Amazing animation and swordfight

Check out the animation and dance choreography: very interesting show.

Shadow swordfight presentation brought to you by Funny Tube

Effortless jiu-jitsu and judo / first class back in 2011

On Wednesday we had our first class back for the year with eight regulars on the mat -- what passes for a small class nowadays -- plus one prospective student.

It was good to be back, even on a rainy night; never mind this Summer's floods and cyclones.

* * *

This year I'll be taking an over-arching theme of "minimal effort".  How can we become so efficient in our jiu-jitsu and judo that it becomes near-effortless?

Of course, the training for such masterly ease will entail a lot of hard work!

A fun Judo kata

Changing lives with Cricket.

Martial arts are often seen as sports for hard people who like to fight. Or sporty people who want to express themselves physically. But there is another side to martial arts and that is the intriguing philosophy underpinning the external manifestation. This philosophy often contains elements which help in forging character and development of the self. I'm sure that Funakoshi used this in licking young ne'er do wells into shape physically and mentally. Doshin So certainly used martial arts as a tool for forming people into socially responsible individuals.

But this is unique to martial arts owing to its philosophy and grounding in Buddhism which has important self-development doctrines, right?

Not quite. A cricket team in LA, USA, is using cricket as a vehicle to clean up gangster neighbourhoods. Established 15 years ago it is captained by a homeless activist, Ted Hayes, who feels that cricket has lessons for life which can show gangsters that there are other ways to live their lives.

Mr Hayes says, "We were... successful at teaching the homeless guys civility through the game".

Marvellous.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12382224

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compton_Cricket_Club

Featured in Aikido Journal Blog

A couple of days ago 2008 post of mine, The Broader Meaning of Kuzushi, was picked up by Aikido Journal and featured in their blog.

Nice!  Not only that, but one of their readers, Dan Rubin, was able to point me to the likely source of the quotation in the top left corner of this blog:

The source of the quotation is cited as “unknown.”

I thought you might like to know that the analysis, if not the exact quotation, is that of Donn Draeger in Classical Budo (1973), at page 11 (and elsewhere): “...a number of preconceptions and rigid beliefs about the relationship of the bujutsu (classical martial arts of self-protection) to the budo (classical martial ways of self-perfection) prevent a true understanding of these disciplines.”

Thanks Dan!

Black belt training

This post is in response to Sue's question about my preparation for Shorinji Kempo shodan grading. Check out her full blog 'Countdown to Shodan', here.

I wanted to outline my approach to my impending dan grade exam. The way I'm looking at it I need to follow two broad aspects of training which then break down into more categories.

The main aspects for focusing my preparation are:
- body
- mind

Seems a bit noddy doesn't it but I then break this down further:

Body
* Physical fitness: am I fit enough in key areas of stamina, aerobic capacity and strength.
* Technique fitness: I define this as being fit enough to execute the techniques themselves well enough without flaking out.

I think these two are subtly different. I want to work on general fitness by running (especially fartlek to exploit explosive energy) and light weights / stretching for general toning. Technique fitness will be the ability to execute techniques over and over again and I will be practicing this in this manner.

Of course doing so also helps me remember my techniques which brings me on to the next section of 'Mind':

Mind
* memorize techniques (repetitive training)
* train on memory recall
* examine in great detail techniques I haven't done for a while: which stance is it? which pin is used?
* Breathe! More meditation and deep breathing to help my blood oxygenate and yoga for relaxation and flexibility.

Shorinji kempo is very different from Tang Soo Do in that rather than learn mostly kata the emphasis is on learning lots of paired techniques which means (for me) in depth learning and memorizing of details....

Sports injury: Supraspinatus tendonitis

I've been out of training this week because of my shoulder pain. I eventually went to the doctor to check what I could do to self treat it and she explained I probably have Supraspinatus tendonitis (sometimes called rotator cuff tendonitis): an inflammation of the supraspinatus tendon. Tendons attach to bones and I can feel it acutely at the point in my shoulder where the joint is, especially when I raise my arm above my head or try to move it behind my body. BBC Health says that: "overuse is ...a common cause", and I think I might have aggravated it by doing a very wide lat pull down.

Here's a decent article outlining treatment, management and rehab.

Hey! Take care out there!....