Report
Technical notes from the March 2022 Holland Course.
The notes are mostly intended for the students who attended the three-day weekend course but I will present them in a way that others may benefit. I will also steer clear of overly-complicated Japanese concepts that may take a whole blog post to themselves.
Underpinning Themes.
Some of the warm-up exercises were designed to encourage the students to actually map the lines of movement and tension throughout their body, this was done in a static (but dynamic) way, but also tracking these tensions and connections within movement, looking for an orchestrated and efficient whole-body movement.
I also wanted to encourage an attitude of ‘why are we doing this?’ to specific aspects of our training. This is something that Sugasawa Sensei has often spoken about, although Sensei has always stressed that an intellectual understanding alone is not enough; these things must be explored through training and sweat.
How to develop an integrated dynamic to your technique.
This was addressed initially through examining the non-blocking, non-punching hand, what I sometimes tongue in cheek call the ‘non-operative side’. Of course the pulling/retracting hand is not really exclusively about the movement of the hand/arm, it is actually working as a result of what is happening deep within your own body, it is an extended reflection of the orchestrated work of the pelvis, the spine and the deeper abdominal muscles, this combination of factors energises the limbs and the energy that originates in those areas ripples and spirals outwards to create what appears as effortless energy all firing off with the right timing – well, that’s the objective anyway.
Some movements are designed to challenge your relationship with your centre.
This was where we focussed on Pinan Sandan, which seems to pack so much in. Of course, it exists in all movement, Otsuka Sensei’s intentions for Junzuki and Gyakuzuki no Tsukomi are yet another more extreme example. As in Pinan Sandan, you can be extended and stretched to such a degree that you have to acknowledge how close you may be to losing your centre and easily destabilised.
A technical challenge!
How many different ways in Wado movement are we demanding of the various sections of our body to either move in contradictory directions, or to lock-up one section while allowing free movement in another? A clue…It’s all over the place.
Destabilising your opponent.
In this one I asked that we really try to think three-dimensionally (if not four-dimensionally, if we include a ‘time’ factor). We want to destabilise our opponent in ever more sophisticated ways – one-dimension is not enough for a finely-honed instrument such as Wado. We can tip, tilt, crush, nudge, we can even use gravity (amplified through our own body movement), we can also take energy from the floor; all of these are part of our toolkit (on the Saturday we did this through what can usefully be described as a ‘shunt’ into our partner’s weak line).
What do our ‘wider’ stances give us?
Side-facing cat stance is the widest stretched stance you will ever be asked to make (a major demand on the flexibility of the pelvis) with Shikodachi as a slightly lesser challenge, but why? What does it give us? Of course, with all of these things there are a number of actual ‘benefits’ but our focus was on the dynamics of opening the hips out to the maximum. Not in a static way; but instead as an empowered dynamic, the body operating like a spring whose tensions wind and unwind supported by the energisation of the entire body. It’s easy to see and feel when it’s not working as it should, but you just have to put the work in.
Of course, over the weekend we strayed into many other areas, but I wanted these to be our take-aways.
Tim Shaw
Shikukai – Fresh initiatives. New Approaches to Fight Training.
Emerging from the various lock-downs and phased restrictions, what we were really missing were opportunities for sparring, the full range, from drills to Jiyu Kumite. After all, this was what we’d all been brought up on, and, for nearly two years Covid had denied us the chances for free-engagement.
Junior grades, who may have started before or even during the pandemic, had very little opportunity to experience how their techniques would fare in an unrehearsed exchange of punches and kicks.
For many of us this aspect of our training has been sorely missed, and its absence made us realise how much we’d taken it for granted.
Focussing on the positive.
However, there are signs that we may be able to leave this negativity behind us and start to emerge into the daylight.
Within Shikukai, instructors have been galvanised into action with two fresh initiatives specifically related to kumite training, developed independently and born out of the fermentation time forced on us by Covid.
The Shikukai team of instructors refused to allow training to be put into suspended animation during the various lock-downs and isolations and instead crafted new ways of continuing training (e.g. Zoom) which brought about fresh ways of looking at what we do. Which, incidentally, also fed into our current restructuring and modernising initiative within Shikukai as a whole.
Fresh ideas.
The two initiatives are up and running; one in the South West, devised by Steve and Pam Rawson, and the other in Essex, piloted by Steve Thain.
These two projects are refreshingly different in approach, which to my mind underlines the diversity available in this aspect of training. Fight training supplies opportunities for some really creative thinking; a contrast to syllabus work and the focus on minutiae associated with high technical demands.
Weymouth.
Steve and Pam’s ideas sprang out of their focussed Zoom sessions geared towards fighting drills – a regular weekly event over the last few months. It was almost inevitable that they would want to transfer this into live, face-to-face training, and an opportunity opened up in Weymouth.
A new business appeared in the town centre called ‘The Combat Lab’, a multi-disciplinary martial arts initiative/business project. Steve and Pam approached the owner and arranged dates and times for their proposed workshops, the first of which occurred in January 2022.
They planned to take full advantage of the space and the facilities. The workshop was designed with the use of equipment (bags etc.) in mind. Training was thoughtfully constructed and featured a broad range of fighting skills, including drills and take-downs.
For this first workshop Ken Bu Jyuku students were well supported by Shikukai members from Exmouth and Chippenham. With a new date set for March and a revised format creating separate space and time for women only training, followed by men’s training. Places are limited, so contact Steve and Pam if you are interested (Full details on the main Shikukai website).
Essex.
The project in Essex took on a different form. The springboard for this came from Steve Thain’s initiative to organise ‘Pop-Up’ workshops during gaps in pandemic restrictions. Although these were not exclusively focussed on fighting, they were designed to explore free-form movement. For Steve the inevitable next step was to design ‘fight-based’ versions of the same Pop-Up model.
His approach was to trawl all of the go-to fight training methods developed over the years. He drew up a list of twenty numbered practices.
The lowest numbers related to the most accessible methods; ones suitable for lower graded, least experienced students; while the higher numbers required significantly more skill and experience. Students were then given the choice of which level to work at. This instantly reduced any trepidation the least experienced may have felt.
The modes of fight training included such things as; mirroring, shoulder tapping, one attack one defends, Shiai, Ohyo Henka Dosa, and fifteen others too difficult to explain in a brief blog post.
Having participated in two of these workshops (the last being Feb. 1st) although, by its nature as a ‘pop-up’ it is only for one hour, it’s very intense and hugely enjoyable, whatever level you are at.
The next one takes place in March (date to be confirmed).
Tim Shaw
Shikukai Wado Ryu Karate in Essex. 