4/7/10 Keiko

Jinenkan Sessa Takuma Dojo Keiko here has been off the wall. I never experienced such an environment in all my years of martial arts training. I am here with people whom I consider of the highest calibre and amongst the best martial artists in the world.
Today I went for a run with Mario, Chad and Amanda. Around 5km under the hot sun with about 80% humidity. Chad gave me some awesome tips on running which akin to our ashi-sabaki requires one to lower hips, move on the balls of our feet, focus on ones core, keep the chin up to help breathing and unlike conventional running minimises vertical movement and shock. We then had a play on the park equipment and did some chins and dips.
Keiko this afternoon was intense. About one hour on shiho-giri and just on the first cut - hitotachi- which is do-giri. We were required to leap forward and cut our opponent in front of us, the movement being about 2 metres with no okuri-ashi (or set-up step). Very tricky, indeed!
The next hour was one hour of solid kukishin biken-jutsu kihon focusing only on seigan no kamae. The hombu, already feeling like a sauna, my dogi, already drenched pushed us to our limits and proved challenging to all of us. Truly spiritual and enlightening for all of us. The wisdom given, discovered, shared has kept us all talking about it till now (11pm) and will probably keep us up till late. Some of us might even dream about it. I certainly will.
Sensei compared our keiko today to a 'cock-fight' where the winner is almost the person who is stronger and who uses brute force. In other words our keiko lacked good movement, tai-sabaki and relaxed movement. He constantly re-iterated the importance of being relaxed and removing unnecessary force and strength from ones shoulders and arms. So much to think about and so much yet to learn. Until tomorrow!

Comments

Unknown said…
i was one of the cocks...too brutal
Adam Smith said…
Awsome Moz,thanks for the insight.

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