Cool stuff I learned this week

[aurik]

So at the end of last month, Zach and I sat down and decided that we were going back to the main dojo. The wife and I worked it out so I can go at least twice a week, and it's pretty easy to get Zach from school to the dojo, since it is literally right across the street from his school.

In the couple of months, a few things have changed at the dojo. For starters, there are about 5 new white belts in the adult (technically 13+) class, including a couple of teenagers and one adult who is about my size.

I've been finding I've been having quite a few of these "a-ha" moments over the past few weeks, and after working on it for about half of class, I felt that my Kanshu kata has drastically improved, and I'm starting to get much more fluid with my kyu kumite drills.

Over the past weekend, our instructor brought one of his instructors over, Itokazu Seisho Sensei (9th dan uechi-ryu, 10th dan Matayoshi kobudo), Last weekend, he ran a 2-day kobudo seminar and my sensei was testing for his yondan in kobudo, This past Tuesday he also did a Uechi-Ryu seminar. It was pretty intense -- we did quite a bit of sanchin (including

focus testing). He took one student's belt, wrapped it around his ankle, and tried to pull the ankle out from underneath him. We also saw a new way to do Kanshiwa bunkai, and he taught us the kata Daini Seisan, which is very similar to Kanshu, but with a different beginning and ending.

At the end, we also did some advanced kote kitae -- he had us working all 5 points on the legs instead of just the outer calf and quads.

All in all, it was a great class and I'm glad I went. He may come back next year and if he does I definitely will go.

[aurik]

So this week I'm out in San Jose for work again, and I'm working out with some of the Okikukai West people. It's always fun and interesting to train with a different set of people, because you get to see the techniques from different perspectives.

On Tuesday, I had the opportunity to train with a handful of people led by an 8th degree. We worked hojo undo, Sanchin, Kanshiwa, kotekitae, and their version of yakusoku kumite.

In my sanchin and kanshiwa, I got some good but subtle corrections on my stances and stepping. It seems that sometimes I have been pivoting on my heel instead of the ball of my foot. Also, the instructor was wanting me to drop my weight down in Sanchin to help with my stability.

The new material I got to work on was their version of the yakuosku kumite. The other student who was trying to teach me was aparently fairly new to the drills himself (and the instructor was focused on working with one of the white belts), but I found a really good video version of it from Chip Quimby Sensei that I was able to follow later that night.

So I'm still training, still moving forward, and having a real blast while doing it.

[aurik]

Another couple weeks gone, and some more "a-ha" moments. I've now been training at the dojo for a little over a year. Why is that important, you ask? Well, after students have been training for about a year, our Sensei figures they're conditioned enough to seriously test their focus and conditioning in Sanchin.

Now last summer when I was in the youth+adult class at the community center, I was feeling pretty good about myself, because the (female) instructor there would hit me as hard as she could in the forearms, abs, and quads. Last night I had my eyes opened -- our sensei hits like a freight train, and his knuckles and forearms feel like baseball bats. I held up pretty well, but I'm more sore on the forearms and traps than usual. It looks like I need to step up that aspect of my training.

I'm continuing to have these a-ha moments during training, and especially watching others train as well. For example, our Sensei was explaining something to a student about one of the moves in Seichin (our kata for brown belt), about how after certain strikes he needs to return to the guard position, especially when we're doing kata with him counting the movements. I immediately made the connection to a similar movement in Kanshu (the kata which I'll be tested on for green belt). He confirmed my questions.

Also last weekend, Zach competed in his second tournament. He competed in both sparring and kata. Our sensei ran a special class the night prior to help kids prep and gave Zach a few pointers. Well, the next morning, Zach did the best kata I've ever seen him do. He lost to his opponent, but frankly I didn't care, and I told him that. He got in front of those judges, and applied all of the pointers our Sensei asked him to do. I was very proud of him!

He also did much better in sparring than I've seen him do before. He got in 3 points against his opponent, but his opponent got in a couple of head kicks, which frankly Zach has never had to deal with before -- in our normal sparring classes, the head is only a valid target for brown belts and above.

When Zach saw that he had lost, he cried a lot... but since he got a bye for his first round, he did end up with a third place in sparring: https://i.imgur.com/Qrd7wHK.jpg. Our sensei heard what had happened (his fiancee' was coaching Zach while the CI was coaching other students), and told Zach that he lost a LOT of times (and cried a lot from losing) when he was growing up. He gave zach a lot of encouragement.

One thing my wife appreciated about this tournament was that they DIDN'T give participation medals. One thing *I* appreciated about the tournament was that things were much better controlled than the first tournament Zach went to (ie, the number of kids that were getting hit way too hard). It also seemed a much "friendlier" type of tournament.

The biggest reason I didn't compete in this tournament is that from the way I read the schedule, it looked like my division would be late in the afternoon, and I didn't think it would be fair for Zach to have to sit around there all day long. It turns out that if I had competed, 1) I would've been in one of the first divisions up, and 2) they ended up combining the divisions such that men's 36-49 was a single division. I would've been competing against my sensei.

There's some other good news as well. Zach and I are both scheduled to test this coming Saturday (him for 8th kyu, me for 6th), so please wish us luck!

[aurik]

Oh, and one other thing. I've decided to add swimming into my training regimen. This is for two reasons. First of all, I'm still getting "gassed" pretty quickly when running drills, especially kicking drills. The swimming will definitely help the CV fitness. Also, my shoulders are still not at the level of conditioning I think I need -- by the time we finish with our hojo undo and start on our first round of Sanchin, my shoulders just want to die. The swimming will definitely help with that too.

So I went into the gym this morning and got some lap swimming in -- not nearly as far as I used to when I was younger, but it was a good start. On the way out, I stepped on the scale and noticed that I'm down about 20 lbs since I started my journey last year. I've still got a long ways to go to where I want to be, but I'm definitely moving in the right direction.

[bushido_man96]

Sounds like things are going great! It's great to hear that your son is that receptive to suggestions; being coachable is a very valuable trait.

Good luck in your upcoming testing!

[sensei8]

Sounds like things are going great! It's great to hear that your son is that receptive to suggestions; being coachable is a very valuable trait.

Good luck in your upcoming testing!

I echo everything Brian's said. It's been both a privilege and honor to follow both of your MA journeys, and I say, there have been far more ups than downs across the board. Thank you, both!!

[aurik]

Another few weeks gone, but not a lot to update. Zach and I did pass both of our tests, so that is definitely a good thing. Now that I've moved up to green belt, I now get to learn the bunkai for Kanshu kata -- it's taking a little bit for me to get the hang of things, since the performance is considerably different than that of our first kata (Kanshiwa).

Our CI has also asked me to start 'managing distance' between me and my opponent. For example, we have one of our kyu kumite drills that ends with me performing an elbow strike to the solar plexus followed by a backfist strike to the upper mandible. Well, usually after I finish the elbow strike, I'm too close to the opponent to get a good solid backfist in, so our CI wants me to basically use the grab I've already got on my opponent to push him back to the proper distance.

He makes it look really easy when he demonstrates, but after trying it a few dozen times, it certainly is not easy to make it look that easy There is another sequence in our Kanshu bunkai where we defend against a downward strike (in this case a sword attack), block, step in with an elbow strike and follow up with a backfist and one-knuckle punch. The same distance principle applies.

I've also been battling a few nagging injuries -- during my test for rokkyu, I managed to snag my ring finger on my CI's pants leg during one of our kyu kumite drills. It didn't seem too bad at first, but the next morning I couldn't bend the finger at all. Well, 3.5 weeks later and I'm almost at full ROM on that finger again. It's kinda pesky, because if you can't bend one finger, you can't make a tight fist at all. Also, I've been battling some knee issues, where when I slightly overextend the knee I get pain right below the kneecap.

Both of those issues seem to be clearing up, but they're just another example of how training in your 40's (almost 50) is much much different from training in your teens and 20's

[bushido_man96]

Oh, yes, those nagging injuries. I'm not sure when the last time I was truly healthy was.

Keep up the hard work, and it all pays off! Congrats to you and your son passing your tests!

[aurik]

Last Thursday when I was training, I had a twinge in my knee when my partner blocked it and tugged at it slightly. My sensei noticed this, and told me to work around the injury -- which frankly I should have been doing in the first place. I made a comment to him something like "Getting old sucks, but it's better than the alternative". He got a good laugh at that.

So at our school, we do kata at the very end of class. I find it a challenge, but it makes kata a lot easier when you're NOT exhausted by an hour of other exercises. Furthermore we always face the front of the dojo when we do kata.

Except for last Thursday. He first had us do our kata normally. Then he turned us around to face the back of the dojo and repeated the kata. That wasn't too bad. Then he had us had us do our kata mirror-image. Now that was hard. Instead of just moving through the kata through muscle memory, you had to carefully think about every move as you worked your way through the kata. For the first 2 kata (which I currently know), that wasn't too bad, because those 2 katas only move in the cardinal directions.

It was REALLY entertaining watching the yudansha perform their katas, because the dan katas move in 8 directions, not 4, so by the end of the kata, our black belts were all moving in 4 completely different directions.

The knee is continuing to get better, I just need to take it easy and not aggrivate it.

[Wayofaswede]

Happy to hear your knee is getting better, congrats on passing your latest test. Always enjoy hearing about your MA journey.