Jujutsu Class Diary
See class details for information on class times and location.
The occasional Wednesday classes are currently suspended whilst we try to work out a better way of scheduling them.
24 October 2006
A small class this evening, but one I thoroughly enjoyed. We managed to persuade Erik to show us some groundwork based on his previous experience. Very enjoyable but showed why I need to get fitter. Second half of the class was spent on two or three Kamaishin Ryu techniques. We concentrated on the details which are different from the comparable Dentokan techniques: what was the difference and why.
Pub conversation afterwards ranged over the difference between kata based and competition based training; and how to inject more flow into our training - and should we be doing that?
17 October 2006
Harada sensei, who was one of my Daiwa Ryu teachers, died last week. It seemed appropriate to concentrate on Daiwa Ryu this evening. I was trying to convey the subtlety of the technique which I feel embodies Daiwa Ryu. We started with Hakko Dori from seiza: breaking with the practice at Herringswell we were on mats and only spent 15 minutes on this.
The next stage of the evening was a number of exercises to improve Nidan: using minimal grip strength; attacking the forearm rather than wrist; focussing body weight. Wrists suitably sore we then proceeded to looking at taking balance.
I thoroughly enjoyed this evening's practice: it brought back many memories of training at Herringswell as well as reminding me of details that I need to concentrate on in my training. Domo arigato gozaimashita Harada sensei.
22 August 2006
Its been a while since I updated the diary, but this is certainly worth an update. Congratulations on a succesful grading to:
| Jim | Nidan |
| Dietrich | 3rd Kyu |
| Erik | 3rd Kyu |
| Ken | 3rd Kyu |
| Neil | 3rd Kyu |
25 July 2006
Started off with mae nihonage and ushiro nihonage from nidan kata. Then, pursuing a theme we moved on to nihonage influenced by (or stolen from) other styles: Daiwa Ryu, aikido and Kamishin Ryu. Second half of the evening was devoted to kata: sandan for Jim and Dietrich, shodan for everyone else.
On a rare political note, it looks as if it is likely that legislation will be introduced in England and Wales to ban samurai swords (sic)
18 July 2006
Working through some of the techniques from sandangi tachiwaza. It was a fairly quick run through to give people familiarity with the whole syllabus, but we'll need to spend some time working through all of these in detail.
It was a hot evening so everyone got suitably sweaty. This caused an interesting problem when we reverted to basic techniques from shodangi. The difficulty of getting a grip meant that I could no longer get the control I need when doing ude osae dori - a sleeve grab. The problem was solved by grasping at the forearm rather than the hand. This is something I want to look at again next week: if my approach to the technique requires perfect conditions then I'd better modify it.
11 July 2006
Started off with some hantachi and tachi techniques from yondangi, then broke in to groups to look at kata - sandangi for Alan and Jim, shodangi for the others. As it was a warm evening, ended up with ten minutes of ground work to make sure that everyone was thoroughly drenched before adjourning to the pub for essential re-hydration.
4 July 2006
I really should keep the diary up to date - I can't recall what we did this week!
27 June 2006
A beginner this week, so started off with some large movement techniques - iriminage from grab or punch, modifying the technique stage by stage to show the variety of things possible. It all get very hot and sweaty, partly due to weather and partly enthusiasm.
Ended with a session of kata: an introduction to shodan for Charlotte with Ken and a look at the sandan kata for the rest of us. This highlighted some huge holes in my sandan gakun that I'm going to need to review. The nerve techniques are always somewhat tricky to get to work, but I seem to have gone backwards on this. More mat time needed.
20 June 2006
Diary's been a little sporadic of late - partly due to laziness and partly due to a holiday on the Isle of Skye. With gradings for most of the class coming up, we're trying to concentrate a little. Worked on running through the nidangi techniques this evening. This proved that, despite my previous breakthrough with matsubadori, I'm still having trouble. Maybe this just shows that holidays are a bad idea.
17 May 2006
Small class this evening so we got to work hard! Spent the first part of the evening working through some variations on basic principles. Ogoshi (hip throws) seemed to be causing some problems so we should have a look at spending some more time on that in the near future.
Second half of the class was devoted to looking at nidangi suwariwaza. Had another minor breakthrough: matsubadori this time. I've been concentrating too much on applying the technique with the edge of my hand. As ever with nidan, concentrate on directing the tip of the little finger and everything flows so much nicer. Now if only I can still get it right next week.
16 May 2006
Carried on with the idea of getting more movement into techniques, both from uke and tori's perspective. Experimented with making tenkan first from standing and then from kneeling. Emphasised the hip rotation, stealing a technique from Tony Carrick's Hantai Kagaki Yoshin Ryu seminar to make the point. Used this hip rotation again: first in an itten no hi technique from Daiwa Ryu and then in a similar idea from Ryoi Shinto Ryu. Suitably battered, we then ended the evening off with a session of suwari waza from shodan gi.
9 May 2006
Started out working on sokumen iriminage, then moved to using that as a counter to an ude osae dori takedown. After playing with ippon seio nage for a while, we returned to the main theme, using sokumen irimi nage as a fallback when the ippon seionage has failed. Succeeded in thoroughly confusing everyone.
Handed over to Chas for a while, who was tasked with trying to beat the aikido concept of "following" into us. Limited success on that score, but we enjoyed ourselves anyway.
Richard - he of the broken collarbone - came along to watch and seems to be well on the road to recovery.
2 May 2006
A small group this evening, so took the opportunity to do a couple of unusual things. Started off with some work on tanto dori - knife taking. This was prefaced with the caveat that knives are dangerous - if you're in a fight against someone with a knife you will get cut. But the chance to experiment against someone armed with nothing more lethal than a rubber knife which leaves nasty black lines is quite fun. We then stepped things up a little and worked on a knife-on-knife drill that Roy Jerry Hobbs taught me many years ago at Bond Street in Ipswich. I still remember the apprehension I felt when partnered with him doing this exercise.
For the last section of the evening we split into two: Will and Avtar working through the beginning of the shodan kata, Neil and Ken working on variations. Managed to persuade Ken to enjoy ukemi from ogoshi a bit more by the end, let's see if he still enjoys it next week.
No class 26 April25 April 2006
Worked on a number of variations from a sleeve grab: nidan, turning the hand off in shodan to enter for a strangle, osotogari, intercepting the grab to make a nihonage style entry.
I spent a little while working on using jujigatame as an osotogari counter. Whilst being thrown, take the knee of the swept leg (say right knee) up into uke's ribs, whilst retaining control of his right hand and arm. The left leg is then thrown over uke's head to apply the lock. Hard to describe but fairly straightforward in practice - at slow speed at least. I'm going to need to do a lot of work before I'd believe that I could actually pull it off in randori.
Giles is away 11 and 18 April, Jim will be taking class4 April 2006
Not a good week. Whilst demoing kaitennage, I threw Richard who landed with an audible snapping noise. Following a trip up to casualty it was confirmed that he'd fractured his collarbone in two places, so needing an operation to pin it and several weeks off work.
Lessons from this?
- The obvious one: practicing a martial art brings with it the risk of injury. The risk may be low - this was the first significant injury in any class I've taught - but it's still present.
- Have contact details for each student's family. If Richard hadn't been conscious, letting his family know what had happened would have been difficult.
28 March 2006
Opened with our resident Karate Sensei, Neil White, running the students through punching, a twofold intention, on the one hand to teach what actual striking was like agains pads, and also, to give them a standard style punch for playing uke, moving naturally on to Tachi Ate against pads to play with a variation in atemi, then some Shodan kata to introduce the newer students to basic kata.
22 March 2006
A bit of a change, we had a 'select' group so played with a compliant Uke for a change, the intention being to allow Kake to explore the feeling of flow, presence, attitude and domination expected in higher grade perfomance of kata. Interesting results, with uke moving only when pushed, but not playing too much with his own responses, resulted in being able to train kake's technique into one of smooth, constant, deliberate delivery, where even stops still had control, and also highlighted to uke where openings were in kake's technique. By the end both were training each other in proper technique, and visually it matched the feel of the kata, a good evening!
21 March 2006
Concentrating on sandan suwari waza this evening - the intent is to get a basic familiarity. Aya dori was interesting as Jim and I rediscovered the need for flow in the technique. If you over analyse the technique and work through stage by stage then a lot of the control over uke's body can be lost. Letting the technique just flow makes it harder for uke to retain posture and so the whole technique is more effective. The technique is more than the sum of its parts. We keep coming up against this, but when trying to get the detailed mechanics correct its very easy to ignore the flow. Conversely, if concentrating on glow its easy to miss the mechanics.
Need to look at shodan over the next few weeks: Avtar's only been exposed to high level kata so far and some of the others need to review shodan before gradings this summer.
No class on Wednesday 15 March14 March 2006
A return to basics this week. Spent a while working on ushiro ukemi. I noticed that, rather than stepping backwards and then sitting, a number of people were elegantly crossing their ankles and then falling back. Correcting this reminded me of Ellis Amdur's ideas of reversible ukemi as described in his DVD.
Working on shodan gi suwari waza, spent some time looking at hakko dori, then extended that in to an exercise based on aikido's kokyu dosa. Then on to tekagami, first suwari waza, then tachi waza. Finished off with hagai jime dori, an interesting but complicated response to a full nelson.
7 March 2006
Good turn out including a number of beginners so we spent some of the evening working on different things. The new guys concentrated on taking shodan from various grabs: ai hanmi, gyaku hanmi and ude. Also spent a while working on hakko dori, trying to get the feel of controlling the other person's posture through their grip.
The more experienced worked through some of the more advanced waza based around assorted paraphernalia: fan, umbrella and walking stick. Sensu dori (fan technique) is fairly pragmatic and - assuming you're actually in the habit of carrying a folding fan - effective. The two umbrella techniques appear very much "for demo purposes only", if only because the attack seems implausible. The walking stick techniques, though effective, seem unnecessary: if you've got a stick, hit him! The Hakko Ryu web site has a photograph of one of the kasa dori.
28 February 2006
Two new guys this evening so tried to give a potted overview of Dentokan. Working from a sleeve grab worked through shodan, nidan and sandan waza, with makikomi as a relief from the wrist locks. For those who'd done this before, I tried to emphasise keeping the held arm alive: same sort of forward pressure as in hakko zeme practiced last week.
Plan is to do some of the more exotic techniques next week: umbrella and fan.
22 February 2006
Low turnout this evening and a cold hall. Started off working on demonstrating principles which warmed us up sufficiently. Then on to suwari waza: hakkodori, tekagami and hizagatame. The latter provided interest as we worked the hand turn over against high resistance. Reverting to a tekagami style scoop in to tori's centre proved more effective than the corkscrew forward approach I'd been advocating. Need to play with this more.
Feet numbing, it was time to move to tachiwaza, starting at the end of shodangi with ushiro zeme otoshi - every body's pet hate and kubi shime dori.
Need to spend some time working sandan kata with Jim over the next few months. We also need to look at uke's role again, the weekend course showed up some problems with receiving and following techniques.
21 February 2006
Restarting the diary after a long absence. The last couple of weeks we've gone over the sword exercises Steve, Scott and Kieran showed at the seminar. This week it was back to concentrate on our kata. Worked through the first few techniques of shodangi tachiwaza, concentrating on the hip movements. Emphasised a similarity in the hip movement of hakko zeme with that in tachi ate and, to a lesser extent, that in hiki nage.
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