Knowing yourself

In theory, MAs are a path to self knowledge. I seriously doubt it, very seriously.

I fact, I don't much believe the "Do" part in most martial arts. CAN it be used for such? Oh, sure. But if you think that someone who's raced the Dakkar doesn't know himself, hasn't reached a maturity in "Do" that many martial artists only imagine, then you're seriously off track. Marathon runners have more Zen than most high level dans. Solo mountain climbers risk their lives with samurai abandon. And so on. In non physical endeavors, painters, tea masters... And most of those don't add a "Do" to their name and end up with something useful after several hours of practice. Martial artists don't.

Many (both of those espousing "reality training" and those following the "Do") can't even defend themselves from a wet paper bag.

So , neither spiritual neither practical. What's missing?

That self-knowledge, maybe?

I just saw a video of a Kaju instructor. And I kept thinking... "Well, not quite. She doesn't quite decide what principle of movement she wants to use and keeps wandering around... Moves too much... Well, if she polishes that, then she could be..." And then I found an interview. 6th dan, director of two branches in a federation.

She's not going to get better. Not if she's reached all that at that level of practice and shows, smiling and satisfied, in the interview.

Now, she's an easy target, obvious. But... How many times do martial artists fall into that? A senpai commented to me some years ago that some character flaws were easier in the veryest of "Do" schools, because you wouldn't be hit back. In boxing, however, being a cretin had consequences. For starters, most instructors wouldn't risk you.

So, are MA good for self knowledge? Only as good as you allow them to be. As you invest on them to be. It doesn't come for free.

And, sadly, possibly the majority of those who approach the MA want a free lunch. No such thing, guys.

Which is, of course, why most of those go away. Still many remain. And they reach a teaching certificate.

Sigh... You can only guess at the quality of their instruction, and what loops their pupils will have to go through if they want to surpass the master (and they'll better).

Take care.

Circular drills

I was watching a documentary yester night (The Bladed Hand). While the opinions in the doc have some strong pitfalls, it's a worthy one, interesting. Would NOT train under some of these people if they paid me for it, but the rest...? Man, they're good.

Now, I think the teaching value of survival is mostly forgotten, and might help explain why the previous generations is so damn good. And I still think that the teaching proficiency itself of many (some of them legendary) teachers needs some work, but there's one thing FMA have that other arts don't emphasize as much.

The doc, at one point, basically says "FMA training has taken over cinema; if you've seen a fight, it's 90% sure it's FMA". Then it sort of extrapolates from there to MA training. I disagree. If anything's taken over MA it's boxing. But...

But the fact is that FMA have some interesting things in them. People get really attached to FMA drills, for example. You'll find people in every corner doing hubud or sombrada. Sometimes with no sense at all, no matter how you measure it. I think that's often a mistake.

The idea of drills isn't. In fact, a lot of arts have them. I can only speak for Japanese arts, but there are such drills there. Unending, partnered, fluid drills... that most instructors forget as soon as they grab the plane back to the West.

And I've been wondering, of late (since before this particular video), how to use the idea of circular, neverending drills in Kaju. Call it sombrada on techniques or hubud on our own "blocks", the idea is there, and it's really accessible. Why isn't it used? Why is most dynamic training I'm seeing a toeing into Boxing waters or some weird ideas on barroom brawls instead of a way to dynamize what you are already training.

Take care.

Bad boxing

Last week, at training, we put on our gloves.

Most of our system went right off the window.

I hate that. I hate that under the guise of learning how to cope with adrenaline we learn, badly, a system that's not our own (boxing, or kickboxing, depending). In... about 8 years in Kaju, I can count with a single hand how many times we've done some adrenal training on our own techniques (basic, kumite-like adrenaline, nothing fancy). "[the class' got] Not enough level" I was told for several years (until I quit asking). But, apparently, level enough for boxing. So, as I was telling a partner, we associate adrenaline with boxing we can't do while we associate Kajukenbo to a stroll at the gim. Not good, by far. It cheapens both systems.

I find it annoying, and worrisome. And my mind keeps trying o find ways around it. Might be finding some.

Take care

Mindset

We were doing some basic kali, this week. Snake disarms. Very basic, since kali is not our thing, just a way to get familiar with weapons and their effects.

But I come from classic Japanese fencing. The kali meme of "a stick is a sword is a stick"? I lean towards the sharp, pointy thingie. And yet, it seems I have something that should be more easy to grasp to people who lean "stick". Ie, pommel strikes.

What I'm finding in what little kali I've done is that people tend to strike with the "mono uchi", the last part of the sword when used for slashing. They forget pommel, they forget thrusts... The stick becomes a light baseball bat (or worse; a baseball bat does have a nice pommel, after all).

Now...the point of weapons is to get better offensive options. While it's true that, say, an F-18 isn't much good for a police restrain and yet a useful thing, it's not much good if you take a weapon and discard most of its uses. It would be like getting that F-18 and using it ONLY for dropping dumb bombs. What's the use of its radar, its cannon, its fly by wire? Get another weapon, if you only want that!

So, if you're only using slashing techniques, get a slashing weapon. But, oh, that needs edge angle awareness. So, we better keep a stick.

It's weird. the distance our style works best is close striking, almost grappling distance. With any other attack, we try to close there. And yet, most of us try to keep the distance when we have a stick. Why? The moment you've disarmed him, you do not need to get far away[*]. Use that pommel, use your elbow, use "abanico". There are lots of options, faster options, things that can really mess the other guy. But you need to use the whole of the weapon, for that.

The more I think about it (not only this once), the more I believe that we should train with short sword replicas, the more I see rattan leading to tactical laziness.[+]

Take care.

[*] Yes, if you've disarmed him and still carry your own stick, you're in a legal minefield.

[+] Not that swordwork is immune to that. There are a lot of distances available with a katana that are seldom explored. Even a lot of counter to a disarm attempt that try to control down the guy... when you'd started wanting to cut him down and you still have the damn sword!

Sankaku

Soemtimes you have one of those glimpses that makes you see things much more clearly... and realize you've been a fool until then.

I've said for a while (though I admit that I took most of those posts offline a couple of months ago) that I'm surprised about the relationships between Tatsumi-ryu (early XVIth century ryuha, Japan) and Kajukenbo (sort of Chinese ancestry, 1950s, Hawai'i). Both are very forward, frontal, arts... until they're not. Both require a weird fluidity, a transition between strength and bounce, a pressure...

And both share the same basic deflection.

I'd seen it, sort of, before. The idea was the same, but instead of using the arm, you were using a 3-feet blade.

Except it's more than that. Kajukenbo deflects with the weak arm while the strong one comes from below and shields. In an emergency, you can simply put your strong hand over its ear and your other hand reinforces the arm. It's a rather strong shield that can move around more than you'd expect (and has a pointy end).

Tatsumi ryu has mukou. The strong hand grips the sword while the weak one... grips both sword and arm and reinforces it. Not only the "energy" is the same (both physical and "psychological" [*])... the actual physical structure of your own body is almost a copy.

I'm an idiot. A practised idiot.

Take care.

[*] Willpower, intent... call it as you wish.

Sharply forward

There are two kanji (and a zen proverb) I'm falling in love in MA. The proverb is that in my "avatar", 'gen mata gen'. Mystery beyond (the) mystery. There's a longer version, and it comes originally from China, at least. It reflects the idea that every time you think you've solved something in life, there's another mystery behind it.

The other two are more "mechanic". Mukō (first kanji on the right) is a kanji I met through Tatsumi-ryū. In the school, it means forwardness, and it's applied a to a go no sen technique, a technique where you're reacting and where you must push forward, avoid getting into defensive mode. It's a mindset that applies beautifully to Kajukenbo, even its associated mechanics.

And the last one... the last one goes the other way. If Mukō is something I first understood in Tatsumi and brought to Kajukenbo, Hazumu is something I've learned in Kajukenbo and I'm learning to apply to Tatsumi. Meaning? Bouncy, bullet, snap, flip, lively... Do not stop your technique at every hit. Bounce back. Use his energy and snap back into him.

I'm liking it, but I realize you need a certain kind of head.

Take care.

Tactics

Rory differentiates between strategies, tactics, principles... Regarding Kajukenbo [*], we have a single strategy: Jam his head. This can be pretty literal, or not so much. The idea is that you confuse him by alternating sources of pain (heights of strikes, whatever), robbing field of vision, messing with is balance (occupying space, these last two)... Everything's set up for jamming his OODA. And when he's got enough to catch up to, you ask for payment in full.

But that's the strategy. As we train, it's not taught separately. In a way, somehow like we're not taught to breathe [+] beyond some pointers here and there when we go somewhere real cold, or we start Phys-Ed classes. We probably put more importance in the particular tools. Some of them:

• The centerline Angel put some Wing Chun in our Kajukenbo. Not specific moves (we don't have Chun Choi, for example), but the mindset. We're a tad more circular that what I've seen of WC, but some ideas are there.
• The push We kind of roll over through our opponent, little by little, using the extension of our punches. We don't strike to push, but we do, indeed, push some after the strike. Its a tad hard to explain. I've seen similar ideas in iaido, in that tiny moment just after impact, but you have to train under people who actually mean to cut.
• The bounce When we don't quite push, early on the technique, we use the meeting of forces to cut the deployment time of our next hit. Possibly one of the reasons we tend to use both hands to block. One stays, the other bounces back and strikes before the block is finished. when it merges with the centerline, you get something pretty similar to some ideas of Ittō-ryū kenjutsu.
• Cutting the circle See last post. This merges quite well with the bounce, to the point that, as we use them, they often feel like the same.

Then we have some extras: position (positio, position, position!), control, offlining... But the way we reach that is through these tools. Now, let's see if I can find a way to emphasize it.

Take care.

[*] KSDI-Spain, under Ángel García-Soldado. We are considered more or less heretics.

[+] Well, I was. Asthma has that. And meditation practitioners. Most people aren't, though.

Cutting the circle

I've been thinking around our blocks, about ways to train them basically. Think kung-fu film routines. Or Karate Kid, either Hawai'i or Beijing. Then I recalled a couple of our syllabus techniques against a baton strike, the one for our fifth coloured belt.

I think, and take that with a salt mine, that the difference between the circles in Kajukenbo and those in Aikido is that Aikido follows the circle and the wave to their conclusion, even when it shortens it, when it compacts the radius for a quicker end. Kajukenbo interrupts the circle. A circle it has created itself. The mindset for this is, in a way, as anti-ju (or anti-aiki) as you might imagine.

And yet... Imagine a throw in that most known of ju styles, Kodokan judo. Say, the very basic O-soto gari. You are creating a circle... and trusting the ground to end it. It does that, mind you. And the ways some schools use it is the difference between "do" (I want to keep playing with my partner on my way to satori) and "jutsu" (I want to break the son of a bitch so that I'm alive to reach satori).

Kajukenbo, in a way, shortcuts that. It sets artificial "floors" so that your opponent finds itself bouncing from a force into another, getting hit twice as hard with a minimum extra of force. He is not allowed to "shed". Of course, like a good judo entrance, you cannot click the damn thing, it has to be fluid. And there lies the problem. Striking fluidly seems to be harder that throwing, which already is hard enough.

So, Kajukenbo, the bouncing art?

Take care.

Blocks

Following the previous post, and the reason for it before I got sidetracked, I've been browsing through the KJKB syllabus.

I haven't been able to see more than 3 kinds of blocks. I could see less. With upper and lower variants, plus angle variations. A slight recap, maybe...

The basics

• Pyramidal block. That's how we call a block where the front hand parries some of the punch while the back hand comes from the underside, just past the centerline, followed by the elbow. Between both, they set a wedge and a shield that pushes the attack away. both hands are ready for the next move, so much so that usually one of them is already out before the block ends.
  Variations: That hand coming up can come in so many angles to punish the triceps, do a slight circle back to the aggressor's head, forego the hand and work with the elbow...
• Parallel block. Name's mine, I'm afraid. I needed a way to talk about this. In this case, the rear hand parries and absorbs the strike, while the front hand goes forward and strikes.
  Variations: The front hand can go for the head, the shoulder joint, the biceps... The read hand can absorb in so many ways, elbow down or up... The hands are not as "bouncy" as before, not as coiled.
• Scissor: Half of each. The front hand parries like in the pyramidal block, while the rear hand strikes like the front one in the parallel block. You still have a parry and a strike, you still have the bounce (in one of the hands), you still have some wariations.

Ideally, all of these should be made in full frontal stance, natural. Now, we've done "variations", let's do...

Variants

What happens if the strike is down under? A rising broken bottle, a shank, a kick... We still have the same mechanics, but the hands go down (and the hip becomes critical, but that's another issue). The front hand becomes secondary

But you'll start to notice something. That the difference between the pyramidal and the parallel blocks fades away. It's still kind of there, but you have to squint a bit.

The mother of them all

Which is when you look at the first blocks again... Now, we'd already established that the scissor is sort of a merge of the other two. But... the ones giving us trouble in the lower body where, precisely, those two... What's happening?

Circles.

Put you hands in front of you. Imagine they're holding the pedals of a bicycle, but with both hands facing inward (open or close, your comfort). Now, "pedal". Keep pedalling, but chose a stance. Now comes a strike. If the hand that first catches the strike is the front hand, you have a pyramidal block.

Guess which one is the other.

Take care.

Naihanchi

Since things are going to get erased, a reminder: Kajukenbo's 6th Palama kata is, basically, karate's Naihanchi. Now, I haven't been able to find a nice comparison of karate's many Naihanchi variants, certainly nothing similar to Sanchin, but it is known that there are several variants of it.

To my knowledge, none of them have the particular enbusen of KJKB's, which is NOT linear.

Now, Kajukenbo was started post WWII, not the best moment for karate. Martial arts had become set, scripted. Rows of people doing big moves. While Kajukenbo challenged some of this, and has some claim to that "the original MMA/RBSD" meme popular in the States, it was still a child of its times.

Those times went on, and Kajukenbo turned its back on kata, made them superfluous, barely apt for competition, like many other karate systems. Then, the Spanish branch started changing its understanding of the techniques, of teaching, of fluidity... Yet we kept our kata.

Meanwhile, karate realized what it had lost, and started rebuilding its kata, little by little. Interviewing old, retired masters. Looking at their kata with new eyes. People in the West started recycling their half-assed knowledge, brought from people who, while pioneers, had mostly not been properly immersed in the system.

What I want to get is a Naihanchi that reflects what Kajukenbo does. Not what it did, but what we use now. Our emphases, our patterns. They're there, but they aren't. And I see some things clearly, while others are... proving reluctant to embed themselves in an existing kata.

We'll see. Take care.

Kajukenbo, the uncomitting art?

This is going to sound weird, if it doesn't already. But... I've said before (the link's about to get offed, so I won't re-link it here) that my understanding of the division between internal and external martial arts is a tad... particular. That said...

Current karate inherited, from Itto ryu, the "one punch, one kill" mindset. As a mindset, I don't have anything against it. As a belief... it should be shot dead and thrown to the sharks. Thing is...

Thing is, I was thinking, which is usually dangerous somewhere along the line. And I realized that our punches, the way we punch (and counterattack, and...) doesn't leave much room for "one-shot kills". We do have a couple of syllabus techniques that do allow for that "2 moves, three of them lethal" mindset of the really old schools [*].

What I see in those techniques, and styles, is that there are not "holes". Sure, the very best artists will always find a hole in your guard, no matter how good you are. Beyond that, my problem with committing attacks, as they're usually seen, is that they over-reach, they leave you wide open. If it gets the perp, great. If it doesn't...

So, (our) Kajukenbo [+] doesn't come striking from the back beyond, one sure punch to down them all. It doesn't even do that, not really, from nearby. While it does use some hard "here I come" punches, they're more like "finishing moves", not structurally different from the rest. Just, maybe, different in intent, but nothing you cannot change to a more flowing motion you could build on.

Which means it has more in common with softer styles, or with certain modern interpretations of karate not glued to the pre-post wartime Japanese instruction. Which might mean why I can train comfortably with it.

Thought food. Take care.

[*] There's a technique, in Tatsumi ryu's "jujutsu" syllabus, from seiza, with two moves and three hits, all of which can potentially shut the brain down (or over). Then, you control him. There's a technique in the KJKB syllabus with two moves. While only two are potentially lethal, three of them break something. Both techniques start from relatively soft attacks (as always, context is everything). I sense a pattern.

[+] No reason why the old techniques shouldn't have that. However, those practitioners I've seen seem congealed in a Jo-Shu level or a Ri-Kyu mess (Shu-ha-ri and Jo-ha-kyu; set practice-experimentation-transcendence and Soft slow-compact flow-emergency discard, respectively, but you have to be wary of jumping levels)

Challenging the master

Maybe this is another "kill the Buda" thing, but...

We trained something more dynamic, today. Gloves and mitts, mostly. While I'm not a fan of most such work, since I don't see the link to our mechanics, some of it was rather interesting.

And then, I cheated. If you know me, this shouldn't surprise you that much. I cheat, it's what I do. Think about the scorpion and the turtle. It takes an effort for me not to find holes in rules and exploit them, whether they are game rules or social rules. Usually in a rather tame way, but still...

Thing is, we had a 2-vs-1 drill were the opponents had a receiving and an attacking role. The idea is that whoever was doing the exercise would try to avoid the puncher while beating against the mitts of the other one. Annoyingly tiring.

And then, I got to hold the gloves while my instructor tried to avoid the punches of an old friend.

So I cheated. I did follow the rules to the letter, mind you. But I went into offensive mindsets and collaborative work, trying to box him so that his buddy could punch him properly. Evading him when he managed something. And so on, keeping him, usually, at the tip of a wide 'V', pushing him.

We exhausted him.

Now, if he had been anyone else, I wouldn't have been as aggressive. If he had been only slightly my senior, most gyms would have found that OK.

He's 6 dan my senior. I can feel the disturbance in the Force as my challenge to the mid-high dan status quo ripples over the establishment.

And yet, that's my duty. He is six dan my senior. I have to give the most. And he doesn't have people six dan his senior to challenge him, to teach him, so the only way he has to get better, day to day (this is, excepting high level seminars or private classes), is through his pupils. We don't want him at the same level (or, likely, worse) ten years from now because he had no way to progress, to reach beyond. And, hey, watching him cope is a lesson. So, there.

Still, I can't help but feel this is not a common mindset. More's the pity.

Take care.

Enshrining the Pooh-Bah

Why do people insist in the worship of idols? Even in associations where the headmaster is as down to earth as you could ask for, you get people who eat the "my martial art is the best thing since sliced bread" meme and apply it to their art and their head instructor. Against his wishes.

I've known Ángel since early autumn, 1994. That's over 20 years, guys. Some of the current black belt practitioners weren't even born. A big share of them were learning to walk. And the, in a discussion about the origins of the Spanish branch, and about its influences and trajectory, one of the guys inserts the statements of someone from EPAK, of all things, to justify his interpretation, his very much restrictive interpretation, of Ángel's style. Against his words and behaviour these last 20 years.

People have given up hope on humankind for less.

Why is it that people insist on the mechanics, skim them, crank the strength on them... and then conveniently forget, because it runs against what they just did, whatever else the instructor actually, you know, said?

And if this happens with someone who's been trying to avoid it for decades...

Annoyed. 36+ hours later, and I'm still pissed. That's no way to honour someone's teachings.

Take care.

Kajukenbo revolution

The Spanish branch of KSDI used to have a couple of... mantra. One was around bullfights and such. The other was something called "evolution", to try to explain why and how our training method differed from the classic one. As I see it, it's more a difference of training focus than a difference in mechanics, but... well, MA and its societies and breaking up and...

What just pinged me is that some points regarding "pure" KJKB are evidently false. Misguided, at best.

I practice Japanese martial arts. Not "I trained a couple of months in Japan and I came back with a new system", but 500-yo martial arts (as in, there's documents about it). And a thing old Japanese systems have is that... they've changed. They get that kata in for such reason, they leave that kata only for high level instructors and people who really show a specific interest because no one needs it any longer... Even the teaching emphasis changes, and it has in the last 20 years. The principles are the same, the techniques... sort of, sort of not. And the execution and teaching changes from instructor to instructor.

Karate had that, and it's recovering it after the disaster that was the military build-up and the war.

Kajukenbo? Often, I can't see it. All I see is "pit" stress training, macho reps, shitty mechanics done faster. Sometimes even here. Why? Tradition? Gimme a break! It doesn't work like that. If you want to respect tradition, respect the substance, not the barest of forms. Substance can give you any form in your style. Bad form will never get you substance.

Sigh. Take care.

Blocks

Most of our blocks, in KJKB, are two. Then, we have two others that can be seen as offshots. And even the first two are, basically, the same block with altered coordination. In fact, if you use one of the variants of one, pressuring into the centerline, you get almost the same final position.

It's curious, because those two blocks are, mostly, efficient versions of what Rory calls 'Dracula's cape' and 'the spear', resp (*). Also, while they do work as blocks, that's really only the beginning, almost an excuse. What you really get is an entry.

So, I'm beginning to rethink blocks, and punches. I'm starting to think of punches as a way to increase your distance and blocks ans ways to close them. This classification has its own troubles, but bear with me.

Imagine an oi-tsuki. Once you've done it, and supposing your opponent hasn't been pushed back (or fallen, or...), your guy is an arm's length away. Precisely so. This means you have that distance, you know it and you can choose what to do with it (a kick, running away...). He's not choosing his distance any longer. That's quite a plus. Same for an elbow strike, a side kick, you name it.

Now, imagine the upper block (that's Tristan Sutrisno, on your right side; superb). If you do that against, say, our previous oi-tsuki, you enter his perimeter. Again, you control your distance. This time, however, you're closing in, and jamming his movement. In some options, you just locked his retreating arm, and he'll need to get rid of that to use it again or to close into you, and you'll have time to work your own ideas.

"Before I studied the art, a punch to me was just like a punch, a block just like a block. After I learned the art, a punch was no longer a punch, a block no longer a block." Shu-ha-ri, Bruce Lee edition. Let's see if I reach the next one.

Take care.

(*) I do not, in any way shape or form, endorse Bauer. For a single nanosecond.

Coupling

That post just before? Check this, specially after the first minute.

Now, KJKB throws aren't like this, it comes with, er, tendering your opponent beforehand. But. There are two ideas in those videos that jump to you... Three, sorry. One is thoroughness, decission. That takedown IS going to work, IS going to take him down. Another is adhesion. Once Tori gains contact, he keeps it; well, contact and thrust. And that's the third one, continuity. Once you start, you only stopo when it's really over.

Check for that in the "jujitsu" video. Adhesion? Decission or forwardness? Continuity?

And it's not the techniques' fault. You could put those elements in most of them. Put them back, likely. But they're not there. Another level, and something I was actually teaching some weeks ago:

First, become acquainted with force couples. Now, sadly, shed a bit of the proper definition. Do we agree that moving an old, unassisted, driving wheel (Or a valve actuator, or...) is best done with two hands? Separated, one pushing and the other pulling? Moving someone else's body works the same way. Call it scissoring, call it how you will, if I push one of your shoulders and I pull the other one, it's much easier to move you than if I push with both hands in the same place. And MUCH better than a single hand. If I push your shoulders back, it's much better if I pull your feet forward. Yes? It's called o soto gari.

Most judo, and equivalent, has this in spades. Ippon seoi nage (arm and hip), harai goshi (arm and leg), kata guruma... You name it.

Check, in the longish video in last post, how many times this is NOT there. Check how many times it IS in the video in my first paragraph here. Ponder. Take care.

Where I come from

Remember I said I had trouble graspingcertain KJKB ideas? This is why. I spent two three-year periods with them in the late 80s and early 90s (back then, tori was a 2d). I recall our main instructor then had some interesting concepts on structure and intent, but he said them far too seldom. Might be one of the reasons they're mostly absent in those videos. It was one of the reasons they looked at me weird, there. That and trying to watch for defence... Glitches, I guess. Things that would bute you in the ass in a SD situation.

For example, see this other one. That elbow lock is badly done, and so is that neck clamp (for starters, they don't reinforce each other); that's the only reason he can do the rest of the technique.

If you watch the longer video, the first one, there are a bunch of movements that make no sense, weird glitches. Some of them have been introduced after I left. I know I still have a couple of the rest, almost 20 years later. Now, there are those weird glitches with the extra step beforee a takedown/throw. That kneeling in kamae after the technique's done. That... You name it, they've put it in.

And I won't get into 1 vs 2 techniques with unresponsive 2nd uke and other niceties. Or the hojo jutsu like endings. Endings are well and good... Once you've actually, you know, defeated the guy, survived the attack.

Thing is, the basic idea of those techniques is not that bad. What they miss could mostly be solved with Japanese concepts. Zanshin, kime... But the modernization has dumped all that... And not gotten anything else to substitute it. There's no intent, no awareness of the danger of the situation. A good lot of those techniques would seriously improve if Tori simply pressured forward some. And dumped extra movement (like that wacky step before throws; seriously, that instructor was a judo competitor!). And, and that's something I was aware of back then, as a colour belt, and links with the 'pressure' concept, if they did the waza technically correct. Like that suppsoed sode garami, for example. I mean, some of our Kaju techniques are pretty similar (That grab technique around the 20s mark is rather similar to one of our second set, for orange; the differences are telling. Not the fact that the attack is different, but differences in the balance of the takedown, for example). And, again, some of these ideas were taught, if rarely, back then. Now...

Sigh. If I've had as much trouble as I've had getting rid of those habits and I goddamn tried...

Take care

Training train

I'm on the train back from my first "instructors meeting" of Kajukenbo. In theory, the first I've been allowed to be in, but apparently some people do not feel under the same rules. It's basically a black belt seminar.

Nice training. Met a couple of interesting guys, trained some, thought some more. I had to direct a class on Thursday, and this training has given me ideas for the next one I have to set, whenever it comes. And I'm not even too sore.

It makes you think, though, and think some more to see some things. The training itself is not really all that different from other seminars, but it's sort of more... Focused.

Also, my instructor sort of confessed to me that, back when I joined, he didn't really expect me to last. Neither was I all that hopeful, myself, back then. Like he, I saw how different Kaju was from what I knew, what I'd done before. And, mind you, it's still s daily struggle. People laugh, because it's a tad ridiculous to see a black belt saying things on the line of "Kaju doesn't agree with me". Or "I have trouble with this or that... Hell, i have trouble with Kaju", but beyond the awareness of the "advanced" belt of how much he still has to learn, it's true that Kaju is not, and never has been, a style that agrees with me. Neither my bodytype, a walking asparragus, nor my previous learning as a child and teen, in some sort of modernized jujutsu and judo, really help in learning a style that works at a mid-short distance, with a lot of percussion, almost none of which is snapping.

So it's hard, daily. It's also rewarding. Because it proves that the mind can win over the body. That your mind itself can change. And because training in certain things is a reward itself. Seeing how things snap together... How things can get symplified... And The same way I owe a lot of my SD-in-MA ideas to Angel, 20 years ago, I peobably owe a lot of my MA-as-move ideas to Rory.

Let's see if I can ever manage to teach them.

Take care

Blindfolds are black

At the very least from the inside.

I didn't feel this as much in Seitei, nor do I feel it in Tatsumi, but I've seen it / felt it in KJKB. Some people see the black belt as a sort über-level, so getting there makes so much of a big difference that they stop training once they reach it, their motive gone, conquered. Some comments by a partner might have pointed in that direction, just after the test. Maybe not: it would not be the first time his words come out of the wrong orifice but his actions keep being... Well, not 'good', but adequate.

Thing is, getting ready for the test, maybe seeing some techniques together, or training them slightly differently, allowed me to see some things that point into interesting directions... And that I don't yet understand completely, not even in execution.

So, to me, getting ready for black belt has been, in part, the removal of that blind. While I don't really expect to reach 10th dan, fact is thst I'm barely half way the formal knowledge recognition. That I'm seeing things I didn't see a year ago, that... That it would be sad if I stopped where I'm at now, now that I've seen some of my mistakes, perceived certain shapes.

And yet, the black belt sanctuary myth keeps on.

Take care.

Twenty years in the making...

I graded for black belt today, in Kajukenbo, through Angel GS.

First met KJKB through a gym partner, a guy who did three different arts and who left at least two of them not long later.

However, Angel was the first guy I met who said certain things about MA's relation to violence that have become more common these days, at least in lip service, but that I was getting weird looks for suggesting back then.

However, he was hard style and I was soft, even more back then. Then, about two years later, I left MA for quite a while. Saddened, done with the lot of self grooming associations... Missing MA every single week for ten years.

Got back into MA through a really nearby school I distrusted and ended up leaving, but by then I was already back in touch with KJKB, so I tried the style again. My mindset had changed some; Kajukenbo had, too. I'd gone to a seminar with testings and it looked like it was something I could make my own. Not completely convinced, back then, but that was late Feb'08. Might have been slightly sooner if life hadn't insisted on hurdles along the way. Still, not all that much: I did say my mindset was different, did I not?

Take care. Let's see what's out there.