Bujinkan
Bujinkan last night was focused on sui no kata (water). Sui is flowing, yes, but it's also about controlling the flow within your body. The arm comes up to block, and though your wrist moves, the crook of your elbow should still be pointing up at all times (it's the same for the strike), as you block, your back hip opens up and is pulled in, the back hand comes straight up then strikes out in shuto, and all that energy from the hip gets transferred to your back and arm, backing up the strike. You are also pulling your shoulder muscles back when you block and strike, this makes you use your whole body not just your arm. I need to practice this and keeping my elbow crook facing up.
We did a lot of variations on sui no kata. They changed a little when the attacker switched to throwing crosses. This shortened the amount of time/space you had to respond so we were sort of doing relaxed versions of sui no kata. One hand up to block, the other with the elbow up to block the second punch that usually follows, you go around that arm (using the elbow as a pivot) and then do the shuto. A variation had you placing your hand on the back of their neck, then straightening and twisting so they fell down.
The weapon was once again sword (I'm assuming because Jack got a new wooden Chinese style sword which he wants to play with). Sui no kata works very well with sword. You still block with the sword (keeping your kamae), then move in to use your other hand to either grab their sword, or what not. The attack btw, was not overhead but swinging the sword one handed from about neck height (my partner's sword was very heavy so my arm is killing me, plus it wasn't well finished so I have a splinter too). One variation involved the usual block, but then a circular motion while stepping in to get their sword out of the way (a sort of twisting of the blades) while still allowing yours to be pointing at them.
My training partner was a new green belt I've never met before, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that while his movements were very slow and jerky, he was generally on the right track. Jack told me to stop being so nice to my partner though. *oy vey*
We did a lot of variations on sui no kata. They changed a little when the attacker switched to throwing crosses. This shortened the amount of time/space you had to respond so we were sort of doing relaxed versions of sui no kata. One hand up to block, the other with the elbow up to block the second punch that usually follows, you go around that arm (using the elbow as a pivot) and then do the shuto. A variation had you placing your hand on the back of their neck, then straightening and twisting so they fell down.
The weapon was once again sword (I'm assuming because Jack got a new wooden Chinese style sword which he wants to play with). Sui no kata works very well with sword. You still block with the sword (keeping your kamae), then move in to use your other hand to either grab their sword, or what not. The attack btw, was not overhead but swinging the sword one handed from about neck height (my partner's sword was very heavy so my arm is killing me, plus it wasn't well finished so I have a splinter too). One variation involved the usual block, but then a circular motion while stepping in to get their sword out of the way (a sort of twisting of the blades) while still allowing yours to be pointing at them.
My training partner was a new green belt I've never met before, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that while his movements were very slow and jerky, he was generally on the right track. Jack told me to stop being so nice to my partner though. *oy vey*