Well what can I say? Great afternoon. Thanks to everyone for turning up. Shoshinkan and my Dad for teaching alongside me and McSensei for arranging everything and taking quite a few whacks for the team! Mrs McSensei & Co for sorting out the food.
Jim's (Shoshinkan) opened up the day with some Tegumi (Okinawian Wrestling) drills and free play. Jim done a fantastic job of presenting "Karate's forgotten range". Despite Jim being of a rather slim build he's as strong as a bloody Ox, and I'll admit that I most definately had my work cut out trying to keep up with him (I was very close to resorting to my prefered tactic of cheating, but resisted!). My neck is still bloody aching from Jim clamping onto the back of it! Jim covered the basic underlying principles of tegumi, explaining about the various aspects of relaxing and using structual strength as opposed to muscular. It was definately a great way to start off the session and get people "aquainted" with each other. By the end of the session everyone had worked up a good sweat!
After a brief break I took my session. I started off explaining about my preference to cheat and use under handed techniques. I covered some basic aspects of using shock to trigger the adrenaline response. I showed a few basic pressure points to help give that extra little jolt. Then I went through some basic principles about power and impact generation and tried to introduce the the concept of natural body movements. We spent quite a bit of time on body position and placement. And finished up with some intention work and trying to combine some of the principles together.
One thing I'd like to say is that I think a lot of the guys found it extremely awkward trying to move naturally, as it goes against a lot their trained movements. You may not of noticed, but by the end of the session there was already a noticeable difference in your movements. The concepts I presented seem extremely complicated if you try to grasp them intellectually. The only way you'll grasp them is by doing them, and all the principles can be applied to your own arts... you just need to play with them! So don't worry if you didn't get them straight away, the more you play with them the more they'll make sense. Email me if you have any queries!
Last up was my Dad's knife session. I've got to say I missed the first bit due to nearly loosing a finger and spilling blood all over the place. I lent my Dad one of my blades, thought he was going to attack fully with it, went to parry and evade it, only to find my Dad wasn't really attacking and ended up slicing my hand on the blade. My fault, but got the point across!
My dad covered some basic body evasion drills from basic one step attacks and explained that the one step stuff is designed to learn the correct movement. Then he took us through the next stage of putting the drills into action on the move using continous basic attacks. Then he went through a few parrying drills before putting it althogether against any attack. It highlighted perfectly the need for progessive skill development! I felt it complimented Jim's Tegumi work perfectly. Much to everyone's amusement my Dad finished up throwing me round the place showing some possible responses to random attacks... and yep it hurt!
After that was the food! Mrs McSensei and family done a lovely job providing some much needed food after a good afternoon's training!
I like to say that I was extremely impressed with the enthusiasm, open mindedness and general spirit of learning that everyone had. We had a few different systems there and there wasn't one trace of ego. The whole afternoon was spent with a buzzing atmosphere with all of you discussing and exploring *everything* that was presented to you. Considering many of the concepts and drills were new to you, you not only approached them with an open mind but I think everyone will have taken away at least a couple of points that they will put back into their own training (I know I have!). As far as I'm concerned, I think the attitudes and conduct of everyone who turned up is something both themselves and instructors should be proud of.
For those that didn't turn up, all I can say is that you missed out. £7.50 is a snippet for the amount of fun (and food) we had!
Many thanks to everyone for making it a great day. It was an absolute pleasure teaching and trainigng with you!
.Had a great time look forward to seeing you all another time and enjoy some good training
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