Nagare:Flow

At class last night we explored the idea of riding whatever movements came up as we moved from lock to throw to strike. A common theme in my own short martial arts career is the practice of flowing from moment to moment without any preconceived notion of what might happen. There are a couple approaches to fighting
one of them is strategy: where a person or group learns as much as can be learned about the landscape, provisions, and strength of an opposing group or person. This often needs to be done quickly where we only have a second or less to assess the situation before we must act. When the information is gathered and weighed the strategist will then attempt to bring about an opportunity to use his strengths and at the same time negate the strengths of his enemy. The other method is "riding" where a person has no strategy but trains his body and spirit to sense what is happening in the moment, an example of this is the story of the kung fu master who coaxed a bird to his hand with seed and then kept it captured by letting his hand sink every time the bird attempted to push off to take flight, the story says he had the bird for years. this method is a lot like walking blindfolded in strange territory where every step is taken as it is, and the body moves from step to step in the present moment. I don't really think any of these methods are better than the other but mix together in some mysterious way.

We had the first kids class of the year!!

We did monkey walking, and some kicks and a lot of ukemi.
 We had sumo matches, races, and a new type of strike. It is a bit of a challenge for me to keep the kids attention when i have parents sitting on the side or other kids playing, im thinking i need to say something
about it next class, or just make spectators stay off the mats. It was a good practice and it was nice to see the kids again after the holiday

The feeling of sanshin

In class today we mainly worked on the principles of sanshin(pendulum motion) and rooting.
There were two new students which was exciting and added a bit of variety to the practice.

New Year..

Looking forward to starting off the new classes for both kids and adults. The themes for children this session will likely be opening up the senses, jumping techniques, and balance training. For adults I will continue exploring the principles of maai(skillful use of distance), tai sabaaki(ways of moving the body to avoid danger), kuzushi(breaking and maintaining balance) and shirabe(awareness) through jojutsu(the art of using a walking stick for self defense and healing). The rainy weather also inspires me to work more on rooting especially on wet slippery ground. The use of fog for cover, might also come up. For my own training ive been working a lot on yang style taichi and of course continuing the game of rewilding through the arts of tracking and survival.