Friday's Class

It is informative when a technique is dissected into its individual building blocks. Once that's done, the putting and connecting everything back together to get the whole picture is great. That was today's class.

Nikyo Omote (Tachi & Suwari Waza), Kote Gaeshi Omote & Ura (Tachi Waza), and finally Rokkyo (Tachi Waza) were covered in this form. Gyaku Hanmi Katate Dori was the starting position.

On a final note, I enjoyed the end when one had the option of surprising Uke with either Rokkyo or Nikyo. I'm always learning improvements with even the basic techniques.

Otherwise, hope you all enjoyed your session - until Friday!

Goan Gym; ２０１１年１月２６日（水）

The technique of the day was nikyo; ai-hanmi nikyo. We were able to somehow understand how it is possible to change the grip mid-technique. This is because the technique is very much similar to ikkyo in some aspects. Still, the changing of the grip is tricky since one has so little time to do it. Besides, if you fumble too much, uke takes advantage. The issue of finishing arose and we wondered why it is so complex, unlike ikkyo. Suffice it to say this is how best the originators of the technique formulated it. Once you have grasped most of the basic aspects (and gained permission from Osensei), it would be quite in order to refine it, if need be that is.

Aikiken was spent practising with jo. We were given a list of the basic jo techniques (and it is quite a long list at that) , and we tried some of them. My own experience of this is that it is still too early to deal with the names before I can even do a proper tsuki, kesa or shomen uchi. So am not mentioning any. But again with proper consistent practise, everything will be understood.

Friday's Class

From the beginning... We began with stretching and warm up exercises, which are really important. With all the joint movements that we do it's something that I've learnt to take seriously. Next came the ukemi. Again we began with the basics and progressed to the full versions both front (mae) and back (ushiro). Another important aspect of warm up.

Okay, by now you must be interested in knowing what techniques we covered...

• Tenchi Nage (Omote & Ura)
• some form of Irimi Nage (at least what it seemed to me)

For the Tenchi Nage, we were taken through the building blocks of the technique; from the single hand movements then integrating both to give the technique. Same with the Irimi Nage. Important point to remember for the latter is to go underneath the arm in order to protect oneself from Uke's elbow. With the Ura version of the Tenchi Nage, once the turn is complete, the direction of the throw is dependent on the position of Uke after the turn.

Well, that more or less covers the day's lesson.

On Zen practice

Personally I follow Tobetan Buddhism of Karma Kagyu lineage.
But TK Chiba Sensei is a buddhist practitioner and a priest himself. Therefore I strongly encourage everyone to check out Zen practice in Nairobi

Mateusz

１月２０日（水）－Goan Gym

We fine-tuned ikkyo. It's strange? how still after more than 1 year of practise a simple technique like ikkyo still has so many complexities. And we only went through gyaku-hanmi, with attacks ranging from katate-dori to kata-dori. Ideally, it would help to practise daily, constantly and consistently. Hopefully, in time we will understand at least even a fraction of the essence behind these techniques.

Due to lack of enough jo, we had to have a bokken class, the first for this year. Remember the ichi no tachi that Piotr sensei showed us during the December seminar. That is what we tried to emulate.

First Friday's Class in 2011

It's been a couple of weeks of relaxing and looking forward to the first Friday class of the New Year 2011. Not much practicing and stretching exercises made me wonder how I'd respond to the techniques and ukemis...

Okay, class was great as usual and had a resemblance of the seminar we recently had. We went through Ikkyo & Shiho (Omote & Ura, Gyaku & Ai Hanmi) all from Tachi Waza. There was also Kokyu Ho from Suwari Waza. It was a nice reminder of where we left of last year.

We also touched on the little subtleties of the techniques; the small things that make a big difference and life simpler.

It makes me wonder how interesting this year's sessions will be as we start moving onto newer techniques while perfecting what we've already learnt. All in all, a great refresher for the New Year.

A small extract from ‘A Book of Five Rings （Go Rin No Sho）’

on holding the long sword and footwork

Grip the long sword with a rather floating feeling in your thumb and forefinger, with the middle finger neither tight nor slack, and with the last two fingers tight. It is bad to have play in your hands.
With the tips of your toes somewhat floating, tread firmly with your heels. Whether you move fast or slow, with large or small steps, your feet must always move as in normal walking. I dislike the three walking methods known as ‘jumping-foot’, floating-foot’ and ‘fixed steps’.

Goan Gym, １月１２日（水）

On this day we concentrated our efforts on understanding gyaku-hanmi shiho-nage. This was made possible by changing the attack several times, which means varying from katate-dori to yokomen-uchi and also kata-dori. With kata-dori, however, it is not as straight forward. I mean, the concept is understandable, but the practical aspect is not so, especially since it is so easy to break uke’s elbow. Nevertheless, I particularly was able to focus on the difference between omote and ura.
We also tried our hand at gyaku-hanmi kokyu ho, and this one presented the most problems, at least for me. This is because one has to twist the hips twice, as opposed to only once in shiho-nage. But remember we have practiced shiho-nage for 2 weeks now, and it goes without saying that the longer one practices, the easier it becomes.
A change of pace was provided with jo-practise. And here I learnt another new word; maki-otoshi. This came as a result of us doing a kata, which involves a tsuki, block, tsuki, migi no kesa, hidari no kesa, shomen uchi, shomen uchi, tankan and maki-otoshi. Sorry I can’t put it all in writing, since it is better experienced practically.
Mateusz once again commended us on passing go-kyu, (when conferring the certificate to someone who did not receive his last year), but my honest opinion is that he deserves the most credit. Because he organizes everything, and still does the instruction. A flimsy word for what he does would be something titled DEDICATION. And this can only be rewarded in kind, if you get my drift…

First Class in 2011

It was a fairly relaxed first class of the year. We basically went through shiho-nage (from gyaku-hanmi to ai-hanmi; from omote to ura; from katate-dori to morote-dori). The others were kokyu-ho and irimi-nage, both of which we did from gyaku-hanmi.

Weapons class was dedicated to jo practice. And once again, just like in bokken class, new terms and stances were introduced. The 2 that immediately come to mind are jun-ten and gyaku-ten (I hope the wording is correct), which refers to how one holds the jo. I think when thumb faces up that’s gyaku-ten???

Anyway, on a lighter note, the books Mateusz recommended are really insightful. I have gone through several of them and all I can say is wow! (Scroll down to Mateusz’s posts if you have absolutely no idea what I am on about.) My reading habits dwindled right after high school, but if I get more books like these, definitely there is still hope. Never say die, eh? But seriously guys, give it a try…