Soke's 1st Lesson For 2005 ~ 7th January

Hello Everyone,

Tonight we had the first lesson for the New Year at the honbu with Sensei. There were about 35 to 40 people and Sensei opened the class by saying that this year we would be studying Gyokko Ryu Kosshijutsu, tachi, rokushaku bo and taijutsu.

The new scroll and kanji for the year. It says something about gods and good luck.

Sensei then asked Noguchi Sensei to demonstrate the first technique and the training for the year began. During the class Sensei demonstrated using all the themes and weapons, tachi, bo and taijutsu with a similar feeling.

One of the techniques he did on me was quite interesting. As I attacked with a punch and kick combination he took extra distance and affected my balance in-between the two attacks, then lightly controlled me to the ground and let me feel as though I could escape but every time I moved it lead to another trap which seemed to have a way out but this way out was again a trap. Another time I punched at him and was very lightly controlled to 4 different balance points, and as I lost balance on each one he swapped to the next but it was so light I could hardly feel what was happening. This was important he said because if you cause the opponent pain this is giving them information that they may be able to use against you so you need to be able to do things in a way that they can’t feel or understand.

Another point that I thought interesting was when he said that you never really finish any technique. I understood this to mean that as you are applying a technique you are already doing the next thing or technique, and so it is a continual progression of one thing to another thing. He also mentioned that you need to make use of every part of every motion, so as you are doing one thing the motions that you are using can be utilized to do other things at the same time or as a natural progression of the first. It was translated as continual moment of natural unconscious inspiration that enables you to know, without thinking, what needs to be done at any moment of time without missing a thing. He said that you have to learn how to naturally move in this way so that you can move in any way and deal with as many attacks or people as necessary no matter how or from where they are coming.

We had a short break then did more techniques also using the big battle tachi. It was a great start to the year and I look forward to the rest of the training during January and the rest of the year.