Springfield Class - 4/25/2006

Class was pretty small last night; just me, Jong, Brian, and Chris, who left only after about 30 minutes because of the threat of rain. When class begun we skipped ukemi and went right into the topic of the evening. Although, as usual before class I worked on ukemi, kamae, and stretching.

The first thing we did was worked on the basic punch but with a shinden fudo ryu feeling. So, from walking the punch is a natural part of the movement and flow of the walk. To me this is a basic taijutsu thing rather than a shinden fudo ryu thing but since shinden fudo ryu is about being natural and taijutsu is about natural body movement I guess they're one and the same.

The past couple of weeks we've been doing pretty much the same thing: henka from one or two basic movements.

1. 
   Uke: Punch to face.
   Tori: Immediately throw a sokuyaku geri and an urate shuto. The timing is such that when the geri contacts the uke will bring their neck/face to your shuto. Then apply ogyaku. Do ogyaku like you're spinning a bo. Prevent the uke from using ukemi. Jong pointed out that too much force with ogyaku will cause the uke to try and escape more then he usually would. It's best to lay the uke out flat on their stomach as much as possible.
   


2. 
   Uke: Punch to face.
   Tori: Maintain your space and immediately bring your hands up, one for guard and the other as a fudoken or boshiken to the face. With your free hand begin apply takeori the same way as doing ogyaku (spinning bo). Once the uke is on the toes immediately pull them down with an arm bar. A variation of this was instead of applying takeori just twist the wrist as you move under the arm. I actually didn't try it that way and will have to tonight.
   


3. 
   Same as the previous one only stand on their forward foot and take the balance without any joint locks.
   


4. 
   Uke: Hip throw.
   Tori: Probably the simplest counter is just taking your hand and putting it on the uke's face and taking the spine. Using the kyusho under the nose is very effective.
   


5. 
   Uke: Hip throw.
   Tori: Rotate to the outside freeing one of your arms. With the other begin omote gyaku. Apply omote gyaku as you rotate your body. We didn't practice it by keeping the uke's hand against your chest but I'll have to try it tonight.
   


6. 
   Uke: From seiza, lapel grab.
   Tori: From fudoza or normal legs crossed seating lean back with the grab, extend one of your legs to push your uke's forward knee away causing them to fall over then kick him.
   

That was pretty much it. We did the hip throw counter a few times with a tanto. The point to that was not cutting them unless they wanted to be cut. :-)

It never did rain and I had a good time.

Gambatte

Springfield Class - 4/18/2006

It was another beautiful evening and as usual before class I worked on ukemi, tobi and kamae. I also stretched! I don't stretch as often as I should and I'll make it a point to do so going forward.

Brian was back which was nice. Class began with the usual ukemi practice only this time we were on a slight hill and that changes things slightly. You can generate a lot of momentum rolling downhill and I like to do some sort of tobi, usually koho tobi, to bleed the energy off and slow down gracefully. Next we did basic sword evasion using ukemi again. A couple of things to keep in mind when doing this exercise. First, keep an eye on whomever is a threat. Second, don't immediately stand up after a roll. Assess the situation before performing your next move. Third, ukemi is sometimes used to create distance. For this exercise I feel it for both evading and creating distance. Choose the appropriate kaiten to create a safe distance between you and your opponent even if you're closing the distance to attack.

We covered a lot of material, most of it henka, and I'll try to recall everything.

Uke: Lapel grab, punch to face.
Tori: Using the same side arm move to the inside of the attack creating space by just putting your arm up in the way of the punch. This isn't a strike or anything, just an obstacle for your uke. The legs move kinda like hira no kamae or ichimonji no kamae. Hold onto the hand that has your lapel and drive the uke's arm down with the other hand. Attack the inside of the elbow and rotate your body taking the uke's balance to the outside of their forward foot. That's the nice way. The not-so-nice way simply adds a shuto ken, fudo ken, or shikan ken to the inside elbow. That hurts more, flows nicely, and I just like dakentaijutsu.

Uke: Scissor choke from behind.
Tori: Turn your head in the direction of where the space is. Lower your hips, hold onto your uke's arm and do a basic hip throw. Pretty straight forward.

Uke: Scissor choke from behind.
Tori: Turn your head in the direction of where the space is, place your hand in that space and anchor the uke's arm to you. Turn in that same direction as you go down to one knee. Be sure to take the uke's space.

The rest of the night we did henka off of a shinden fudo ryu kata. The base technique we started with was kinda like a combination of gekkan and maybe unjaku. I'll have to double check unjaku. Anyway, the uke was the same for all of them.

Uke: Punch to face or stomach.

Move to the inside with a bobi no kamae or kosei no kamae like movement, strike to the face with fudo ken or just place your hand up there. Sokuyaku geri to the stomach or groin and place your extended hand on the uke's shoulder. Your other hand should be holding the wrist your uke gave you. As you place your foot down bring the uke's shoulder down. This is very much like gekkan.

Next, move to the inside and boshi ken to the stomach. Next strike upwards either to the chin or under the upper arm. At the same time raise the extended arm up. These actions should give you space to move in. Holding onto the wrist move under the arm spinning around. There are two directions to take the uke from here. The preferred way is to align the arm with the shoulders and take the uke down with an armbar. The other way is if you're more behind the uke taking them straight back with an armbar. I believe this is less effective and should be used if you're going to make the uke fall onto this arm. The way you'd do that is by trapping their forward foot and pull them off balance.

The next one we did was my henka which was basically nichi geki.

Then we did basically the same movements from a punch to the stomach except this time you let the punch make contact.

Another variation was instead of taking the armbar and moving back behind the uke or out to the side of the uke you take the shoulder and move forward.

Another was when you spin around beneath the arm throw a sokugyaku geri to the stomach or inside hip/pelvis area and then apply the armbar with your knee.

I think that was pretty much it. I was exhausted after class and I'm not sure if it was because I didn't eat dinner beforehand or if I was just tired from the weekend and staying up late the night before. I don't know and it doesn't matter. Gambatte!

Round Hill Class - Thurs. 4/13/2006

Dojo rennovation has begun! Over the weekend Brian and Brian managed to take down one of the barn doors, put up a wall, and install a really large window. It's much nicer inside now because of all the light the window allows in.

It seemed class was only going have me, Brian, and Brian which was great because maybe we'd actually do something interested but no, not this time. Brian's cousins were visiting and joined us for class. That's fine. It only meant we'd do basic stuff:

• Zempo kaiten


• Koho kaiten


• Chi no kata


• Sui no kata.


• Evade daijodan shomengiri - Move to the side with hira no kamae
  Evade and disarm daijodan shomengiri - Move to the side with hira no kamae placing hands in position to remove the sword. Another version was when you move strike the outside hand to break the grip.


• Omote gyaku from a lapel grab.

That was pretty much it. Good times. I won't be attending this Saturday's class because I won't be in town. I'll still be training though by whoopin' on my sister. :D

Springfield Class - 4/11/2006

The weather was beautiful and since I arrived early I started working on ukemi and other fun stuff like running up trees, doing cartwheels while jogging, and dive rolling over the sidewalk. I even climbed into the tree we train near and surprised Jong and Lauren. Shame on them for not noticing me. :-)

Rolf, Gino, and Stu were there which was nice because it's been a while since we were all together. It also made for a good number of bodies to throw around. As usual we started with ukemi. Since we were outdoors we made use of the space. We started with low dive rolls (i.e. stretched out forward rolls), "falling" back rolls and forward rolls while picking up weapons. Then we did a little sword evasion with rolls.

We started the training with the uke doing a lapel grab while the tori used a concealed tanto to aid in performing urate gyaku or just about anything to stop the uke. The point was using the weapon not for cutting but for creating more leverage or general pain when receiving the uke.

Then we moved into something we've been doing a lot lately and that was counters to hip throws. Rolf was able to provide some judo insight into hip throws because of his previous judo experience. The thing with judo hip throws is that the balance isn't really taken until the throw is actually occurring. At least the balance isn't taken initially. It's just a different way to do things. Anyway, we did hip throws, and a series of counters:

(1) Hand to the lower back counter.
(2) Counter to (1) - Using your forward hand to take uke's spine.
(3) Counter to (2) - Trapping the arm, keeping it bent and unable to extend to take your spine. Also use your other arm to take the balance by the outside shoulder. Also, if they attack with the elbow you can move with it and apply an arm bar.
(4) When you're actually being thrown hold on, land feet first, use the momentum and pull with your outside hand to effectively throw the uke.

After all that Lauren showed some basic balance breaking movements related to ganseki nage. From kumiuchi drop back into ichimonji like movement, take uke's balance to the outside of their foot (on the pinkie toe), shift back in the other direction with ichimonji like movement, then move 45 degrees forward/right taking the balance. A variation was after the second ichimonji movement shifting forward to apply ganseki nage or ganseki otoshi to your uke's rear leg.

That was pretty much it. Until next time, gambatte.

Training Sat. 4/8/2006

I was out of town so no training for me. I did climb a bunch of trees today though. :-)

Round Hill Class - Thurs. 4/6/2006

There was no class but Brian invited us over to watch videos and discuss this Saturday's gathering. I didn't go.

Falls Church Class - Tues. 4/4/2006

We were indoors again although it would have been easier on the knees had we been outdoors. We had a vistor tonight too. My friend and old cohort Dave from Richmond was in the area so he swung by and evened out the class (just four of us). We started with the usual ukemi then Dave had to get all crazy and bust out the sword evasion. :-)

The first one was very basic. Tori is in ichimonji, uke is in diajodan and performs shomengiri, you step to the outside, do zempo kaiten, then zempo tobi with a boshiken to the kidney. Then came the fun stuff: rolling from fudoza. We tried rolling backwards at an angle on both sides then forward at an angle on both sides. The easiest and most natural was rolling backwards and to whichever side your lead foot was i.e. right foot forward roll backward and to the right.

After the ukemi we kept going with techniques from fudoza. We didn't do any specific kata but just played around with defending from fudoza. After about an hour we gave our knees a break and did similar movements on our feet. The feeling the entire evening was "receiving" and going with the flow.

There was one thing that was new to me. Uke throws a punch, you receive and move underneath the arm crouching down and pulling the uke over your body. This works really well if your uke is the same weight or less. If they are heavier it's abit harder and you have to do it really smoothly. You can use your free elbow to aid moving your uke over your back by lifting their legs.

I had a good time and was happy Dave was able to make it. He actually got to class before I did!

Arlington Class - Sat. 4/1/2006

The weather was perfect for my first Saturday class with the DC Bujinkan group. I had a really good time training outdoors with new and old training partners. We covered alot of different material and we'll see if I can recall it all.

When I arrived training had already begun. We worked on the beginning stages of ganseki nage taking the uke's balance and moving the arms. From the first step we worked on taking the balance by using yoko aruki moving behind the uke. From here you could probably move into musha dori. We didn't try that but I'd like to. I need to create a 'To Do' list of henka. :-)

Then we moved into applying a counter to the initial movement. The uke now becoming the tori by moving into musha dori. Depending on how you initiate ganseki nage this counter may or may not work. An important point to remember about musha dori is to bring your hip to the arm. We moved into another counter after that. This time when the opponent attempts musha dori you can rotate into them and effectively do a hip throw. You may be able to get musha dori on them at this point after/during the throw. We didn't do that but I'll add it to my list.

Then it was time for something completely different. From a punch you kept your ground but from twisting at the torso you shifted off the line of attack and immediately came back up with an uke nagashi in jumonji no kamae. The timing on this was important. You wanted to move immediately to get under the attack quickly and stop it by deflecting it upward. This should also take the uke's balance. From here moving into hira no kamae should be enough to put the uke on the ground. This is jumonji no kamae, so it should be practiced with an aggressive feeling.

The next thing was a variation on the previous exercise and it reminded me of the jumonji no kamae portion of muto dori and this is how I practiced it even though I think it was shown alittle differently. I need to ask exactly how this one went. As I practiced though it went like this: uke throws a punch to the face, tori steps off the line to the inside, then steps in with an omote shuto or fudo ken. You can bend the uke over your forward knee if you want.

Again, something completely different. You are in shizen no kamae and the uke does a "sucka punch" to your gut. You absorb the blow by bending over and catching the arm with your hands. It's important to have one of your forearms on top of your uke's forearm. This becomes an attack when you sink your weight. The feeling behind this exercise was to appear like you were attacked, which you were, but in the end to be the "winner." So, sinking your weight into the attack go down to the ground on one knee, or both, driving the uke's elbow into the ground. Depending on how you go down the uke's head may crash into your knee. There are a lot of variations for this movement. The main point is to absorb the punch. One thing that is fun is to jump alittle when you're hit and immediately to down to the ground all the while driving your forearm into theirs. Use gravity. It's also very easy to head butt the uke as you're doing down. The head butt is really you pulling the uke into your head with your dropping motion. So again, they're crashing into your attack. Omote gyaku and taki ori are two good moves to perform once on the ground depending on how your hands are positioned when the attack is received. Knees on the uke are always good. Aim for soft tissue and areas not supported by the skeleton.

That was about it. After class we walked over to Chipotle, had some burritos, thanked everyone, then parted ways. I'm looking forward to the next class which unfortunately won't be for a couple of weeks.