New Developments in My Training.

Being a Sensei must be one of the hardest but most rewarding jobs in the world. Pretty much like being a parent in a way. Always wanting to see your children come out better than you, seeing what their limitations are and working around them, but always keeping the big picture in mind as you shape and mold your students into miniature versions of yourself but the modified 2.0 version.

Tonight Sensei decided to use me as guinea pig. With my previous martial arts training, he's trying a newer approach with me, says that normally we would work in stages and add different elements to my training as we progress. Baby steps. I'm thinking he sees that my learning curve isn't where it should be for a yellow belt and possibly feels he wants to see how much I can absorb. I'm not sure, but we're doing what we're doing for now, testing the waters with this newer version of teaching and learning.

Normally when learning a new piece in the master plan of Shuri Ryu, the teachings are done in stages; For example, you learn the moves of an element, whether it's kata, kihon, ippons, taezus, etc... practicing it many times over and over, so it's imprinted into your very being, then you apply the theory (bunkai) to it, so the understanding comes into play. Sensei has decided that with me, he's teaching the segments of Anaku along with the bunkai. I really like this approach. At the beginning of the kata portion of class, I was struggling, getting discouraged, and just not getting it. The footwork, and how to tranition from cat stance into horse stance and applying my upper body movements along with my footwork. Things just weren't doing what I wanted them to do, I felt like I was starting from day one. I know that this is a new kata, I'm just getting familiar with my expectations in this style, but for some odd reason, it felt like I was inside someone else's uncoordinated body.

This is when Sensei came to my rescue. He talked to me, saying he wanted to try this different way of teaching/learning with me. I was absolutely thrilled because I remembered when I learned the bunkai to Wunsu, my passion was renewed, my techniques crisper and more powerful. I was confident because I finally understood what I was doing and why. We worked the portion he had taught me last week. Starting the first sequence, cat stance to the left and knife hand scanning, cat stance to the right and knife hand scanning, stepping forward with your right foot, turning the body on an angle to the left and executing a left mid block with two straight punches, pulling left foot in slightly and stepping, turning the body on an angle to the right, executing a right mid block and punching two straight punches, pulling both legs together facing forward and dropping into a horse stance and crossing arms in front of your chest to execute to low blocks on either side of your body. With the bunkai, you have two attackers, the first section when we're doing both cat stance and scanning techniques, we're actually just scanning for attackers, done in a graceful scanning motion. then turning your head to seek out any attackers, seeing, evading by stepping away but also executing the block as the punch is thrown towards you... not only did this help me with the technical portion, it helped me with the timing... I was absolutely amazed that with that tweeking in teaching/learning, I was able to understand and perform better than what I did prior.

At the end of the classes, Sensei always asks us if we have anything to say or any questions to be answered. I told him that I had a revelation. The other students didn't know of this new development in my training. When I had told him about my revelations, I was able to see the approving smile. That smile was smiled by Sensei, but it is also one I see on my own father from time to time. Domo Aregato Sensei.