Solo Class with Makoto Today
So I went in for another afternoon Jeet Kune Do class today and much to my surprise I was the only student present. So after a pleasant chat about punk rock in the old days and some other pretty cool stuff, we got down to business. Today the business was footwork and working from basic structure. Makoto started me by getting me to move around the room and watching how my footwork was doing. Not great, I imagine. After a while he handed me a stick, told me to grip it in both hands and describe an "X" in front of me by swinging the stick alternately left and right. So, after a few basic corrections, I began to get the feel for what he was looking for. Keeping my arms still in relation to my body and in their "natural lock" I was to pivot at the hip, slide my back foot forward and drop that knee. The effect, when correct(-ish... hey, I'm new) was stunning. Basically the force of the strike comes from me essentially falling with my whole (not inconsiderable) weight focused into the striking part of the stick. The idea is that I don't swing my arms at all, just pivot my body, slide that foot and drop the knee, repeat from opposite side, repeat from original side, ad infinitum. The strength of the structure in my arms combined with my body weight delivers a fast, surprisingly hard hit. Needless to say, it took me some time to work through the ideas and mechanics behind all this as I have to both feel it in my body and see it in my brain before I can reliably repeat a thing. So obviously I wasn't great but I still felt improvement happening. It felt particularly good when I was just moving it fast and hard strike, after strike, after strike. Once I was in the grove it felt a LOT more natural than going through the movements slowly.
The next several drills were arm variations using the same exact foot movements. Makoto took me from one stick in both hands to two, one in each alternating hits with the tip then next, after slightly elevating my arms, to hammering with the butts of the sticks and from there we went to empty hands delivering those same hammering blows. The last was my favourite and the one that was most comfortable to me. It seemed a little more familiar somehow. It may have been too, that repetition was finally having its' way with me and I was kinda finding a feel for the stuff to. I can't say. The class was fairly aerobic for yours truly though and by this time I was needing breaks between sets, sweating and panting as I was.
The last couple of drill sets were a center-line jab where I was learning to work in a shoulder rotation to keep the punches coming in to where they needed to land and finally, just mixing up the stuff I'd worked through the whole class. The last bit was COOL, but I feel like I was really too tired to take full advantage of its' coolness by the time we got to it. Still, my brain is NOT going to stop churning on this stuff until I've got something new to churn in it, so obviously I'm excited and pleased. Also there will be plenty of opportunities to work through this stuff as time marches on.
In closing I'll tell you that though I'm achey and exhausted, I'm recharged in a way that few other things can achieve so I guess we'll chalk this one up as a win, eh?
The next several drills were arm variations using the same exact foot movements. Makoto took me from one stick in both hands to two, one in each alternating hits with the tip then next, after slightly elevating my arms, to hammering with the butts of the sticks and from there we went to empty hands delivering those same hammering blows. The last was my favourite and the one that was most comfortable to me. It seemed a little more familiar somehow. It may have been too, that repetition was finally having its' way with me and I was kinda finding a feel for the stuff to. I can't say. The class was fairly aerobic for yours truly though and by this time I was needing breaks between sets, sweating and panting as I was.
The last couple of drill sets were a center-line jab where I was learning to work in a shoulder rotation to keep the punches coming in to where they needed to land and finally, just mixing up the stuff I'd worked through the whole class. The last bit was COOL, but I feel like I was really too tired to take full advantage of its' coolness by the time we got to it. Still, my brain is NOT going to stop churning on this stuff until I've got something new to churn in it, so obviously I'm excited and pleased. Also there will be plenty of opportunities to work through this stuff as time marches on.
In closing I'll tell you that though I'm achey and exhausted, I'm recharged in a way that few other things can achieve so I guess we'll chalk this one up as a win, eh?