What did I teach today?

[bushido_man96]

2. Side cut, clinch: from a closed stance, each student would side cut with the back leg, stepping in an angle forward and to the right (the "open" side, I'd call it), and then come in and clinch.

What do you call a "side cut"? In my old Hapkido school, the term would probably be used to refer to a kind of turning kick motion where the blade/foot-sword cuts along a sensitive area such as around the knee cap, doing damage as it's dragged across... but not sure if we're on the same page...?

Hey Tony. Sorry for the miscommunication here. When I refer to a "side cut," it is actually a side-stepping motion, to get off line and attack/counter. What I do is step off line with my back leg, forward at a 45 degree angle or so, and I like to make it a sharp, fast motion; so I use the word "cut." Its really just a side-step.

(re ninjanurse's comment, quoted above)...

That seems to be a hold-over habit of forms practice, from what I see. Students like to lock and hold their techniques when doing forms, especially kicks.

I'm concerned about the way forms competitions seem to encourage this. Showing the strength and flexibility to hold the leg up high seems to be more valued than actual correctness of technique. That's dance, not martial arts! I've seen lots of students come in who thought they could kick well just because they were especially flexible, and they don't tend to have the stomache for the hard work and introspection required to develop the correct techniques, as they're more concerned about keeping their leg up as high as they can, regardless of where the opponent actually is.

We discuss this in class a lot. My instructor is big on technique first, height second. He does like to see kick lockouts in the forms, to build strength and those muscles that hold the legs out, but he wants proper form, too. I agree that if it is going to be high, then it has to be proper technique, first.

I don't look at is as "dance," though. I look at it as technique refinement. Technically correct high kicking is one of the most beautiful things to see in the Martial Arts, in my opinion, regardless of whether or not it is street applicable or not. But, it has to be done the right way.

[bushido_man96]

7-7-09

I taught the adult class tonight, and the orientation. The adult class was a low ranked class, except for one 1st dan. So, I spent time breaking down some basics. I worked them on our cross-over side kick drill, making points so that it would not get rushed into looking like a round kick. We focused on the chamber here. I did some similar drills with the round kick, making sure that the big chamber came around, and not a shortcut chamber. At the end of class, I did a brief side-stepping movement drill for sparring.

For the orientation, I tried to keep the students moving, and not getting too caught up in perfecting anything yet; we'll do that in class. We did work a bit on turning in stances, especially the front stance, which can be a tricky deal.

I hadn't really done orientation in a while, and it was nice to get some students in that are kind of a "clean slate" when it comes to training. It energized me a bit.

[JusticeZero]

Lots of armada (360 spin kick) today. Particularly, I was focusing on the necessity of and dynamics of "parking" the kick, that is, returning in a strong manner to a solid stance at the end of the kick. Armada is one in which parking is important; it is meaningless to enter with a solid kick and fire the kick with power and speed and structure, only to sloppily stumble out of the kick afterward, wasting time and opportunities to act in doing so. As such, I had them do a number of reps of the kick where the kick ended in an exaggerated esquiva position rather than merely back to ginga, necessitating a much deeper and more solid structure. This necessitated some explanation and demonstration of the structure in question..

All of this was aided by a heat wave, somewhere around 90 F, and there was no A/C in sight. Lots of reps in that heat tires one out quickly, and when tired, one can't be bothered to waste energy on form mistakes. Kicking form improved dramatically! Whether it stays improved remains to be seen.

[JusticeZero]

Front crescent kick; importance of beginning and ending each movement in a solid and deep stance.

Introduced them to the joy that is Alphabets. This exercise has students standing on one leg writing the alphabet in the air with the toes of their other foot. A-Z on each leg. I can do the entire alphabet without putting my foot down.

Some philosophy was brought up, not by me; correct movement is both easy and intuitively simple once the principles on which they are built are understood. When the movement is done correctly, they will tire less and ache far less.

[JusticeZero]

Thursday:

Structure, structure, structure! We had someone in who had lots osmall issues with pain in everyday life; I know this person. Added in a number of exercizes as intermediate stretches to force people to WALK correctly, ie on the balls of the feet rather than lunging onto the heel. These helped the pain almost immediately.

Stepping onto the hands: Many reps of entering a handstand, concentrating on the initial small fall onto the hands and how to shift the balance in that stage. Lines of kicks, cartwheels paired up.

[JusticeZero]

Conditioning:

Had a second small student for the day. Went through basic kicks and floor movements, assuring the second person that they weren't actually expected to do the movements perfectly. New kick, a variant of mea lua de compasso from and parking in a different stance. After the break, everyone had processed various things and they split up while I was still changing to start working on their own drills that they felt weakest in; I came in and let them continue awhile offering feedback.

Afterward, had people paired up and in jogo in an area constrained by four standing bags. Stopped people several times to try to break their habit of doing a back esquiva too often and with no followthrough.

New exercise: In order to build form and strength for leg scissors, students put socks on then pushed themselves across the puzzle mats across the room on their hands, looking between their legs as their feet slid in front of them.

[Rateh]

Today I taught the beginner class (ages 8+ with 1 year and less of training). I started by having the students do kicks moving backwards like I explained in an earlier post. This time they did front, round, and hook kicks.

Then we got out the kick shields. Last time I had them work with kick shields someone got hurt because they weren't holding it well. So I spent a few minutes explaining how to hold it and checked everyone before they started. A kid still got a hurt because after I had checked he started holding his bag too high and got a rebound into the face.

I took them through step behind side kicks, and spin back kicks against the kick shields. Both of these kicks have chambers that can be challenging for students to start and end the kick in. I was quite impressed with the students as they have gotten a lot better at these two kicks.

After that I split the class up and had them work on their rank form, and I passed off some of the students. (That means that they did their form well enough to pass their next test, so they get a stripe on their belt to signify that).

Since they had been working very hard and I was happy with their focus and discipline throughout the class, we ended by playing chimbara. Basically every student gets a padded sword, they spread out, I say go, and they attack each other. We didn't have enough swords though, so I gave two students "ninja stars" which are basically circles of foam to throw at the others.

[JusticeZero]

Had a bunch of kids from the TKD class that I sublet the space from drop in, by instruction from their instructor.

Meia lua de frente (crescent kick from horse stance) down the room, this was for a sequence that when I learned, would be considered very easy and which confused everyone, even Vidro, my older student. So, I abandoned it as a wash, i'll try later when I have an older mix.

Ginga, cocorinha, resistencia, negativa, role; this is a basic sequence that covers transitions from standing to floor and back; then several lines of negativa and role - floor stance and rolling over step from previous - across the room in various ways.

Chapa (mule kick from the floor), Martelo do Chao (spinning roundhouse kick from the floor), briefly; then role across the floor using slow chapa to tap paired partners' feet together down the line.

Next, improvised movement on the floor with partners; had them crawling and twisting around watching each other.

As per usual, finished with some lines of movement.

Took a couple of minutes to show students tips on how to do handstands and a body spin.

Break..

Ginga in pairs, synching movement between partners;

use of a backward slip to move laterally by a big step;

stepping forward by slinging the foot forward reaching, both full around and with foot exchange, which led to

Vingativa practice, a throw that many find very effective against people which use side stances and which, when done with anything resembling proper form, is startlingly smooth and low-power; step behind someone (the reason for the steps), and turn the body to bring the arm over the knee.

Paired movement; one person stands and stays pointed toward the other, while the other uses all the movement they can to twist around the first. Every few seconds, switch places. If the person moving turns away from their partner, the partner claps at them to indicate an attack.

Closed up early because everyone was mentally exhausted by then.

[bushido_man96]

7-27-09

I worked with one of the TKD students that has taken a liking to the Combat Hapkido curriculum. I broke down a few of the breakaways with him, done from a same side wrist grab. The technique could be described as an elbow push, and then spin away. The hand that is grabbed, this arm is moved by "pushing" the elbow toward the attacker, like prepping an elbow strike....this is kind of tough to explain....and you finish as if you were bracing your arm on a wall, and the arm is flat to the wall. By getting to this position, you create space in the grab, which works against the thumb of the attacker. By slowing it down, and working this part, it made the technique work that much better, and from there, applications could follow.

We also worked on some of the trapping drills with this student, working on flow and demonstrating where the inserts come in. Some of these drills flow really well into each other, and make the applications part of the system that much nicer.

We also discussed the "duality" of some of the techiques and movements. Generally speaking, whether you counter-grab outside or inside, there is a technique available. This helps get away from the "I did it wrong" idea, and leads into "I have this option if I counter here, and that option if I counter there..."

[bushido_man96]

7-28-09

I taught two classes tonight, the Little Lions, which consists of 4-6 year olds, and the adult class.

Little Lions

The Lions class was a focus on memorization today, and I did a drill called "add a technique" with them. Basically, what we did is I had them all line up and face me in a fighting stance, and I mirrored them. I did one punch, then they had to repeat it, without watching me do it. Then I added another punch, followed by a kick, then another. I only worked them up to 4 pretty simple techniques, and they picked it up pretty well.

The second drill we did was holding one red pad, and one black pad. If the red pad was flashed, they did a punch, and if the black pad was flashed, they did a kick; two techniques each, and then to the end of the line. "End of the line" was an exercise in self-control in itself, one that several of the kids failed miserably. The drills themselves, went well, though.

Adult Class

Prepped for testing with forms and one-steps, giving a few little things to each of the groups that were testing, things that they could tighten up their forms and one-steps a bit with. Worked on cleaning up a bit of the basics, as well. Mainly little adjustments in foot placement, good hip usage, etc.

We got some good sparring time in, and even got some ring time with those that had pads to spar with. I also worked on some front thrusting kicks for sparring use as a stopping kick, but I mainly had them focusing on getting the thrust motion, and not a sliding up, snapping motion of the knee.