CLASS NOTES for Wednesday, 13/Jun/2007

In attendance:
Brandon
Jerry
Zach

Class time:
7:00 pm - 7:30 pm Jerry and Brandon Tai-no-henko practice
7:30 pm - 9:05 pm Main class
9:05 pm - 9:45 pm Jerry and Brandon Kokyu ho practice

Prior to class, Jerry and I worked on tai-no-henko blending exercises to reinforce concepts from Ikeda's seminar and looking at how we use them every day in our class. We also worked in the movement Sensei showed us last week from the Jackson seminar. We worked on the footwork that Sensei showed us for how to lead uke around.

During warmups, we put in extra time with Zach on footwork. I thought it might also be interesting to do the tai-no-henko turn with the jo so we incorporated that too.

After warmups, we went up to the punching bag and worked on shomenuchi, yokomenuchi, and tsuki. We discussed what an "honest" attack is. If doing an attack at 1% speed and power, it will still hit the bag and not go off to the side. We practiced hitting all three strikes on the bag which I'm finding pretty useful. I got the impression that Jerry had never seen how effective a blow a shomenuchi or yokumenuchi can be. I emphasized hand placement when attacking and demonstrated the difference between a tsuki (punch) in karate and boxing, and also generating power from your center/hips.

After that, we went outside for sword strikes. We went over posture and te/ashi sabaki (hand/foot position). We also went over the first few ken suburi.

Techniques:
Gyaku te dori kokyu ho, one variation review

Kata te dori shiho nage omote review
Zach stated that he got to try this one out on his dad after Monday's class to good effect. From my experience, my loved ones stopped letting me show them techniques after the first couple of years. Enjoy it while it lasts.

kata te dori shiho nage ura
Jerry and I did with this great emphasis on efficient and correct footwork. I worked with Zach on just the footwork portion of this technique.

At this point we ended class at 9:05. Jerry and I stayed and worked exlusively on three of the gyaku te dori kokyu ho until around 9:45.

I got a lot of great training from tonight. Thanks Zach and Jerry.