating concurrently. If we have more than 10 or a dozen students testing at the same time, he'll run multiple tests. For example, he ran two tests last fall -- one for youths, and one for adults.

I'm a Uechi guy, and Seisan is one of our three core kata. According to our history, Kanbun Uechi traveled to the Shaolin temple in Fukien province to study martial arts, and while he was there he earned three Menkyo (teaching licenses): for Sanchin, Seisan, and Sanseiryu. He returned to Okinawa in 1909, and eventually moved to Wakayama Japan in 1924, where he resumed teaching what he first called "PangaiNoon", and later "Uechi-Ryu Karate-Jutsu". These three kata still form the core of our system. His son (Kanei) and senior students added 5 additional kata to our system to help students better transition between the three core kata. However, when testing for advanced Dan grades (6th dan and up), the tests consist of the three core kata: Sanchin, Seisan, and Sanseiryu.

This book was cute but it wasn't for me. I did not finish it. If you have young readers, I think that this would be the perfect book for them! I am now reading The Frugal Wizard's Handbook for Surviving Medieval England by Brandon Sanderson. I thoroughly enjoyed all of Brandon Sanderon's Secret Projects; The Frugal Wizard was a very cool departure from what I'm used to reading from him. Have you read his other Secret Projects?

In our round kick, we either kick with the instep (directly opposite the heel), or with the toe (if you've conditioned it). If you kick with the top of the foot hard enough to a non-squishy part of your opponent, you run the risk of hyperextending your ankle. A toe kick to the outside of the thigh can be absolutely debilitating, especially if your opponent hasn't conditioned for it. Every so often I'll (lightly) hit an opponent with a toe (roundhouse) kick at the end of an ashikitae session, and you can tell by the look on their face that there's a huge difference.

The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact, and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook by Hampton Sides. I'd just finished reading Shogun and Tai-Pan by James Clavell, and my manager suggested this one as a biography of one of the great explorers of that era. It's a fascinating read and I highly recommend it.

I'd take you up on that. Most of the schools I've been a part of have not indulged in this kind of training. I've dabbled a bit in the past, years ago, but without really knowing anything about what I was doing. I've seen a partner forearm blocking drill that I think would work really well, but never any of the leg kicking stuff. I do think this kind of training would be beneficial, so long as it's done right. I'd be afraid of getting that "no pain, no gain!" style instructor that would batter someone up to the point that movement was difficult and actually causing injury. A certain amount of pain is beneficial, but there's a very distinct line between "a good amount" of pain, and "too much" pain. Any damage you can't recover from in a couple of days is too much pain. It's one of those things where you figure out what the right amount is as you go along.

As a Uechi-Ryu practitioner, conditioning plays a fundamental role in our training. A usual class for us starts with the following four things: junbi undo (warmup exercises), hojo undo (supplementary exercises/kihons), sanchin kata, and kotekitae/ashikitae. One can also consider Sanchin kata to be conditioning as well, since one purpose of Sanchin is to strengthen the entire body through dynamic tension. At higher grades, we frequently test a person's focus in Sanchin through "shime" testing; -- an instructor will pull, push, and strike a person while they perform Sanchin. This tests their mental focus (ie, can you continue doing Sanchin through distractions), their stance & balance (ie, if I push you, can I make you break out of your stance), and their overall conditioning (ie, I'll strike various parts of the body, forearms, legs, abs, pecs, lats, and traps to check if they are keeping the muscles tight and protecting themselves.) This conditioning plays a vital role as students enter the brown and black belt grades. At those grades, students practice rensoku-style kumite drills -- ie, the drills are done full power, full speed in a flowing back and forth motion. Students who haven't conditioned their arms will find bruises forming on their foreams when they block in certain sequences. Students who haven't conditioned their shins will get bruises there when doing certain kicking sequences. As a general rule, it takes about 2 years of regular conditioning training to build an appropriate baseline. Of course, if you condition hard enough, long enough, with enough intensity, you can do really cool breaks like these: As far as "how often and how long" do we train -- we train kotekitae most classes for about 10-15 minutes. The key is for an individual to figure out how much punishment he/she can take without bruising or injury. There is a very definite line between "not training hard enough", "training just right", and "training too hard". You can generally figure out how much training is "just right" when your arms are bright red and things are shaking just a bit (we call those the "uechi shakes"). I once made the mistake of training leg conditioning too hard and gave myself a bone bruise on my shin -- it took MONTHS for that to heal, and while it was healing, I was unable to do any meaningful conditioning. So until a student figures out how hard is hard enough, err on the side of caution. Here's an example of what we do in one of our classes: