Shima Dojo 01/24/2008

There was a pretty small turnout last night with seven of us total. Doug started the じゅなんたいそ with the regular leg stretches. Then we did some squatting exercises and the usual "one person against a wall and the other person pushing against the body" exercises. He then throw something new at us with regular sit-ups and reverse sit-ups. I'm really glad he did that and broke the ice to include some basic "exercise" exercises.

I started off with some deep かまえ which I will continue for a while to help condition the legs. From here I started again with the usual ぜんぽうかいてん and reiteration of the points of making the roll smooth. Then I moved onto こうほうかいてん then たちながれ、again reiterating the points of smooth rolling. We practiced these three rolls starting in かまえ and ending in かまえ。I wanted to get the point across that with a smooth, proper roll you can come up from the roll in かまえ with no effort other than what was put into the roll itself. Often times people will fumble around when attempting to raise up from the roll. Practice and applying the advice that is given is really the only way to get good うけみ。Actually that applies to any activity in life that one wants to improve on.

Next, to change things up, we practiced basic punching and receiving. With the じょだんつき we practiced improving the timing of the fist and foot landing at the same time. We'll have to spend some more time on that. As for the うけながし it was a simple receive and gave the とり something to do. Then I talked about four different types of うけ someone can be and how it is beneficial for the うけ and とり to practice being all of them. These fours types are: fully compliant, partially compliant, partially resistant, and fully resistant. After practicing each type of うけ with おもてぎゃく we practiced applying おにくだき to an うけ that was fully resistant. I repeated something that was said to me long ago and that is if the technique isn't working move on to something else. I then showed some simple examples of taking the structure, the くずし, when the うけ resists おにくだき。Surprisingly I didn't have any trouble applying おにくだき so my partners weren't putting up much of a fight. That concluded my time.

This material was a very different from what I usually open Doug's class with but it happened to flow right into what he wanted to cover for the rest of the night. I will be incorporating more of it though as we move along. By March I will have covered all of the うけみ I want to cover and hopefully I will have repeated myself enough times that everyone will feel very comfortable with hitting the ground rolling. Then we can move onto more interesting things.

Doug opened with a brief talk about tension and how it can apply to the first kata of this year's theme. He mentioned that when the うけ is pulling you on the third step of the kata he should feel as if he's just holding your arm and not pulling your entire body. In other words the とり should offer no resistance to this last tug. So we practiced this last pull a few times.

Next we assumed くみうち with a partner and practiced shifting each other around enough to take the balance and do simple take downs. We practiced this just briefly to lead into the next exercise where we did the same thing except this time the とり was supposed to offer no resistance or tension and to move around with the うけ to prevent any type of throw. This was done with the とりの eyes closed and should be fairly simple to prevent a throw.

Next we did some むとどり。When the cut comes とり pivots to the outside of the attack with your back to the weapon. How you stand in しぜんのかまえ is important to this first step. From there turn back to the うけ to apply おもてぎゃく with the sword or stick.

I believe that was it.

I found it interesting how Doug and I went to two separate seminars and we were both shown some common things.

がんばってください！