BJJ, 8/26/13

Tonight I visited the local BJJ school. I'd like to try to return to training there, but we'll see how things shake out.

After a warmup, we drilled some entries into a double-leg takedown. Then we practiced a kind of arm-drag-to-takedown. Similar to the one in this video:

The main instruction for tonight's class was the scissor sweep and the circle (or "flower" or "pendulum", if you like) sweep (videos at the end of this post, for referrence). The scissor sweep was familiar to me, and seemed to work better than it used to during the short time I tried BJJ 3+ years ago. The circle sweep is one I vaguely remember, but was never one I had much luck with. Tonight it felt good, at least while drilling. I need to remember that whichever of my arms has most of uke's arms determines which foot I use to push off his hip with. That makes sense to me, which is ok, since this is mainly to help my retention!

After drilling those two sweeps for a while, it was time to roll. My first round was with a blue belt. Very nice round. He's a very technical guy and didn't have anything to prove to a no-stripe white belt. I think I did ok, even though he was obviously not trying to smoke me. Round two was against a one-stripe white belt that I am positive weighs 50% more than me. Different story here. Apparently he felt like going hard, so he bulldozed me most of the time. No way for me to deal with his mass. I just kept Saulo Ribeiro's counsel in mind: "As a white belt, your job is just to learn how to survive."  I tapped early to an armbar he didn't really have in order not to risk injury to an enthusiastic partner. I tapped once to suffocation that amounted to him just laying on top of me. Other than that, I felt like I did an okay job on defense. I could mount no offense though. Round three was with a much lighter kid than me. Apparently he was only 16 or so. Yellow belt, or some junior rank. I didn't try to kill him. I pulled guard and worked from there the entire 5 minutes. I felt pretty safe, so I experimented with some posture-breaking I learned from a Kid Pelligro app last week. It seemed to work well. I crept closer and closer to a choke, but never got there before time was up.

Overall, it was an intense class, but very enjoyable. I hope to be back soon.

Scissor sweep:

Circle/flower/pendulum sweep:

Judo, 8-24-13

I always planned on picking up another martial art once I reached shodan in Aikido (which happened in April). I couldn't decide whether to return to Judo or start studying karate again. I decided on Judo, and today we resumed my training. I made it to green belt a couple years ago, before quitting to focus on Aikido, so it's going to take me a little time to shake the cobwebs off.

We started with a couple of excercises from koshiki no kata. Really cool demonstrations that disrupted uke's balance in simple ways. Next we practiced our footsweep drill, as well as some solo walking drills. I need to remember to "wipe away uke's footprint" during footsweeps.

We worked on deashi barai, and that one felt surprisingly good to me. We did kouchigari from a failed deashi, and while I was no expert, kouchi felt better to me than it used to. Kosotogari, on the other hand, seemed more difficult than I remember. We played with hiza garuma for a while, and that felt fine. The gentle "foot prop" felt better than I remember. We played with relaxing as a counter to hiza, and being patient to make the foot sweeps work.  We took a brief look at ippon seoinage; I've never been great at that one.

We ended the class by looking at getting a modified osotogari from Aikido's release 1, and release 1 into choke or control.

The plan is to take some time to catch me up to where I was before I quit. If I use a 5 point scale to describe how the basic techniques felt to me today (5 being only as good as I've ever felt about the throw before I stopped training, and 1 being feeling like the first time I've tried it), I would rate them:

Deashi:  5
Kouchi:  3
Kosoto:  1
Hiza:  4

In any case, I'm really excited to be doing Judo again. With the perspective of my longer training in Aikido, I can be a little more patient with my feeling like such a newb in Judo; I'll get it eventually.

Walking, Part 1

Pat recently issued a blogging challenge: write a blog post every day for 12 days, about tegatana no kata, Tomiki Aikido's walking kata. While I don't think I'm going to take up the full challenge (I won't even try for every day), I'm going to try to write 12 posts about walking. I'm not sure I have that much to say about it, so some posts might be very short, and not worth reading.

Tonight as I was thinking about what I might write, I thought I might as well go through the kata once so it would be fresh on my mind. I went into my man cave and had an idea: The room was already a little disorganized since I taught a concealed carry class in it last night. I decided to leave it as it was, and clutter it up a little more for an experiment.

So I began the kata among stacks of CDs, plastic containers, and a chair. Maybe a dozen obstacles in all. I was trying to keep the motions in correct directions, relative to where I was when I began each step, but allowed myself to randomize the direction I was facing before beginning each new step.  I found myself needing to take bigger or smaller steps, even in the same section of movements. Keeping my mind on the footwork to avoid tripping or stepping on something was a new thing. I figure any time I need to move in an aiki-like fashion, it probably won't be under ideal conditions.

So the things I might have gotten out of the experiment were as follows:

• A slightly more "realistic" practice
• Confusion that distracted me from doing the arm movements and prearranged "dance steps" just so
• A more interesting repetition of the kata
• Avoiding tidying up my room for one more night

"Honor the men, challenge the material"

I came across this fantastic article tonight by Rob Pincus. Besides being right on target, it immediately reminded me of the Great Kata War Pat started on his blog back in January 2010. Here's the post heard 'round the world that started it all.

Certified!

I'm proud to report that after 22 hours of training this past weekend, I passed my NRA Basic Pistol Instructor course. That means after the paperwork with NRA and Louisiana State Police is all taken care of, I'll be able to teach the class for concealed carry permit applicants!

I learned a lot during the course. Much of the training can be applied to the aikido lessons I teach as well, since they're just good didactic methodology.  Met some great folks, and had a good time shooting. I was originally planning to use the certification to teach family and friends, but the more I learn about it, the more I think I may be able to make a legitimate side business out of it. I'll also use the opportunity to advertise my aikido lessons to my shooting students as well. Devious, I know.

Stay tuned for developments!

Kazoku, 1/16/13

After a short review of our shomenate lesson from earlier in the week, Kim and I worked on release 1, focusing on:

• Timing your footfalls to coincide with uke's.
• Following uke from a safe position behind his arm.
• Synching up our feet, and recognizing when and in what direction to push, as determined by uke's steps.
• Not using strength to lift uke's arm in order to make the technique look like it's "supposed" to; rather, moving our body in such a way that the arms naturally come up, and the "bump" at maximum distance facilitating the rest of the components (lifting the arm, getting behind it, etc.).
• Evading in such a way that doesn't leave you in a dangerous position. I was having trouble getting this across, until I used Pat's patented "put-a-knife-in-uke's-hand-and-watch-tori-magically-learn-to-evade" trick. Realizing uke could be dangerous really helps you forget about "counting the steps", and get the heck out of the way.
• We briefly looked at how release 1 provides entries into other techniques. We specifically looked at a release-1-to-junana-3 combo.

Kazoku, 1/14/13

Worked with Kim on Shomenate, focusing on:

• Keeping your center pointing at uke (demonstrating the advantage of doing so) and getting your hands up, via the "cow catcher" drill.
• Making sure the hands are coming straight up from the shoulders vs making a circular, sweeping motion that imitates what the kata makes tori seem to be doing.
• Evading to a relationship that allows room for unbendable arms rather than being so close to uke that you have to, you know....bend your arms (demonstrating the disadvantage of doing so).
• Pointing out a couple places where a kuzushi (off-balance) could be found in the technique (on uke's initial footfall and their recovery step, into kind of a spine lock).
• Waki gatame as a counter to shomenate.

Obligatory Reflection

I don't have that much to say about my training in 2012, but in the interest of keeping a record of it:

• I think 2012 may have been my most inconsistent year yet, in terms of attendance. Frustrating. Redoubling my efforts to train more in 2013.
• That said, I have felt a little more effective than I used to. One lesson that stuck with me from 2012 is that the magic, effortless aiki hocus pocus is great and all, but the bottom line is that my aiki has to work.  This was mainly highlighted by our increased use of a knife during kata practice. 
• Nothing really happened on the teaching front in 2012, but I'm going to keep trying to build my local club in 2013. Teaching for free, if anyone near Baton Rouge is interested!
• On a related note, my dear wife finally decided a few months ago that she wants to be forged into a living weapon! Exciting!

What I'm looking forward to in 2013:

• I may finally make shodan (first degree black belt). Not that I will have "arrived", but it's a landmark, nonetheless!
• Once I get shodan, I plan on adding another art to my formal study. I still can't decide if it will be karate or judo/BJJ.
• I will receive my NRA instructor's permit (hopefully by April), so I can teach their basic pistol course and concealed carry classes.
• I plan on digging in to knife and impact weapon (jo, baton, kubotan, cane, etc) training this year. What was a tangent in 2012 will be pursued with more intent in 2013.
• I would really like to get Kazoku Dojo up and running; I love teaching this stuff! Maybe I can fish prospective aikido students from groups of my pistol students.

Resolved

On the heels of Pat's recent post about blogging, I'm renewing my efforts to regularly blog about my martial arts training. Godin & company make good points.

Additionally, I'm going to start a new blog about my family's prepping efforts. There's nothing there yet, but there will be soon. You can find it at www.xianprepper.blogspot.com

Talk at you soon!

Todd

Aikido, 6/23/12

We used a training knife again during walking kata. We did three reps with normal grip, reverse grip, and off hand (I think).

We did releases 1-8 with the knife as well, and Pat talked about another way using a knife in training is transformative: it exposes some of our favorite, go-to techniques as being based on fantasy. That is, our go-to technique that we're so comfortable with, that yields a high percentage of "success", sometimes doesn't hold up when uke becomes "dangerous" (like with a knife, for instance). Sometimes we have to rely on other techniques when there's (simulated) danger involved.

My releases definitely feel better when the measure of success is "not getting cut" versus "looking/feeling like the kata version".  In other words, I felt like the technique kept me safe, even when it wasn't pretty or technically executed. While I do want to be able to perform the kata correctly (there are valuable lessons about principles in them), if I have to choose, I'll take effective over "text-book". 

Next we worked on Junana 10-17, again, using the knife. On number 10, I realized that one of my problems with it has been that I tend to think of going right to kake (execution, terminus) on it, and not thinking about the kuzushi (off-balance). Pat talked about how the kuzushi is what actually keeps uke from hurting you because he's more concerned about getting his feet back under him. He shared Henry's lesson about how if Crazy Guy is coming at you with intent to hurt you, the last thing you want to do is add more craziness to the encounter. Kuzushi can have a dampening effect on all the craziness.

We talked about the grip in number 12 being more snug for better control.

For 14-17, we practiced relaxing the shoulder while maintaining unbendable arm to keep Crazy Guy from being able to jerk out of your control and cut you.

On number 14, we talked about where the "fight" is in the technique. I tend to try to make things happen ("fight") before I'm in an adventageous position to do so. Next month, I will have been practicing aikido for five years. I think the hardest thing for me to "get" has been that the whole following, fitting, waiting-for-uke-to-determine-what-happens-next makes it work so much better. I get it cognitively, but trying to make my body remember it is another thing entirely.

We looked at a couple of variations of number 15; the normal one that throws uke away, and a "Bode-fied" version where tori keeps him close and maintains control. We also played with a variation of number 16 that kept us closer to uke and had some neat results.

We cooled down with some "Stick Releases" and "Stick Release Randori" games. This helped to focus on moving your body into the right relationship with uke so you don't have to use strength.

Before I left, Pat let me know that somewhere in all that, I had done my ikkyu demo, and he promoted me to first degree brown belt.  Next stop: Shodan. I'm looking forward to playing with the Owaza Ju Pon stuff!