Gyokko Ryu

We just finished the Gyokko Ryu scrolls after studying them for over a year now.  The techniques appear to start off very technical with lots of fine motor skills and then slowly progress through to more simplified, larger and more gross motor skills.  You would expect it to be the other way around?  Perhaps it has something to do with the adage, "It's better to know hard, before trying soft"?  Anyway, I certainly appreciated the simpler & larger movements by the end due to all the fine technicalities in kata like Koku or Renyo!  Morris took his time with each scroll and made sure we had a good base of each technique before moving on.  Sometimes we would only get through a couple of techniques in two or three classes!

It was my first time studying one ryu-ha in its entirety.  I had seen the techniques before but never sequentially.  To start at the beginning and move through to the end was very satisfying.  I know it sounds the logical way to go about it, but in my previous Bujinkan dojo we never saw anything from start to end.  I was always left feeling hungry for more, never quite knowing all the ingredients that went into making the full meal, so to speak.  Moving through in order is best.  It helps create the thread of the schools flavour in your belly (Hara, too I suppose).  I feel sated.

Travis
Ikkyu
Sessa Takuma