Yamaguchi Sensei and Matsue Sensei were teaching in the dojo when I arrived this evening. Kagawa Sensei must be away... therefore Matsue Sensei was deputising. There was only 7 kids in the 6-7pm class. 6 black belts and a white belt beginner. Matsue Sensei was teaching the white belt for the entire class. When I arrived he was practicing gohon kumite with him... he then had the student punching and kicking the heavy bag that hangs from the dojo ceiling.... I thought that it was interesting the way Matsue Sensei felt that it was important that the student applies and practices their techniques on the bag in the early days... Makes complete sense when you think about it. While all this was going on Yamaguchi Sensei was teaching the black belt kids Unsu and Kanku Sho. I picked up on some interesting points... The kids were getting a great deal of enjoyment out of the spinning "jump" near the end of the kata.
There was 6 of us training in the 7-8pm class. Yamaguchi Sensei took the first half an hour. It was by far the best 30 minutes that I spent in the dojo over the last two and a half weeks. We did many techniques that focues on "ki-re"... This is basically the sharp, snapping movement of the hips as you move from one stance to the other... It all started off in hesoku-dachi.... First of all we just rotated our hips and body side to side... We then progressed this hip movement into a more "rolling" movement on each side... still maintaining hesoku-dachi... This then progressed into driving forward and backwards into zunkutsu-dachi and returning to hesoku-dachi each time... Once we had this mastered we did kizami-zuki, oi zuki when driving forward... age uke, gyaku-zuki when driving backwards...
We then progressed to something similar for kokutsu-dachi... starting and returning to hesoku-dachi every time. I found that I was driving/snapping forward into kokustu-dachi quite well.. I wasn't returning to hesoku-dachi that good though.... Yamaguchi Sensei pointed out that I was dragging my foot for maybe the first 30cm and then I would snap my hip to bring my foot back the remainder of the way... Instead, I need to work on using that snap of the hips to inititate the return of the foot at the very start.
We then progressed to techniques in kiba-dachi and neko ashi dachi using the same theme.... "Ki-re"... snapping movement of the hips.... We did all techniques for this whole section of the class 30 times on each side... It was very sweaty and difficult to keep grip at this stage... No air conditioning turned on in teh dojo tonight... 30 degrees Celsius evening temperature...
We had a 2 minute break and Matsue Sensei took the remaining half an hour... We did all the Heian kata and all the Junro kata... maintaining this whole theme of "Ki-re"... snapping of the hips... We did each kata once slowly to the count and once fast to the count. Yamaguchi Sensei was drilling beside me and he would correct me every so often on small little points... This is fantastic to have somebody like Yamaguchi Sensei to be putting you under enormous pressure while at the same time taking a keen interest on my technique.
This was by far the sweatiest class we had so far... but really great and very informative... lots to take away and work on! I stayed on in the dojo for about 30 minutes after training... stretching and chatting with the other students. My hip felt somewhat better while training tonight.. I didn't feel so restricted.. I did take two Ibuprofen tablets before I went out to the dojo... I think these helped. The fruit drink in the photograph below helped even more as I waited on the Yamanote Line at Sugamo station for my train back to Nippori!
I had a little laugh to myself when I saw a sign for a local drinking establishment illuminated in a novel fashion just around the corner from where I'm staying! A battery powered lamp attached on to a parked bicycle... Only in Japan : )
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