...I swear to God, you literally do have the most interesting dojo I've ever heard of. It's like something out of an anime (you had to have known that was coming, right? ^_~) I'm going to guess it was mixed martial arts, or something of the sort? You seem to have so many different styles and sensei!
Our taekwondo coaches when I was in high school could do some pretty impressive jump kicks--I don't know about over SUV hoods, we never tried that, but definitely over a string of hapless stretching students. (I think an odd sense of humour is a prerequisite for teaching martial arts.) And I recall Coach Dean somehow managing to kick himself in the nose...
One of my favourite sensei was in kendo--he spoke absolutely no English, but got his kicks by having us all charge at him. It's awfully disconcerting to charge headfirst in full bougu at a tiny little Japanese man... and then having him whap you on the rump with his shinai on your way literally bouncing off him. Not a one of us--even our three-hundred-pound former football player of a senpai--could budge him.
I guess it was mixed -- none of the sensei were paid, so a different person taught on Monday, vs. Tuesday vs. Wednesday, etc. Or sometimes "hey, I just met this guy, he has a motorcycle like me, and he teaches! So he's teaching today -- I'll be in the air conditioning." or some days... "I don't feel like teaching today. You -- get up front -- teach them something!" "I'm a yellow belt!" "What? Did I ask what rank you are? Get out!" "Eh...?" "I don't want to see you in this class!" "Yes..." "Get to the store! Get yourself a better belt!" And that was my promotion to green belt -- and my promotion out of kids class to adults' class. I had to have it explained by the brown-belt store clerk: "No, you aren't kicked out... he thinks you're too big for kids' class and wants you as a green belt."
Because there was no fixed curriculum I learned three different ways to middle block, and had to remember that you used block 1 on Thursday, block 2 on saturday, and block 3 all other days... and then there would be days where we didn't do anything but spar for two hours.
We did the "jump-kick over people" thing until someone landed on a poor student. That was the same day one of our old guys had some kind of odd bleed out and stained a pretty big chunk of the mat with blood -- and then died. (I'm not sure why; this was when I was still little. Some kind of cancer, maybe?) But until we replaced the canvas, we'd always tell people "oh yeah, that's where that one guy died."
And most days it was really normal! It wasn't insane every day.
I bet that was disconcerting -- and cool. Things like that are always cool.
I used to take Arnis for my PE - it's a Filipino form of martial art where you get to wack your opponent with sticks (good for dealing with stress, I know). My coach one day decided that it would be fun to pick on me and commanded me to gear up... and then proceeded to turn my head into a drumset. I probably lost bits and pieces of my brain then. Ehehe.
I always wanted to take arnis, but I was so caught up in club sports and taekwondo when I was in high school that there was no time. ;_;
In kendo--which primarily concentrates solely on whacking people on the head with large, weighted bamboo swords--we had one pair who were boyfriend/girlfriend. He was strong enough that he had to use a carbon shinai rather than a bamboo shinai, because he always ended up splintering the latter. He was a great martial artist, with fantastic control, but one day he managed to get a little too, uh, involved in his sparring with Alex (his girlfriend)... and managed to knock her out. WITH her helmet on. O_O ...er, well, they're married now, so obviously it did no permanent harm to their relationship. ^^;
Our taekwondo coaches when I was in high school could do some pretty impressive jump kicks--I don't know about over SUV hoods, we never tried that, but definitely over a string of hapless stretching students. (I think an odd sense of humour is a prerequisite for teaching martial arts.) And I recall Coach Dean somehow managing to kick himself in the nose...
One of my favourite sensei was in kendo--he spoke absolutely no English, but got his kicks by having us all charge at him. It's awfully disconcerting to charge headfirst in full bougu at a tiny little Japanese man... and then having him whap you on the rump with his shinai on your way literally bouncing off him. Not a one of us--even our three-hundred-pound former football player of a senpai--could budge him.
Reply
"I'm a yellow belt!"
"What? Did I ask what rank you are? Get out!"
"Eh...?"
"I don't want to see you in this class!"
"Yes..."
"Get to the store! Get yourself a better belt!"
And that was my promotion to green belt -- and my promotion out of kids class to adults' class. I had to have it explained by the brown-belt store clerk: "No, you aren't kicked out... he thinks you're too big for kids' class and wants you as a green belt."
Because there was no fixed curriculum I learned three different ways to middle block, and had to remember that you used block 1 on Thursday, block 2 on saturday, and block 3 all other days... and then there would be days where we didn't do anything but spar for two hours.
We did the "jump-kick over people" thing until someone landed on a poor student. That was the same day one of our old guys had some kind of odd bleed out and stained a pretty big chunk of the mat with blood -- and then died. (I'm not sure why; this was when I was still little. Some kind of cancer, maybe?) But until we replaced the canvas, we'd always tell people "oh yeah, that's where that one guy died."
And most days it was really normal! It wasn't insane every day.
I bet that was disconcerting -- and cool. Things like that are always cool.
Reply
I used to take Arnis for my PE - it's a Filipino form of martial art where you get to wack your opponent with sticks (good for dealing with stress, I know). My coach one day decided that it would be fun to pick on me and commanded me to gear up... and then proceeded to turn my head into a drumset. I probably lost bits and pieces of my brain then. Ehehe.
Reply
In kendo--which primarily concentrates solely on whacking people on the head with large, weighted bamboo swords--we had one pair who were boyfriend/girlfriend. He was strong enough that he had to use a carbon shinai rather than a bamboo shinai, because he always ended up splintering the latter. He was a great martial artist, with fantastic control, but one day he managed to get a little too, uh, involved in his sparring with Alex (his girlfriend)... and managed to knock her out. WITH her helmet on. O_O
...er, well, they're married now, so obviously it did no permanent harm to their relationship. ^^;
Reply
Leave a comment