Class: Thursday Oct 30th
Ukemi practice saw us to do some low light-level rolling for awareness training. After a few weeks of the Ten and Chi levels of the art’s Ten Chi Jin no Maki syllabus, we started on the kata from the Jin level with Koku and Renyo of Gyokko Ryu. It’s worthwhile keeping an eye on Soke’s Unarmed fighting book when looking at these kata. The study of these took us to playing with gyaku waza. It was also observed that often peoples guards get a bit too relaxed as uke or indeed as tori especially with kicking etc. There was an interesting comparison between Ichimonji no kamae and old style boxing stances too.
After tea we looked at a few ideas with basic tanto tsuki. Mostly it involved taking distance, taking balance and securing the weapon arm with muso dori, oni kudaki and variations as balance was further broken.
Though provoker: How is your guard generally? Any bad habits? How can you combat a good guard?
– Ali Martinez