(no subject)
On Thursday I got to the dojo early so had some time to kill before the 5pm class wrapped up. I read a couple things from a book in the dojo library and one of them suggested to keep a journal so I might be making use of that here my LJ is seldom used. The following may make no sense as it is just me putting direct thought to words. I may go back through and clean it up but I get it and that's all that matters, right? :)
Last Tuesday I was promoted to 5th kyu, which is the first rank gained, so nothing special really, but it made me very happy. During that class I did a randori . That is where you have multiple people attacking you. In the lower ranks there is a set technique/s so that you don't trip over your own mind. It was really fun. I was doing a single same side grab defense/throw (I'll need to learn the proper name...). When we started it was kind of slow as my attackers and I had to establish a sort of pace that would push but not overly exceed my skill level (I say my level as I was working with 3 brown belts). I knew that I was in the right flow once I started to move around the mat a bit more freely. I'm so used to single attackers (in practice and the majority of my 'security' conflicts were single person violence) that opening up my vision to the entire dojo instead of focusing on a single thing was enlightening. When I got to that point I was planning 3 steps ahead of everything. Enter into one attacker, use the technique to turn them so that when I throw them it backs up another, take a large backwards crescent step to give myself a second to get centered before the third can reach me,... At one point I was moving into the technique with one person when my other arm was grabbed by another uke , for about a second I paused and felt defeated then my body just clicked back on and I shifted my hips into my turn, raising and lowering my right arm as I turned, throwing the first uke and getting the seconds arm dragged in front of my stomach. Since I now had one hand free I grabbed that wrist and turned back the other direction in a quick step turn allowing me to do the correct technique but with a wrist lock of my own. It felt really good to hit that mental wall but have the work that I have done over the past 9 months click onto auto pilot.
Last Tuesday I was promoted to 5th kyu, which is the first rank gained, so nothing special really, but it made me very happy. During that class I did a randori . That is where you have multiple people attacking you. In the lower ranks there is a set technique/s so that you don't trip over your own mind. It was really fun. I was doing a single same side grab defense/throw (I'll need to learn the proper name...). When we started it was kind of slow as my attackers and I had to establish a sort of pace that would push but not overly exceed my skill level (I say my level as I was working with 3 brown belts). I knew that I was in the right flow once I started to move around the mat a bit more freely. I'm so used to single attackers (in practice and the majority of my 'security' conflicts were single person violence) that opening up my vision to the entire dojo instead of focusing on a single thing was enlightening. When I got to that point I was planning 3 steps ahead of everything. Enter into one attacker, use the technique to turn them so that when I throw them it backs up another, take a large backwards crescent step to give myself a second to get centered before the third can reach me,... At one point I was moving into the technique with one person when my other arm was grabbed by another uke , for about a second I paused and felt defeated then my body just clicked back on and I shifted my hips into my turn, raising and lowering my right arm as I turned, throwing the first uke and getting the seconds arm dragged in front of my stomach. Since I now had one hand free I grabbed that wrist and turned back the other direction in a quick step turn allowing me to do the correct technique but with a wrist lock of my own. It felt really good to hit that mental wall but have the work that I have done over the past 9 months click onto auto pilot.