Jujutsu Class Diary
Berinsfield and Warborough entries by Giles, Piddington by Jim.
30 June 2003 - Berinsfield
The first of the senior student gradings this evening, culminating in Frances being awarded 3rd kyu and Chas 2nd kyu. An excellent performance by both, resulting in well merited brown belts.
We finished what was left of the evening by working through the first few of the Toyama Ryu sword kata. This was the first outing for Frances' shiny new iaito so we spent a little time looking at the details necessary when you're no longer using a bokken: controlling the tsuba and saya. Guard and scabbard for those more familiar with European swords.
25 June 2003 - Piddington
As a follow on from Giles' previous evening we pretty much repeated the lesson, it was things that I wanted to look at anyhow, and the recent reminder was handy, just we did it in reverse! Warm up with Happogiri, (at which point Graham commented that Zediker Sensei taught a variant of moving forward as you cut), ran through half a dozen or so paired sword defenses, all of which reminded me of how bad my appreciation of blade timing had become, so finished with a paired 'mirroring' exercise.
Onto the Nihonage as per the previous night, but our lot seemed to have a lot more questions!! After half an hour of examination and explanation, we had a pretty solid version going on, also, finding the gakun grip/action usefull in a final 'over extension' version. A quick recap on the Mune Osae Dori from last week, and into the iriminage and sokumen irimi nage. While the others found the lack of mats frustrating, I found it particularly usefull *not* to force a fall, as we could highlight, at each step, the kuzushi for that bit, the penultimate position being very unbalanced. With mats it would have been more fun, but there may have been more 'dance, dance, thuggery' going on.
24 June - Warborough
Worked on nihonage for the first part of the evening, concentrating on the entry from ihanmi katate tori. The emphasis was on trying to establish kuzushi - taking control of uke's posture. After a while on that, we swapped to good guy role around and looked at a basic counter to nihonage when kuzushi is not maintained. Using the same entry as before, we then looked at taking iriminage and sokumen iriminage.
Ended the evening with some basic sword work: something I've neglected for a while, much to the frustration of those students who have recently bought iaito or bokken. Started with a basic pairs exercise: shomen uchi attack, avoid and cut kote. Then finished by working on happogiri: an exercise to teach how to cut in different directions.
23 June 2003 - Berinsfield
Took a double wrist grab from behind as the theme for the evening: taking first sandan (sankyo), then shodan, jujinage, kaitennage and ogoshi. All started from the same basic response: bringing the hands to the hips and rotating to pop uke's arms out. Then grab an arm and take the technique.
Having got every one thoroughly warmed up, it was time for some gradings. Congratulations to Jamie, Matt and Steve for achieving their 7th kyu (yellow belt) and to Alan and Simon for their 6th kyu (orange belt). They've set a good example for the senior students in their forthcoming grading.
With the nerve wracking part of the evening out of the way, we finished off in the tender care of Chas who took us through some more aikido based techniques: Morote seio nage from the previous rear attack and then iriminage.
18 June 2003 - Piddington
Events conspired against us and numbers were a little low, so we took advantage of that to play with bokken as a bit of a warm up, learning how to hold, cut, and block with the weapon, then some partnered cut and block work to see how many fingers we could damage.
Kata work was started off with Tachi Ate, then on to a pad to practise striking with the body, with the hand/arm as the point of delivery. Ude Osae Dori and Mune Osae Dori followed, mune giving us a few problems until I stopped thinking about what I was doing and just did it! Turns out that the opening moves 'roll' the wrist into a Nidan style lock, not flat against the chest as I had been teaching, and the shrug drives through the nidan to the floor. Hmm, so following on from Tuesdays conversation, we spent some time on sensitivity of the wrist, stretch out the joint and preload it, and then roll it over the point of the 'cam' to get a feel for its location. Back into Mune Osae Dori, and people are now going straight down, allowing the safe application of shodan.
Finish off with some fun, oi zuki defence taking shodan, then rolling the elbow into nidan horizontally around tori, then vertically down, finish in Sandan. Biiru Waza!
17 June 2003 - Warborough
A concentrated hour on shodangi to begin with, trying to pick up the gross deviations from kata rather than my usual concentration on the detail. Then some real detail work to finish with. The theme was "small circles". Cutting in a small circle with the little finger to extend and align the wrist joint. We were applying this to tekagami and to nidan, with varying levels of success.
16 June 2003
A warm evening, so we upped the pace a little to keep people alert. Started off with some basic knife defences, with the usual caveat that these are techniques of last resort and you will get cut. Then on to some scary knife-on-knife work. Putting weapons away, we then spent a while looking at using atemi and bodyweight to prevent uke's attack.
Highlight of the evening, for me at least, was handing over teaching to Chas. He took us through some aikido influenced techniques, ending up with a shihonage-ogoshi cross that had the air full of flying bodies. Building on the shihonage entry, I then changed the technique to firstly sokumen irimi nage, then a very short irimi nage.
Conversations in the pub seemed to imply that some people wanted to start going at things a little harder: "a good slapping" according to Chas. Perhaps I mollycoddle too much? We'll see.
10 June 2003
Continued with the theme from last night. Start by practicing basic osotogari, attacking the right leg. Then uke withdraws the leg to protect it, at which point take nidan against uke's right wrist. The withdrawal of the leg can leave the arm exposed and weakened, making the technique easier to apply. The advanced students tried a few other variations on the osotogari-into-something idea.
Rounded off the evening with the senior students looking at what they'll need for their grading whilst the rest of us worked on techniques from a basic strike to the face.
9 June 2003
Back on the mat after a two week break. My highlight of the evening was cracking nihonage (shihonage). I've been troubled by this technique for some time now; I've had great difficulty in applying it against a resisting uke. Trying a different approach tonight and felt in control all the way through, despite the resistance. About time too! It will be interesting to see how long this break through lasts before I return to my inability to get the technique to work.
There is no class on Monday 26 May - the sports centre is closed for the bank holiday. The following classes: 27 May, 2 June and 3 June will take place, but with different teachers. I'm off to the Cuillin of Skye to play in the mountains for a bit. A grading is threatened following my return.
20 May 2003
Concentrated on shodangi this evening: suware waza and tachiwaza. My normal teaching style is fairly spontaneous, so working through kata in order showed up a couple of things. In particular I have my favourite techniques which I return to time and again. The neglected techniques are those which, to my mind, fail to demonstrate important principles. So why are they in the kata in the first place? Assuming that they originally seemed worthy of addition, I'd better start spending more time on these techniques and see if I can discover for myself why they were included.
19 May 2003
For a change we spent the first hour working on newaza - groundwork. A couple of basic hold downs to start with and then some flow drills : moving from kesagatame into a variety of other holds, locks and a strangle: sangakujime. With everyone now allegedly equipped with a basic set of techniques, we then spent a little while on newaza randori.
With everyone suitably tired, it was back to work on shodan kata. I've threatened gradings for when I return from holiday. This seemed to concentrate minds suitably.
13 May 2003
Concentrated on shodan kata for most of the evening. Then spent a while looking at applying bodyweight to strikes. Upshot of all of this is that my arms feel as if they've had a very thorough massage!
12 May 2003
Had some visitors from Gloucestershire this evening: Dan and Brian visited from the Komori Dojo in Cinderford. This provided me with an excuse for another "potted Dentokan" session so we covered shodan, nidan and sandangi along with nihonage for good measure.
The last part of the evening was spent working on reversals: firstly to shodangi ude osae dori and then to kotegaeshi. The latter started with a simple arm bar and ended up including hip throws to both sides as more ideas came to mind.
6 May 2003
Looked at coping with kicks this evening. The strategy isn't anything different; try to deflect the attack and close in. Started with front kicks, moving outside the line of attack and taking either sokumen irimi nage or a niho nage equivalent rotation of the leg. Then moving inside and taking either kouchi gari or a shodangi equivalent against the leg. To finish the "big techniques" we ended with an iriminage entry against a roundhouse kick.
Having done the flashy stuff, then spent a little while on preventing the big kick happening in the first place: jamming the leg, blocking with the shin or just entering with conviction.
With bruises starting to colour up nicely, we then dropped the pace to work through shodangi tachiwaza. Working with Jim, we came up with an interesting problem in getting ude osae dori to work against a strong, heavy sleeve grab. Whilst the distraction of the atemi will always help matters, that seems a bit crude and we may be missing something. In the pub afterwards, Jim came up with a suggestion, so we'll be trying that out next week.
No class on Monday 5 May: it's a bank holiday and the sports centre is closed
29 April 2003
Started off with some techniques from Kamishin Ryu, emphasising the use of strikes to take uke's centre. I'd like to spend a bit more time on this over the coming weeks: looking at where to hit and how to apply body weight. We spent a little while looking at a couple of techniques from sandangi, in particular ushiro gyaku kubi shime dori from hantachi waza. Then split into two groups again and worked on shodan and nidan gi.
In the pub afterwards, David asked about responses to kicks and weapons work. We'll probably do some basic techniques against kicks in the next few weeks. And the weapons work gives me a great excuse to bring the fan and umbrella techniques out from the depths of my memory. Does anyone know a source of wooden tessen?
28 April 2003
Back to Berinsfield for the Monday night class. Started off working on movement: first basic irimi tenkan footwork, then paired up to repeat the footwork and try to nudge the other off balance. We then added foot sweeps in to the mix and had a group of adults playing bumper cars around the dojo. Escalating again, grabs were allowed, followed by basic locks and finally atemi. People seemed to be feeling quite bouncy this evening, so things escalated to a fairly robust level.
Slowing down a little, we started looking at attacks from behind: full nelson, double wrist grab with the wrists held down and double wrist grab with the wrists forced up.
Finally split into two groups again to look at kata: beginners working on shodan, more senior students on nidan kata.
23 April 2003
The first of the Warborough classes. The Greet Hall is a wonderful venue: stripped wood floor in a half timbered barn like building. In addition to the Berinsfield regulars, we had three visitors from Wallingford Tang Soo Do club.
Due in part to the lack of mats, we concentrated on the detail of some techniques, rather than big take downs this week. The theme of the evening was taking the balance of the opponent, allowing tori to enter. The evening ended with a half hour session on nidan kata for the senior students, and a detailed look at some aspects of shodan kata for the others.
The Greet Hall mats are currently languishing at their old home in Uxbridge. With any luck they should be available for next Tuesday.
14 April 2003
An hour dedicated to nihonage (aikido shihonage) to start with. We worked through various versions, starting with Hakko Ryu mae nihonage, then moving to Daiwa Ryu nihonage. To recover from the subtlety of the Daiwa Ryu version, we concluded with a blast of the Kamishin Ryu block and drop form of shihonage.
With everyone warmed up, the second hour was mostly spent on kata: shodangi for the beginners and nidangi for the others. The last twenty minutes we then ran through the sword kata again. This gave me a chance to come clean on a mistake I'd been making and passing on. It's a diagonal cut in ippon mae, not a vertical one.
There's no class on Monday next week - bank holiday. But Tuesday is the first of our Warborough classes.
7 April 2003
Upped the resistance level a bit this week. We were looking at basic techniques from grabs: wrist, sleeve and chest. But this time uke's job was to hang on for dear life and resist as much as possible. Taking the techniques without the use of atemi meant that you had to concentrate on taking posture and applying your body weight. The strong gripping warmed up forearms nicely too.
Another review of the sword kata: first three techniques for the more experienced, just the first for those new to weapons work.
In the pub afterwards, Graham made a request to work through the nidan kata, so that sounds like what we'll be doing next week.
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