Bujinkan
It's been nice to get back to Bujinkan in NJ this week. Ironically enough, on Monday, when I got to the class, I was the highest ranking person there which meant I had to start the class, which wasn't too hard, but figuring out what to start them training on when I hadn't been there since January was much harder. Luckily, they've been doing bo drills, so I just set them to reviewing them (even though I'm not very good at bo drills) and Jack finally came in about 20min in. He switched us to doing more recent bo drills, combining about four of them into one. He has someone read them out when they go over all four at once, but I found it easier just to memorize them physically one after another (dyslexia and verbal commands for physical actions doesn't work as well as I would like). I have a copy of the bo drills Jack is using now so I can use it in my own training and go at my own pace. Since all the left and right commands in bo drills make them extra difficult for me. Probably need to buy a bo though...
Yesterday, I got to training a bit late because I forget how bad traffic is in NJ. J. was teaching fairly relaxing moves of either going in and taking space around the face before doing whichever take down, or taking the space around the elbow of a stomach punch and going from there. Jack arrived in the last twenty minutes or so and had some good advice. One take down was really difficult because it involved no strength, but you had their shoulder joint resting in the crook of your arm, with your shoulder against theirs, and your hand/fingers pointing up in the air. Then you moved in and around, without pushing to get their shoulder in a place where it would spiral to the ground (plus, lightly break up their stance by slightly bending their knee). It was not a very intuitive move and both I and my training partner, T., (who is much higher ranked than me) struggled at it. Another thing I noticed on another move was that I was having trouble and trying to pull doing this one move which was supposed to be a sort of guiding of the knee - not because I was doing it wrong, but because I didn't have the hand/single arm strength to do it by placing my hand in the exact same way as J. was. Once one of them suggested a new way, I found it quite easy. I need to keep that in mind in the future.
Yesterday, I got to training a bit late because I forget how bad traffic is in NJ. J. was teaching fairly relaxing moves of either going in and taking space around the face before doing whichever take down, or taking the space around the elbow of a stomach punch and going from there. Jack arrived in the last twenty minutes or so and had some good advice. One take down was really difficult because it involved no strength, but you had their shoulder joint resting in the crook of your arm, with your shoulder against theirs, and your hand/fingers pointing up in the air. Then you moved in and around, without pushing to get their shoulder in a place where it would spiral to the ground (plus, lightly break up their stance by slightly bending their knee). It was not a very intuitive move and both I and my training partner, T., (who is much higher ranked than me) struggled at it. Another thing I noticed on another move was that I was having trouble and trying to pull doing this one move which was supposed to be a sort of guiding of the knee - not because I was doing it wrong, but because I didn't have the hand/single arm strength to do it by placing my hand in the exact same way as J. was. Once one of them suggested a new way, I found it quite easy. I need to keep that in mind in the future.