Enter the Dragon!

I took a pleasant phone enquiry yesterday from a chap in his late forties, asking for some advice about martial arts, and about jiu-jitsu in particular. This fellow is currently practicing karate, but the training is very hard on his knees, and did not seem sustainable. He had done judo as a child, and some aikido in his youth, and had decided to look at alternatives. Like me, he wants to be able to continue to do martial arts as he gets older, without destroying various body parts. Now he was doing his homework. I told him that I thought that this is an issue of school and teaching over style, and that I understood that in Okinawa it was quite usual for karate to be practiced into old age, but that I suspected that the kind of practice was different from what was being taught in many Western karate schools. The conversation ended on good terms, with my main recommendation that he make a trip out to my style's HQ -- much closer than my own class, which was on the other side of ...

Train slow, or train fast? I say slow. Speed can and will hide a multitude of technical defects, while practicing slowly means everything is on show. Here's an excellent explanation from Ryron and Rener Gracie's site : When practicing, always execute the techniques so slowly that it is impossible to make a mistake. The slow pace and predictability of proper training will provide your partner with many opportunities to counter the technique. Again, your training partner’s role is to consistently simulate the most common behavior so that you can perfect the techniques – not to fight with you. Eventually, your diligent and exacting practice will produce precise, efficient, and quick reflexes that will leave your attacker with no opportunity to counter your techniques. In a real fight, you will also have the advantage of surprise since your attacker will have no advanced knowledge of how you react to his actions. As you gain experience the pace at which you can be correct, preci...

Theme of the month is on its way back from next month, by popular demand. After class last week Lisa, John, and Ash said that they missed it, as had Damian on a previous occasion. The original idea, inspired by Patrick Parker's Principle of the Month , was to use an over-arching theme each month to provide a particular focus in class, exploring how the theme applies to our regular training fare, and bringing in some supplementary material. [In practical terms it helped shape my lesson plans, and gave me oodles of fuel for this blog.] After a furious start I let it drop in July, as the class knuckled down to preparation for gradings, a period of consolidation. Also, my themes were starting to get a bit more "advanced", and with a new influx of beginners I needed to get back to basics, but I wasn't ready to repeat my basic themes just yet -- I figured I'd wait until 2010 before starting re-runs! Anyway, when I asked the delegation what they were interested in ...

I'll start with an easy one: What on earth is the technique you’re trying to do in that picture? If it’s ude-giri your hand is too high up his arm (pressing down on his shoulder or the upper part of his arm isn’t going to do much), for waki-gatame you’re standing too upright and it can’t be just kote-mawashi since it’s impossible to put enough pressure on the wrist in that position. Besides that kiba-dachi, while traditional, is not a great stance for that position since he can just plant his knee into yours and you’ll collapse, losing the hold. -- Zara This is reference to a now retired side-bar image, actually taken from a past post  and reproduced below: In Jiu-Jitsu formal stances are typically used transitionally, and are learned in the context of actual application. For example, in this photo I am applying a reverse-armbar -- a restraint and control technique -- from a horse-riding stance: A reverse armba r From here I could take Adam down to the ground or move into a more ...

Wow! My initial reply and last post seem to have rubbed my semi-anonymous commenter, Zara, up the wrong way. See his extensive comments following my initial response and follow-up post to this older article . A sample: Granted, blogs aren’t the best source of information in the first place (usually the content is rather mundane, one-sided and superficial) but to be told to buzz off and ‘do your homework’ is a first. So much for common courtesy and cooperation in spreading martial-knowledge. A simple refusal would have been enough, I don’t need your condescending attitude, nor your useless advice. -- Zara While somewhat miffed, I'm a bit surprised that I haven't run into this kind of conflict as a blogger previously. I am somewhat averse to public forums because I've got sucked into flamewars in the dim and distant past, where relative anonymity, plus lack of verbal and visual cues often leads to a downward spiral into insults and baiting. In this case, however, I clearl...

Zara left a detailed comment on one of my articles from 2008 -- Some notes on come-along techniques -- raising some interesting points. Very interesting article, come-alongs or taiho-waza (arresting-techniques) are fascinating to study but often an area that is poorly understood and consequently just glanced over. Probably because it's inherently dangerous to attempt to control a standing, struggling opponent (always risky in terms of escape and counterattack) and very technical in nature. -- Zara Thank-you. Like most sophisticated areas in martial arts these techniques need expert instruction and significant, regular practice to achieve competence; and more instruction and practice to make 'em really good. If techniques and body-mechanics aren't perfectly understood and executed the adequate pain-level will not always be maintained: either you'll injure him or he'll just slip out and since most people don't take kindly to such treatment you'll be in for o...

I came across this wonderful evocation of the nature of the dojo -- our place of training -- in aikidoka Richard Strozzi-Heckler's book Holding the Center - Sanctuary in a Time of Confusion : A dojo is a space of commitment in which people practice together. What is powerful about the dojo is what it tells us of learning, and ultimately, of waking up, of being alive. In Japanese, "dojo" refers to the place where we train "in the way". This points to two important distinctions. The first is that the dojo is a place of learning where one practices what is being taught. This is different from the conventional classroom where students sit passively taking notes or listening to a lecture. This is not to say authentic enquiry is unavailable in lecture halls, but it points to the difference between academic knowledge and an embodied knowledge that allows people to take actions that sustain and enhance their lives. In a place of learning like the dojo students ...