Seven steps » Martial Arts

Nidan test

Trevoke — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 17:33:42 +0000

On February 28th, 2010, I took the test to become a second-degree black belt.

Here is a summary of what I had to do, besides the calisthenics:

All my empty-hand forms, opposite side. There are eight of them. This meant that if the first step was with the left foot, I had to do it with the right foot. I suppose you could also call that ‘mirror’. The names are : seisan, seiuchin, naihanchi, wonsu, chinto, kusanku, sunsu, and sanchin. I admit we did not do sanchin opposite side, but that’s not too surprising. It’s not a complex form, but there’s nothing to be gained from being able to do it regular and opposite side.
My first weapon form, opposite side. This is a bo (long staff) form. The name is tokumine no kun.
My third weapon form. This is a bo form. The name is urashi bo (sometimes called urashi no kun).
My fourth weapon form. This is a sai form. the name is chatan yara no sai.
The fifth weapon form. Note that I said “The” and not “My” … Because I hadn’t learned it. I was told to stay with the group and keep up. I did. That is my proud moment. It is a tonfa form. The name is hamahiga no tonfa.
Self-defense, including bunkai (analysis) from the various empty-hand forms.
Knife defenses
Sparring. This was actually rather fun, about thirty people in line and we (everyone testing for nidan) fought them one after another.

It was tough, but it was mostly a mind exercise. I must admit not remembering any thoughts or feelings during the test; I heard the instructions and executed them, and waited for the next instructions.

I passed.

Phew.

Alright, let’s work towards the next steps.

Teaching kusanku to sankyu

Trevoke — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 14:42:42 +0000

Last night, after some kicking drills and sparring, sensei entrusted the adult class to me and told us to work on kusanku. The ‘adult class’ yesterday consisted of three sankyu.
I looked at the clock, rubbed my hands together and said “Alright everyone, we have twenty-five minutes’ worth of kusanku. Let me know if you have questions or doubts.”
When we had finished walking through it, I looked at the clock. I’d spent twenty minutes on the form, and they all looked happy. I don’t think I really stood still for more than a few seconds at a time during those twenty minutes.
It reminded me of the first time I led the adult class, and I spent twenty-five minutes on seisan kata. I distinctly remember that it did not go quite as smoothly. It is usually hard to convince ranks under shodan that seisan is a very important, subtle kata, full of knowledge to be examined It’s a realization they must come to by themselves.

My favorite moment of those twenty minutes (besides the part where they all had a big smile, at the end), was one of the signature kusanku moves (koza dachi, right hand shuto to the throat, left hand behind your head like in seiuchin). I knelt by each one, adjusted the position of their rear foot with my hands, then stood up and watched their faces light up as the lesson sank in – in the proper stance, the legs and hips are looser, and thus the hips can turn more and still be more comfortable!

I _like_ teaching.

Monday night training

Trevoke — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 19:17:52 +0000

I received an email from sensei on Monday (sent to every student) – if you’ll be here tonight, bring your fighting gear. Uh-oh. Her sensei was there and taught a few classes, including the adults. The entire class turned out to be pretty much a blur of drills. I’ll be able to dredge them out of my body memory, I think.
A drill about basics – chain two basics together, using shifting. Then up to six basics together, by series of two.
A couple of kicking drills. A few fighting drills – these are important. shift, step back, kick, finish, disengage.
Come in and jam, elbow, finish.
I am obfuscating these on purpose.
This was a harder training session than I’ve experienced in a while, as evidenced by the appearance after 40-some hours of a slight tightness in my upper abs and shoulder muscles.. Oh, and the fact that my lower legs were one solid body, instead of having a freely moving calf muscle.

Of course, I was supposed to the student in the best shape, so I wonder how the others did feel. This wasn’t particularly hard on my mind, just a little bit past my comfort zone.. I do feel like I am more aware that I can stand more than I think. Was my willpower muscle flexed? It seems like it was.

Why do I study martial arts?

Trevoke — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 22:28:47 +0000

I am watching Rocky III and IV (the only ones I really like), and the driving theme is the power of the human spirit. Rewatching it now, I see a lot of other ideas. They’re not particularly hidden, but I never really noticed them before. This started to make me think about my choices.

My lasting decision to study martial arts was made in college, and I took a Physical Education class of self-defense taught by shifu Christopher Goedecke, who studies and teaches isshin kempo. During the first class, we sat and he asked us why we chose to study martial arts. My answer was, “I want to develop discipline over my mind and body.”
I can tell you today that this answer was probably not the truth. It was probably what I thought shifu wanted to hear so he’d think that I was special, or would be a good, dedicated student.
Why this behavior? Saying that everyone wants to be special would be a bit of a cop-out answer here. I always, always liked the idea of the martial arts, and the dedication, the Way.
A more refined thought is that I wanted a mentor. A senior figure I could respect, who could teach me and guide me. For all my mental independence and ambition, I want to be somebody’s pupil.
When I was barely beginning, I had the self-centered thought that shifu Goedecke would instantly take a liking to me and take me under his wing. I was, what, 20 years old or so? Most of my thoughts back then were self-centered. For that matter, most of them now are, too.

I graduated, and shifu Goedecke told me it was silly to drive two hours each way for a class, that I should find a teacher closer to me, and that we’d see what the future brought. I dutifully did so, and found sensei Marilyn Fierro, who teaches and studies isshinryu karate. I’ll skip all the martial arts lineage drama. Isshin kempo and isshinryu karate have close ties, so I found the same kata (forms), and I did not have to relearn everything from scratch.

I joined the dojo and studied for a few years with no questions, no doubts. I reached the rank of first degree black belt, and kept on studying. As I near the exam for second degree black belt, questions appear. The timing, as far as belt tests, is possibly coincidental. As the rest of life happened around me and to me, and as I looked at my behavior, and how I felt about things.. Questions appeared. As my view of the world becomes less self-centered – as the world grows beyond my belly button and encompasses others, and as I become aware more fully of other people, I see how I relate to other people.

So.. Why do I study martial arts? In a world and a society where fighters are a specific group of people, and the average person doesn’t fight, why? In a world where a living is made from the product of thoughts.. Why a physical discipline? What is the point?
I always believed in a society, or a social circle, or at least people who would accept and respect each other based on a similar culture, mindset, and skillset. I see this happen in the hacker/programmer culture and in the martial arts culture. This being said, I’m only talking about martial arts here.
So, I want to just be me and my skills, and not be respected for some other reason. And someday, I believe it’ll happen. It’s a long way up, but that’s the point – that skill cannot be faked.

So now, we come to a major doubt of mine, something that’s been nurtured for a while and which is the ghost I now need to face.
As an introduction, we have the Rocky movies, and there’s a manga called ‘The Breaker’ which I am reading, as recommended by a friend of mine. That manga talks about a kid who apparently has no physical skill, no innate ki, but develops tremendous spirit, determination, mental resistance, and learns through that. At the point where I am in the movie, he fights a kid who is a super-genius of the martial arts, has mastered five at the age of fifteen, has amazing amounts of ki and physical prowess, and is essentially perfect – but he relies on logic and doesn’t really understand the power of sheer spirit.

Well. As the second degree exam approaches… Slowly but surely, my training has become a little more intense, and I have felt things become more difficult. And I don’t like it. I do it, but I don’t like it. I am naturally a lazy person, and I want to change that. I just don’t put in that much effort. I rely on the fact that I am naturally ‘good enough’. I want to change that. I want to push myself further. But where’s my spirit? My will to not stop when it hurts? I’ve always lacked that. Oh – I don’t mean that I am a wuss, but … I doubt myself.

There has been improvement. I will not deny it. I have seen myself improve. I can stretch further than I used to, more than I used to.. I can do more push-ups, my stamina’s improved. I can do more.. But it’s not enough. I need to be more. More. More. Always more.

I get the feeling I’m reaching my limit. And this feeling has to be a mental block, an illusion. It can’t be real, but it seems so real. How do I get rid of this? Ugh. How do I convince myself that my limit is further away?

Tonight’s training (good AGAIN!)

Trevoke — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 02:40:26 +0000

It was surprisingly good. I didn’t feel very good tonight – slight headache, slight tingle in the throat. I wasn’t going to stay for my class, just help teach and then go home, get tea, get sleep.. But only two other adults showed up and sensei was upstairs, so I started the class and took it easy on the calisthenics and the stretches. Those two adults are the two with the most issues of muscle contractions (as in, they have no idea what relaxing means). So I started off real, real easy, taking them back to the basics.
I spent the entire class putting no emphasis on heavy force (or rather, an emphasis on the lack of such). All I wanted was high chambers, and then high and with the correct angle, and then high + the correct angle + tight chambers, and then that plus the kicks. So it was five reps of just chambers, then the other side, then five reps of loose, relaxed chambers on the first side, then the same thing on the other side.
I did that on all the basic kicks, which took about 30 minutes. It was time very well spent, because I noticed marked improvement in both students as well as in my own body.
Sensei came down about halfway through and listened, then watched. She gave a few key corrections to the students and one to me, and then afterwards, she told me I’d done a good thing! WOO HOO!

All in all, the light exercise gave me a light workout, keeping my body temperature up without exhausting me.. Now I’m home, sipping Silver Needle tea in a “Mug of vi” from Thinkgeek. Life is good, right this moment.

Another awesome training evening

Trevoke — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 03:59:06 +0000

So tonight, I went to train 35 minutes away from home, at the dojo where my sensei’s sensei teaches. Warmups / stretches, kicking drills, calisthenics, sparring, then fighting drills.
Sensei’s sensei has a son who is now 48. Now — I am fast by normal people’s standards. This guy is really fast by my standards. He also has a really positive energy – very friendly eyes, a great disposition.. And he can dislocate your jaw before you can blink or think “oh sh..!”, so don’t piss him off.
Anyway, as much as shihan (sensei’s sensei) is amazing, tall, skilled, talented, dedicated to his art, as much his son inherited many of the traits, has been training under his dad a long time, and has learned a lot from a ton of sparring and tournaments and just .. being there.
So now he imparts his wisdom and skills, and it’s WONDERFUL to watch him in action, and learn from him, and listen to his way of explaining things. Just like in Dune, “A process cannot be understood by stopping it”, he explains action and reaction within the context of a moving match, which is AWESOME.

I breathe hard when I’m in this class. It’s a bit of a work-out, and excellent cardio.
Oh ! So shihan’s son hit me twice, and I managed to shift out of the way of the third strike, like I felt his movement and reacted. It was sweet. Now I only need to make that happen ALL THE TIME.

Dojo tonight

Trevoke — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 02:50:39 +0000

I had a good time in the dojo tonight. Managed to bring a kid back from the verge of tears to feeling good and performing kata with solid focus and intent.. And then good sparring. Kid’s 6, by the way.
My class wasn’t that good, though I got a compliment on my push-ups from sensei. Went through my kicks.. Then sparred..

I fleetingly get a grasp of efficient body movement, and then it disappears, and then I have to train a lot more to make it happen again, and then more again, etc etc, until I can make it happen effortlessly.

I really, really love teaching martial arts. There’s something about the student-teacher relationship, in the study of something which involves both body and mind – and you can’t lie or fake your way through that. It’s all about the truth, and being naked and exposed. It forces you to examine yourself and your relationship with others.

Spending energy uselessly

Trevoke — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 22:59:31 +0000

I live on an island. It only took me until last week (10 years and change) to take my dad’s advice to go to the beach when I felt like it. So I did that, last week and today, and went swimming. Good for the muscles, good all-around body work. Great stretching. Different way of using the muscles.

Besides the fact that I could really only swim for 10-15 minutes before I was tired and a part of my arms started to ache (indicating, clearly, that I’d been ignoring it), I noticed on my way home that even just 30 minutes at the beach drained me of energy. The ‘new’ situation was interesting, I was very aware of everything, and I spent a lot of energy on focus which did not need to be spent. It’ll be a learning curve. It’s a shame autumn is upon us.

On another note, I am finding sand in my hair, and am reminded of my childhood. It is a good feeling.

Body weights

Trevoke — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 22:46:44 +0000

I found some body weights that can be carried under regular clothing. This is my review of them.
Pictures are at the following gallery: http://trevoke.net/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=12

Here are the different options, with first the size, then the weight. To figure out which size is good for you, measure the widest part of your forearm or leg.

Arm, Small / Medium: 8″ – 11″ ; 2lb 12oz
Arm, Large / Extra-Large: 11″ – 14″ ; 3lb 7oz
Leg, Small: 11″15 – 13″ ; 2lb 13oz
Leg, Medium: 13″ – 14″5 ; 4lb 6oz
Leg, Large: 14″5 – 16″ ; 5lb 0oz
Leg, Extra-Large: 16″ – 18″ ; 6lb 13oz

I measured and bought pairs. My calves are ~17″ around so I bought XL legs, and my arms were a teeny bit over 11″ so I bought the L/XL arms. The arms were a mistake, I should have taken the size below, I think. I’d need to build muscle to hold them well.

I wore a set (arms + legs) for a full day at work with minor or nil inconvenience (I was just a little hungrier than usual). I used them for running and jumping rope. They support non-sudden movements very, very well, and the leg weights did nothing unexpected or annoying doing the rope jumping.
I study isshinryu, which is a system which uses speed and snap in its strikes. The leg weights did fine in the kicking tests, but during the punching tests, the weights all crumpled up in a lump close to my wrist. It’s better if I wear something like a tennis sweatband close to my elbow to hold the weights there.

Men, put your egos at the door – I purchased them at a website called ‘As we change’, for women’s fitness.
Arms
Legs

I don’t think they really are meant for muscle-building, more for calorie-burning, but they can be used during regular training under your uniform. I will keep experimenting with them, and I would appreciate ideas as far as things to try with them on

Who follows who?

Trevoke — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 01:36:29 +0000

In the past couple of weeks, I’d gotten to spar progressively harder with a blue belt who is twice my age, but has been in dojos where sparring and self-defense were more important than kata. As a result, I consider him somewhat dangerous to spar with.. And, well, I let myself get caught up. I stopped being the watcher..
I hid behind the excuse that I was just sparring as hard as he wanted to spar, and so it just escalated.
Yesterday I took a different approach; I resolved to work on what I wanted to work, which turns out to be distance/range evaluation and shifting.. And I sparred at half-speed. He followed my speed, only speeding up a little as he got into it. I did not.
I asked him after sparring what he thought of the first minute or so of sparring with me, and he said he didn’t remember much.. But it enlightened me to hear “At first, I always take a few seconds to see if we’re going hard or soft, and then I get going”.
Here I was, thinking I was following him, and here he was, thinking he was following me! It sure is a good thing I took a step back from the vicious cycle.