(no subject)
With it being the holiday weekend, the martial art school's weekend classes were cancelled, so Beemer and I went in for a couple of hours for a comfy spot to work out. My KF uniform is in the dryer, so I don my TKD outfit and we head out.
Clearly our workouts are vastly different. I do my best to just focus on my forms, weapons, stretches, and other martial exercises while he's off doing his slower-paced calisthenics. To his credit, his slower pace does keep him going for a good period of time so I'm not really going to criticize. When my drills and his workout is complete, I offer to let him get some fan practice in.
I'm not trained in fan yet. Everything I know is from gleaning instructional videos while adapting some moves from my fencing days and implementing the strike angles I'd use from my sword form. It's not the most elegant thing, but it's enough to use the closed fan as both a small rod-like object for smacking and blocking while recognizing the opening movement of the fan as a blade cut. It works enough to get me going with strike-cut combos. Teaching this, however, is another matter.
Beemer doesn't have martial training. He needs the value of the angles, the absolute or relative stances, the purpose of the twists, the rotation of the hips for transition of power, etc. I understand these components and adapt them on the fly, but he needs the details and my saying "just 'feel' it" soooo isn't cutting it. (So to speak.)
We work on what stances are best suited for his body, finding that an altered Tai Chi/Tae Kwon Do stance is much better for him than my in-line Kung Fu stances. We spend a good amount of time trying various things to make his stance comfortable and useable, trying to figure out how to overcome the limitations put to him by his flat-feet and leg shape. We were standing facing the large mirrors on the wall, pants legs pulled up to compare foot-knee-leg contours, seeing how his body is built rather differently than mine...
...when Sa Bom Nim Merta pulls up in his car. From his perspective, a TKD student he doesn't immediately recognize is next to a large man he also doesn't recognize, both with their pants legs pulled high up onto their thighs. Yes, he was wearing a very concerned "WTF??" face as he entered the studio. Luckily, he realized it was just us being silly, but damn that was humiliating!
Anyway, Beemer has an idea of a good solid stance to use while getting the basics of opening/closing the fan and some attack angles down. As for me, I get to learn patience. Lots of it. I've always been a bit leery about working with him in an instructional capacity since I know that can put a huge stress on our relationship, but he kindly reminds me to dole out my instructions/drills in very, very slow increments so he can fully process the information and concept of the physical motions. Okay, I can do that.
In other training related news, I've been using my training kamas during my non-weapon forms and finding they fit alarmingly well. The kamas, being single handed sickles, offer the preying mantis' scythe to our attacks, grabs, and blocks. Yes, there's a small amount of alteration to be done, but it's a natural fit for each of the forms. No, they're not traditional kung fu weapons, but they could very easily be included in our system.
Clearly our workouts are vastly different. I do my best to just focus on my forms, weapons, stretches, and other martial exercises while he's off doing his slower-paced calisthenics. To his credit, his slower pace does keep him going for a good period of time so I'm not really going to criticize. When my drills and his workout is complete, I offer to let him get some fan practice in.
I'm not trained in fan yet. Everything I know is from gleaning instructional videos while adapting some moves from my fencing days and implementing the strike angles I'd use from my sword form. It's not the most elegant thing, but it's enough to use the closed fan as both a small rod-like object for smacking and blocking while recognizing the opening movement of the fan as a blade cut. It works enough to get me going with strike-cut combos. Teaching this, however, is another matter.
Beemer doesn't have martial training. He needs the value of the angles, the absolute or relative stances, the purpose of the twists, the rotation of the hips for transition of power, etc. I understand these components and adapt them on the fly, but he needs the details and my saying "just 'feel' it" soooo isn't cutting it. (So to speak.)
We work on what stances are best suited for his body, finding that an altered Tai Chi/Tae Kwon Do stance is much better for him than my in-line Kung Fu stances. We spend a good amount of time trying various things to make his stance comfortable and useable, trying to figure out how to overcome the limitations put to him by his flat-feet and leg shape. We were standing facing the large mirrors on the wall, pants legs pulled up to compare foot-knee-leg contours, seeing how his body is built rather differently than mine...
...when Sa Bom Nim Merta pulls up in his car. From his perspective, a TKD student he doesn't immediately recognize is next to a large man he also doesn't recognize, both with their pants legs pulled high up onto their thighs. Yes, he was wearing a very concerned "WTF??" face as he entered the studio. Luckily, he realized it was just us being silly, but damn that was humiliating!
Anyway, Beemer has an idea of a good solid stance to use while getting the basics of opening/closing the fan and some attack angles down. As for me, I get to learn patience. Lots of it. I've always been a bit leery about working with him in an instructional capacity since I know that can put a huge stress on our relationship, but he kindly reminds me to dole out my instructions/drills in very, very slow increments so he can fully process the information and concept of the physical motions. Okay, I can do that.
In other training related news, I've been using my training kamas during my non-weapon forms and finding they fit alarmingly well. The kamas, being single handed sickles, offer the preying mantis' scythe to our attacks, grabs, and blocks. Yes, there's a small amount of alteration to be done, but it's a natural fit for each of the forms. No, they're not traditional kung fu weapons, but they could very easily be included in our system.