Goodbye old dogi

Goodbye old dogi,

you were good to me, until

you split in training.

One of my kung fu teachers is nine feet tall

I refer, of course, to my dragon pole, pictured below.

Father, daughter, and dragon pole (circa 2007)

In principle, a weapon is simply an extension of the body.  In practice, it takes a lot of intelligent  and diligent practice to attain that kind of mastery.  [I'm working on it...]  In the meantime, training with a weapon, especially a large weapon, is a valuable source of feedback for developing efficient body movement.  Weapons are great teachers.

There is also a conditioning effect.  Look at the picture: talk about torque!  Repeatedly working through the hung kuen dragon pole set, or even individual movements as a drill, soon becomes a demanding workout.

I like to practice the dragon pole movements not only with the big stick, but to a lesser extent with a 6 foot bo, and also with no stick at all.  After training with the dragon pole switching down to a bo feels like a toothpick!

Nowadays we don't travel around armed with our preferred weapon, so ideally you want to be able to improvise by picking up whatever comes to hand.  While giant sticks are hard to come by -- and don't make great indoor weapons, anyway -- bo-like brooms and mops are relatively common, so practicing with shorter sticks makes practical sense.

Dispensing with the weapon altogether leads into an exploration of the relationship between weapon techniques and empty-handed body movements.  This is valuable.

Don't do this in a judo competition

Kani basami is judo's flying scissors throw, and was banned from competition because of the risk of breaking one or both of uke's legs.



It's a fun throw, and requires a strong breakfall from uke.  In learning this throw it is helpful to put one hand on the floor, but it's much more satisfying to do it in mid-air.

In wrestling you'll sometimes see the even more spectacular and dangerous flying head scissors variation, performed here (at 1:20) by Scarlett Johansson's character in Iron Man 2.

That's not allowed in competition, either!

Reasonable force?

Doesn't look like reasonable force to me. Looks like he lost his rag (albeit under some pressure from the women. They seem to be resisting arrest...?).

Wotcha reckon?

Story here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/us_and_canada/10336500.stm

I will be teaching in France in September. Here is a truly beautiful flier for Sept 25 seminar. Click on the image to download.

Variations

For a bit of a change I taught a class built out of variations. Starting with our first leg throw (o soto gari) and the related ninth (o soto otoshi) I led the class through about 8 variations. We repeated the dose with around a dozen related hip throws and variations, all emerging from our nfirst hip throw (uki goshi).

Because we practice osoto gari and uki goshi so much, even for the beginners this was viable. The related principles form a bridge to the variations. It is not a case of learning something completely unrelated, but rather building on what you already have. At the same time, learning a new variation is not just accumulation; there are distinctive points and refinements to be learned and most everyone runs into a particular variation that poses problems that need to be worked through.

After this tour, we went back to some rapid-fire throw-for-throw practice on the first leg and hip throws with a variety of partners, which were -- gasp! -- now a bit better and more robust thanks to the exploration through the wider world of variations.

It's a bit like a chef experimenting with all sorts of flavors, but then going back to his speciality and making small adjustments, leading to significant improvements.

Is there such a thing as a complete martial art?

Kano's early Judo included distinctive striking techniques (atemi waza), and training in many weapons, as well as throws, groundwork, and revival techniques, all distilled from multiple jiu-jitsu ryu.  When Funakoshi brought Karate to Japan from Okinawa there was cross-fertilization with Judo, similarly with Ueshiba's aikido (Tomiki, I believe, was ranked 9th dan in both arts).

So judo was an evolving composite, from which specialist streams have emerged.  You can see echoes of some of this stuff in the higher judo katas, but overall there seems to have been a loss of heritage, at least in mainstream Olympic Judo, due to multiple factors, including: optimization for a particular rule-set, with victory in competition as the main goal; popularization as a national physical exercise regime suitable for dissemination through high schools; and the banning of most martial arts practice in Japan following its defeat in WWII.

Similarly, chinese boxing (kung fu) styles have evolved, combined and recombined over the centuries.

There are broader and narrower martial arts.  Training in a broader martial art as a base has much to recommend it, if you're in it for the long term.