Cool stuff I learned this week

[sensei8]

Sorry to hear about your neighbor, and the ensuing lockdown you will be putting yourself into. I wish you the best.

The stone mallets sound like they'd be fun to play with. How much do they weigh, do you suppose?

It's also cool that your sensei is looking at putting a tournament on. It sounds like he's got a good plan to limit exposure. Hopefully, he gets to pull it off!

I always enjoyed doing forms in competition. Part of it is having an idea of what the judges are looking forward, and knowing what techniques to emphasize and when. It's a fun time!

Solid post!!

[aurik]

The stone mallets sound like they'd be fun to play with. How much do they weigh, do you suppose?

I'm going to guess they are about 10lbs. They're not all that heavy if you hold them close to the weighted end. However, if you hold them towards the free end of the handle, then the leverage multiplies that effective weight by several times.

I'm guessing that since we can't do our traditional kote kitae conditioning, he's going to use these other tools to help us with our conditioning.

[sensei8]

10lbs is a respectful weight that will benefit you across the board. Not to light and not to heavy; just right. Going up weight, imho, is more of a personal preference, and not a requirement, even if insisted by the CI. Students ask me for my input on a plethora of subjects all of the time, but things like that, well, I leave that up to the students. IF I say anything, it's to remind them to not rush and or push training; baby steps, that's the MA.

[bushido_man96]

The stone mallets sound like they'd be fun to play with. How much do they weigh, do you suppose?

I'm going to guess they are about 10lbs. They're not all that heavy if you hold them close to the weighted end. However, if you hold them towards the free end of the handle, then the leverage multiplies that effective weight by several times.

I'm guessing that since we can't do our traditional kote kitae conditioning, he's going to use these other tools to help us with our conditioning.

Sounds cool. How long is that handle? Could a 10lb sledge work as a home substitute?

[aurik]

Sounds cool. How long is that handle? Could a 10lb sledge work as a home substitute?

The handles he's got are about 24" long. I'd imagine a 10lb sledge would work as a substitute if you've already got one. Otherwise, it's cheaper to just make your own -- get a cheap plastic pot, some concrete mix, some nails/screws, and an appropriately thick dowel. You can do a batch of them for less than 10 bucks each. There are several videos on YouTube on how to do it:

is one.

[bushido_man96]

Sounds cool. How long is that handle? Could a 10lb sledge work as a home substitute?

The handles he's got are about 24" long. I'd imagine a 10lb sledge would work as a substitute if you've already got one. Otherwise, it's cheaper to just make your own -- get a cheap plastic pot, some concrete mix, some nails/screws, and an appropriately thick dowel. You can do a batch of them for less than 10 bucks each. There are several videos on YouTube on how to do it:

is one.

That's pretty cool!

[aurik]

So the last couple weeks have had their ups and downs. Last Tuesday (before the US thanksgiving), our CI had us practicing kicks (with bags, our partners holding them), and I was starting to get really into things. I was getting some really strong, high right-footed mawashi-geris up there, and then... WHACK! My partner had let his elbow peek out on the other side of the bag, and my foot was just past the bag and solidly impacted his elbow. I don't *THINK* I broke anything, since I can still walk on it, but it feels pretty tight trying to flex the ankle in certain directions, and it is VERY tender to the touch.

So this past Tuesday when he had us do bag work for our kicks, I decided to focus on my left kicks. He's not particular about HOW we do our kicks in the adult classes -- he wants us to find a technique and rythm that works for us. So, I did a lot of left kicks. My left front kicks are so-so, the side kicks are okay, and my left roundhouses were actually pretty strong. Left crescent kicks were okay as well. Now the spinning hook kick and spinning back kicks... well, I really don't want to talk about them Which means, of course I need to work on them a LOT more.

Now on to the really good news. Today I tested for (and passed) brown belt (sankyu). He generally is in a state of continual evaluation for us, especially for those of us progressing to higher kyu and dan grades. So today's test was fairly straightforward. He had us do our hojo undo at random (still in English for now). He then had us perform Sanchin twice. The other student was testing for gokyu, so he had us work through all of the kicks and combinations for the kicking exercise, and then we did the kicking exercise a couple of times (he had me call out the kicks on one of them).

He then sent several of the students off to work on rank material, and then we did our dan kumite drill. We first did the drill just in the mirror, then he asked me to demonstrate it against him -- (with appropriate social distancing). For sankyu he really was only looking for the attacking side, which I did without any hiccups. I then demonstrated the defending side -- I had a couple of hiccups here though. Again, that wasn't required for the rank I'm testing for so I wasn't too worried.

Finally we got to kata. We started out with everyone doing kanshiwa, then he sent off the yellow belts to practice that on their own. We next did kanshu as a group, and then he had the other candidate demonstrate on her own. He had some corrections for her, especially on her nukite attacks -- he wanted to see her use more hip, less shoulder on those.

We then moved on to seichin. We first demonstrated this as a group, and then he had me perform it solo. During the kata, I caught myself in two substantial errors (or I should say, I realized them as soon as I made them) - first of all, I let my center of gravity get too high on the final crane block. I didn't lose my balance, but I had to hold that position for far longer than is necessary while I waited for me to regain my balance). Finally, on the last sumo stance/elbow strike combination, I did not hold that position as long as is generally accepted -- of course, this was right after I made the previous error so my brain was a bit flustered.

So when it came time for my corrections, our Sensei told me "don't hold that leg up position so long. Make it look just like the other two in the kata". -- I didn't mention to him that I was struggling with balance at that time He also mentioned how the last sequence should be three separate techniques. His final correction was regarding the side-to-side blocks in the beginning of the kata -- apparently I haven't been extending them as far as I should, so that's something else to work on.

He then handed things over to his father, who talked to me about the difference between hard and soft techniques, and at brown belt, they want to see us finding the balance between hard and soft techniques. He used those side-to-side blocks as an example, showing how I was doing them (hard and enunciated) versus how they can be done (soft, flowing and kung fu-ey). In the end, our Sensei said that we both passed, and he wanted to see us working on those corrections before our next testing.

Here are the obligatory pics:

[bushido_man96]

Congratulations!

Catching an elbow with the foot really hurts. I've done it a few times, and there are times where I may have slipped an elbow down to block an incoming kick...

Balance is something I still struggle with to this day. Keep working on it; you'll get better.

[ashworth]

Congratulations!

Catching an elbow with the foot really hurts. I've done it a few times, and there are times where I may have slipped an elbow down to block an incoming kick...

Balance is something I still struggle with to this day. Keep working on it; you'll get better.

My other half is a student of mine, she really didn't hold back, I think she just wanted to kick me as hard as she possibly could, until she caught my elbow, never seen a foot blow up like that before! had to take her straight to hospital after class! crutches for her friends wedding the next day... I was not in her good books!

[aurik]

My other half is a student of mine, she really didn't hold back, I think she just wanted to kick me as hard as she possibly could, until she caught my elbow, never seen a foot blow up like that before! had to take her straight to hospital after class! crutches for her friends wedding the next day... I was not in her good books!

Yeah, I've been on the other side of that before -- last spring (before COVID happened), I was sparring with one of the older teens when he hit me with a massive roundhouse. He telegraphed it pretty badly, so I just calmly lifted my leg for a crane block and caught it on my shin a few inches below the knee. I got a decent bruise on my shin, and he bruised the heck out of his foot. Of course, a few minutes later he did the exact same thing... Needless to say we ended that sparring match fairly early.