20 to the Throat

Around the 10th time I felt like I had the idea, but that simply isn't enough in Beatings. Rote repetition really makes an impression especially in the crook of my throat.

I found yet another area to work on. I really dislike using spear hand in relation to a throat strike. I know that my opponent, in this case Beard, knows to relax his throat, but the idea of sticking my fingers intentionally in something smooshie kinda freaks me out. I guess I felt like I really had to have excellent control and knife hand is not my forte.

So after jabs and getting jabbed I was thankful to be blocking kicks. Something simple and painful and easy.

Then lots of Kata. Weeee.

Kicks and Wrists

Arms of Steel was back in the class last night. It was nice to have someone else in class for the first hour. We started off working on Bassai and making AOS do it as well. Poor guy was sweating and spinning around trying to figure out what the next step was. I think I'll be ready for video in a week or two.

On to kicks. Spinning side kick and crescents were flying. Flying knee! This is totally new to me, so it took 20 times to get anywhere near what it was supposed to be like to be effective.

So the application was a crescent kick to move the hand or object out of the way (in my case a shot to the head; height and flexibility are on my side) then a side kick to knee or gut. The finish was knee to the face or falling back fist to the neck or back of head. If we chose the knee straightener then the opponent should still be upright prepped for knee to gut. So fun!

2nd hour. Wrist locks to throw. I've been doing this for years and it dawned upon me that I'm not doing it at all. I've been using muscle for every aspect that I am unable to do correctly. This is so upsetting! Now I've got partners that won't budge unless I do things exactly correct. What a blow to my ego.

- I have to be relaxed. If my muscles are tense then they tense.
- Turning into opponent. My lead foot must be placed like I'm prepping for a kick - heel as pointer.
- Keep elbow up. They will get you if you don't have that up.
- Fold that wrist! Straight fold is somewhat painful, but fold with twist is what puts people down.

I couldn't sleep because of wrist pain. Beard put the ouch on me. It was nice to see that he wasn't immune to using muscle when things didn't go correctly. Unfortunately, it was with me. His judo background seemed to have gone to hell at one point because throw that comes after the lock was super explosive. I hadn't hit hard in a long time. Thankfully my slap was timed well and took the sting out. After that happened I felt a great deal of simpatico towards him because his frustration was showing much as mine does. Heee.

Bassai Redux

Just me and Teacher last night. So we went over Bassai around ten times. We kept stopping as he tried to recall the various versions he had learned over the years. Talk about "knocking the rust off."

Beard showed up for the second hour and we went over our fourth Kata for him and I ended finding out that I had been doing something wrong for five years! I was in shock and it threw my whole game off. Time to start over again.

After class Teacher and I went over two different videos and his old manuals to confirm what I was missing in Bassai (Ba Sa Hee in one). I've missed a lot of stuff, so it's back to the drawing board. I've got about 13 to 20 moves I've missed and I certainly don't look fluid by any means anyway. I was up doing kata in the false dawn this morning trying to add in the extras via an ancient book. Hah.

Groin

The tell-tale ping of muscle hitting it's threshold and locking up painfully surprised me in the middle of a half-assed attempt at a cool down stretch. Mind you, this wasn't a power stretch into a japanese split, but a simple one vaguely reaching down to a knee. On top of that I was fairly warmed up. Groan.

After a week off of everything due to work I decided to go to the gym for a circuit class to knock the dust off as it were. I've had a groin/inner thigh problem for about a year or so that I thought would heal on it's own. No luck.

So the RT says I have to stretch for 30 seconds every hour for two weeks; barring sleep of course. I'm now at work with legs out. After two days it does seem quite a bit better. I guess the educated folks in medical land can actually help sometimes.

Cancel?

For the first time I've been going to beatings Teacher called me up and cancelled class. His neighbor and his father in law both passed yesterday. Very stressful; so he's running around trying to organize a bunch of stuff.

I'm glad for another day of rest!

seque

No beatings last night. I've got a bunch of work this week and this means I'm burned out by evening. Hopefully things will slow by tomorrow.

Basics

I was told by Teacher Slim long ago that when you do Kata you should be out of breath from the exertions involved.

Fast forward four plus years and after doing one kata I'm mildly out of breath assuming I did it well. I can't tell if it was because I was really doing a great job or was holding my breath. I'm forcing myself to breath out on every strike.

Last night - In order to feel more productive Vet and I did our normal warm up (the one that a class would do together) and took the video. I just took a look at Bassai (is that how you spell it?) and realized I left out a portion. Teacher suggests learning in two parts. I guess I should have done that automatically.

It was knife fighting night. Vet had dislocated some bones in his hand, but still wanted to play so when he was uke I had to take attacks from his left.

I found that I'm rudimentary in my response whereas he is filled with fabulous take downs and painful binds beyond his experience. Feeling kinda white belt...

Video Review

This is me doing Bassai. Try not to gag.

Yes, I'm not very anonymous. Yes I'm crappy at it, but I've only done it three or four times. Yes I'm wearing a tye dye gi. Our water was bad one season and my wife had some extra dye laying around.



This is me doing Pyung ahn o dan. Much smoother in my opinion, but less complicated. Sorry for the extraneous video. I have to learn how to edit.

I'll try to get a better view and better video in the future.

Kicks and Apathy

So I approached Teacher about trying to learn Bassei on my own. Unsurprisingly he was interested in what I had learned and then showed me the several ways that he had learned it over the years. Awkward procedural problem resolved.

Class is still dead. Only Vet showed up in the first hour and then Beard showed up for the second. We worked on kicks in self-defense mode. Rather fun stuff.

Shoot/slide to the rear and when the person attacks side kick into solar plex. This was refined by a slide to the side and round house kick to solar plex and then side kick to the hip joint. Fun, but hard to practice well.

I got home and felt a little disappointed. It seems teacher is less and less motivated to keep the class formalized and thus time seems to be wasted. The informality is nice, but it drives me crazy. Actual time in class seems like 30 minutes in the first hour and then maybe 30 in the second hour. Arghh.

Bassei

In TSD Bassei is supposed to be the last kata before black belt, but our school is not hung up about that kind of thing. However, I've been itching to learn something new after doing the first 8 katas for years now. So I've taken it upon myself to learn Bassei on my own and then broach the subject with Sensei.

I suspect I'm breaching protocol here and I haven't really learned the whole thing (it's got like 60+ moves), but I have to approach Teacher and make sure I'm not being an overreaching ass.

Beyond the protocol issue Bassei is pretty cool, but learning from video is brutal. Constant rewinding and then writing it down makes me dream about it. However, practically, I feel like I'm learning the first kata over again because of the lack of flow I feel.

Redux

Improving roundhouse kick - ouch, so sore. Foot, hip, aim with knee, don't snap kick, over and over again. We look horrible.

Randori with three attackers!

A little Kata.

Do I start practice on next kata and then show Teacher to motivate learning something new?