Cool stuff I learned this week

[sensei8]

Congrats Zack for earning Gokyu; a milestone rank. Gokyu is like what Wednesday is considered...hump day...middle of the week...half way to Saturday. In that, Gokyu is hump day...middle of the Kyu system...half way to Shodan.

aurik, you're training is exciting to read about each time; it makes me so proud of you and Zack across the board. It also allows me to think WAY back to where you both are at in your training. Memories in ones MA journey are priceless and they should never be forgotten.

I smile each and every time you share the struggles that you both are experiencing on your MA journeys because I've been where you both are, as so has so many other MAists in their own MA journey; if it was easy, everyone would be doing it, and not everyone's doing the MA.

Knowledge and experience should always take precedence over rank, and you both are deeply involved in the knowledge and experience each and every time you both step onto the floor to train hard and to train well. By your post, aurik, rank doesn't have precedence over knowledge and experience; always be proud of your rank because it took a lot of blood, sweat, tears...and a ton of hard work to EARN said ranks.

Proud of you both!!

Train hard, and train well!!

Thank you for the encouragement! I really didn't want to put it this way to Zach, because while he is halfway (rank-wise) to shodan, he still has at least 2-3 more years before he's eligible to test for shodan-sho (junior shodan), and he won't be able to test for full shodan for 5-6 years after that (due to minimum age requirements). I'm going to have to do what I can to keep him motivated as the time between gradings increase.

As for me, I'm feeling that in many ways I'm halfway to shodan myself. I've now been training here for about 2 years, and I've probably got another 1.5-2 years before I'm eligible to test for shodan. I've now learned most of the material for shodan, except seisan kata and bunkai. Looking back, I can see/feel how my speed, power, and technique have improved, but unfortunately my CV conditioning has not. I really need to take the next 1.5 years to work on that so that doesn't hold me back.

I'm finding you guys to be a big source of encouragement as I post each of my updates. Thank you all

I'd not give Zach the halfway talk, either; that talk was meant for you, and you alone. Training is NOT for rank; training is for knowledge and experience. I'm sure that Zack's aware of the ranking structure because most dojo's have the ranking structure hanging on any given wall, which is a constant reminder.

If Zach, through his CI and yourself, embraces that training is for the knowledge and experience, and not for just the earning of rank, he'll be much more well rounded as a MAist.

Train hard and train well!!

[aurik]

In the craziness that is COVID, our dojo got some good news. Our sensei has been looking to move to a larger space, because he's essentially outgrown his current space. The good news is that a nearby multi-use facility (combination physical therapy / yoga studio / fitness center) recently became available, and our CI was able to secure a 5 year lease at essentially the same rates that he's paying now. The new space has 2 floors, the lower floor is ~3000sf and the upper floor is ~1500 sf. This compares to 1700sf at his old space.

He started up classes in the new dojo this week, and while there are many adjustments to be made (for example, he ordered a set of zebra mats for the downstairs space that he needs to get installed & set up), it was a lot of fun working out at the new place.

Last night we had a very small class - me, a nidan, two green belts and one yellow belt. He started me out working dan kumite with the nidan (he's one of my favorite partners to work with), and then after we did that for awhile he had me work/teach the kicking exercise to the yellow/green belts. The green belts are already pretty comfortable with this, but the yellow belt is still learning the blocking part of this exercise.

After that he had me work my rank kata (seichin), and he gave me a few pointers to work on. He wants me to stay slightly longer in the low stances following the elbow strike, there is one sequence he wants me to do in a rat-tat-tat sequence (fast, but still distinct), and he also had a couple corrections to my crane block/sukui-uke sequence.

He also mentioned that he wants me to know these things, because with where I am, I'll be doing a lot of practice on this on my own. After that, I focused on those three sequences and worked them.

The last part of the night was kata. A lot of kata. He started us with two times through kanshiwa, then twice through kanshu and twice through seichin. I got to rest a bit while our nidan worked through seisan, seiryu, and kanchin. He then had us face different directions and practice our kata. Normally in the old dojo this would really mess with us, but since this is a new space, it really didn't phase me much.

However at the end, he had us do mirror-image kata. I did pretty well with kanshiwa, reasonably well on kanshu, but when we got to seichin I completely fell apart after the second turn.

Overall it was a really good workout, and I left feeling like I'm making a lot of progress to my next goal.

[bushido_man96]

It's great that you got to move to a newer, bigger facility. Sounds like you've got some great floor space!

Keep up the good work!

[Patrick]

Congrats to Zach! Thanks for sharing, aurik.

Patrick

[aurik]

Latest update: I'm still making good progress on Seichin. I'm pretty comfortable with performing it with a count, but I still have a ways to go on it performed solo. Last Saturday our Sensei had us perform kata solo in front of him, and he told me it looked pretty good (with no corrections). That almost never happens, unless he's planning on testing you soon and doesn't want to mess up your groove.

Also, since we can't spar as a general rule, he's developed some sparring combinations he wants us to practice -- he will be including these on tests for advanced brown belts (nikyu, ikkyu), since it doesn't look like the pandemic is going away anytime soon. Most of them are pretty straightforward, but I'm struggling with one of them -- it consists of front jab, reverse punch, front cross, then a hop to switch feet followed with the roundhouse. With my size and knee issues, the hop is what makes things hard on me. Soooo, it means I'll need to practice it a LOT more.

Since this week is a testing week, (and based upon the lack of feedback I received over the weekend), I asked my sensei if I was testing this coming week. He replied with a long discussion of how politics come into play with shodan gradings, he wants to make sure that when he presents my case to our organization head, he wants to make sure that there isn't any pushback. So, test next month. But he said that based upon where I am and how I'm progressing, he's pretty confident I'll be testing for Shodan in about a year and a half (barring serious illness or injury of course).

I don't mind the wait -- I just wanted to know so I could prep apprpriately. Also, I think it's good for Zach to see me having to wait longer between gradings (and look at the bright side of it), because his gradings are also going to get farther and farther apart.

So all in all, I'm happy with where I am now, and I know what I need to work on over the next couple weeks and months. Thank to all of you for your encouragement, it's really been helping!

[bushido_man96]

When you do the hop in your combination, does it have to be an actual jump, or can it be more of switch-foot motion that is lower to the ground?

[aurik]

When you do the hop in your combination, does it have to be an actual jump, or can it be more of switch-foot motion that is lower to the ground?

It doesn't need to be a high hop, but the idea is to quickly change stance while the opponent is preoccupied with your hand work, so you can do a (rear) roundhouse kick with the foot formerly in the front. Quickly getting my center of gravity high enough to do that switch is where my challenge is.

[bushido_man96]

When you do the hop in your combination, does it have to be an actual jump, or can it be more of switch-foot motion that is lower to the ground?

It doesn't need to be a high hop, but the idea is to quickly change stance while the opponent is preoccupied with your hand work, so you can do a (rear) roundhouse kick with the foot formerly in the front. Quickly getting my center of gravity high enough to do that switch is where my challenge is.

Ok, that makes sense. We do that from time to time, in what we refer to as a "switch-foot round kick." If you are in a fairly natural and well-balanced fighting stance, you should be able to execute a fairly quick stance switch, and then be able to follow up with the kick. We'll also do it as a "switch-foot round kick," or I like to call it a "switch kick." But that is when I kick with the back foot during the switch. I'll also do this with spin side kicks. My main focus is in trying to keep my feet as close the ground as possible when I switch, making the movement as fast as possible.

[aurik]

This week has been pretty interesting, in both good and bad ways.

First, the bad. My neighbor has COVID, and he is recovering from a pretty bad case of it. He apparently was in the hospital for 6 days, and he is still on supplementary oxygen (18 days into it). I haven't seen him lately, since he's been cooped up in his guest bedroom, but my wife saw him briefly yesterday while dropping off their kids' schoolwork. He's still looking pretty weak. This guy is/was a West Point graduate and (until now) has been doing the Ragnar relay race each year. He's definitely a lot fitter than most mid-40's guys out there. And he got whammied by it. So it can really hit anyone, and hard. The good news is he's now on the mend though. This is the second person in our close circle who has been hit by COVID -- my sister-in-law got it last month.

So as a result, most of the counties around us are moving to level red in restrictions. No more indoor dining at restaurants, no gatherings with more than 2 families, and gyms must drop to 10% of capacity, or 10 people per room. Fortunately our dojo has 2 rooms (an upstairs and a downstairs), so it shouldn't affect us too much.

One statistic that scared the hell out of me, though. In Boulder (which is just 10 miles to the east of us), if you put 10 unrelated people in a room, there is now a 43% chance that at least one of those people has COVID. Scary stuff.

So our family is locking things down as much as we can. The last thing we need is for our son to have to quarantine because one of us got COVID, and frankly both my wife and I are likely at higher risk. We recently got ourselves a chest freezer, and we'll be doing a Costco run to stock it up this weekend, and then we'll stay at home as much as we can and wait things out. Fortunately since our son is in a charter school, he can still do in-person learning. They've only had 4 confirmed cases of COVID at his school, and they all were infected from outside the school, so I have to commend all of the parents, staff, and teachers for that.

Now on to the MA stuff. At some point over the past few weeks, my sensei came into a set of chi ishi, or "stone mallets". In this case, they're basically a brooimstick with a concrete weight on one end. He got them out last night and had us work with them a bit. The nice thing about them is that you can adjust their effective weight to your own strength by choosing where on the handle you hold them. Hold it right below the weight, and they're pretty light. Hold them at the far end from the weight, and they're brutally heavy.

I picked somewhere closer to the far end for most of the exercises. And they seemed a good heavy weight at first.

And after a couple sets, my shoulders were screaming at me, telling me how much of an idiot I am. But today they're just sore in a good way, telling me I gave them a good workout.

Also, our CI is having us do (kata) tournament prep. Working with us on how a tournament kata is different from the traditional kata. He had intended to do a tournament around April of this year (and bought all the trophies with the year 2020 on them), so he's looking at doing a tournament in December. He's thinking of basically having each division coming in at different times for their part of the tourney, and of course there would be no sparring this year. But it'll be fun.

[bushido_man96]

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!