Bujinkan

[deralte]

Bujinkan tonight reminded me of a scaled down Ninja Warrior *L* We all got in late cause the guy with the keys to let us in was late, so I didn't have much time to stretch. We started off with a sort of rolling (as in ukemi) obstacle course. J. and Jo. both had wooden swords. You'd roll away from the first person's swing, right into the path of a second swing which you also had to avoid by rolling. It was surprisingly exhilarating because Jo. was seriously swinging fast when he came at you. Someone swinging a solid wooden sword at your head at nearly full speed is a great motivator. The key to the whole thing is to roll properly while always keeping your eye on your opponent(s). I'm actually pretty good at rolling like this, so it was no problem for me and was a lot of fun. After a few variations like rolling over a low sword swing and avoiding obstacles when you roll, we got out the kicking pads and did another mini obstacle course, first rolling over two pads stuck on top of each other (about 1 1/2 feet), then jumping over the two pads laid down side to side (so you're rolling over both without touching them). Then you had to do it with one pad length wise, so we were rolling over 3 1/2 feet in one go. That's about 2/3 of my body length so I was really having to stretch to roll over them. If you've ever seen a cat make a flying, low level leap over something, that's what we looked like, only cats don't roll over their shoulders at the end of their rolls. Despite the length, I didn't have too much trouble, but either the lack of proper stretching or just the fact that I don't usually force myself to do flying leaps of over 3 feet on a regular basis meant I really pulled a muscle in my back. I didn't notice it until my adrenaline wore off after class, but by the time I stopped to fill the car with gas a half hour later, it was painful for me to put my seatbelt on and take my shirt off when I got home. I took a muscle relaxant and I'm heat padding it atm in the hopes of not having to deal with the injury tomorrow. *fingers crossed*

After the obstacles course we switched to various moves, none of which were very exciting, though the fun part was switching partners every two moves or so. I managed to avoid all the people I hate training with and generally had a good time, even if I did have to demonstrate something in front of the class (Jack wasn't even there and I still had to teach. heh.) My last partner was the newbie girl and at some point J. walked by and said his usual, "Back straight!" command. I told the newbie that he's been telling me that for twelve years now. She looked disbelieving, and yet five minutes later, he came by to say it again (we'd moved on to a different move just in case you think I wasn't listening to the first command).

J: Keep your back straight!
Me: *gives him a look of annoyance*
J: You didn't think I was going to let you get away with it. How long have you known me?
Me: Too long.
J: *laughs and walks away*
Me to the newbie: I told you.

I swear I actually keep my back straighter when J.'s not around. He has an uncanny ability to catch me when I don't though. Oh well. I got a lot more praise than I'm used to today actually. Jack's a lot more sparing, but J. and Jo. are quite happy to throw out, "Good, Ariana."s left and right. Jo. can really make jumanji look effortless though. I had a hard time of it with this one guy who's a weight lifter and built like a 6ft plus football player. I had to really play with it to break his kamae cause he had this bad habit of putting all his weight on his back foot if I gave him more than an inch of leverage back. Was happy I got to train with Ja. for a bit. He let me play around with a lot of variations on one technique, then threw them back at me, which was fun.

Comments

[c0d3-w4rri0r.livejournal.com]

It's interesting what you said, about practising rolls past people. One of the side effects I've noticed of studying kobudo is that I'm becoming more and more cerebral about combat and movement. Looking more and more at force advantage and the mechanics of how it would work in real combat. To the point when I'm kind of conscious sometimes this is not the technique you'd use in a real situation, it's just the technique they think beginners can cope with. One thing I was looking at was, in a realistic fight where you're surrounded and out numbered, your only real option is to make sure you're always moving away from whoever might be closing in behind you fast enough and erratically enough to make attacking you difficult. To move away from the centre of your attackers and look for a bottle neck in the terrain you can use to make their attacks manageable. So in that situation passing attacks blocks and dodges would be really important but for the life of me I couldn't recall ever having seen one demonstrated out side of Hollywood. Logically you'd imagine movements like pushing back the near hand with your near hand while turning and stepping past and striking with your far hand or its weapon might work. Or kicking off some ones hips or knee to the side while jumping towards them or even just grappling their ankles with one hand as you roll past. I've never seen anything like this. I think it's largely because most martial arts are based on kata built on the assumption of one against one with maybe the occasional 3rd party being quickly dealt with.

Anyway. I find my self trying to work out the concept behind every thing we're taught. and usually getting it. That's when I'm not exhausted. One thing I can't seem to comprehend is laser tag. I love it as a game but when I play against seasoned opponents they thrash me in ways I can't even understand. There are sensors on the guns to register hits yet some of them seem to stand behind walls and lift their guns over their heads firing yet no matter how many times you fire on them you never hit the sensor on that gun. Some times it seems like they can shoot round corners. Once one fired at me and I distinctly saw his beam slice above my head yet it still registered as a hit. It's more like some sort of kung fu magic than any martial art I've ever seen.

I'm sorry if this is a lot of posts spead over a big time period. I've been having a hard time of late to i've been playing catch up with your blog for a fair chunk of this evening. My grandmother passed away, she was very loved and its at an already chaotic point in my life so i've been a bit tossed about by the waves of life atm.

[deralte.livejournal.com]

We do two or three on one training sometimes, but it's all pretty much the same when you're facing multiple opponents - you guide whoever reaches you first into interfering with the second attack, and guide one of those two into interfering with the third attack (at most two attacks will be happening simultaneously, but in my experience, people really do tend to naturally wait their turn unless they have an overwhelming numbers advantage, but my sensei would say not to get in that position in the first place).

My theory on the whole shooting above the head thing in laster tag is that a) the detectors are set to a certain radius and shape the older players know or b) all the fog in your typical laser tag place disperses the beam and allows you to hit even when you don't aim properly. I'm often frustrated by laser tag places as well. Especially if you run into an annoying person who decides to grab a nice spot and play sniper (there's always one person who knows the course really well). I'm actually an excellent shot so I tend to get in a lot of hits, but I also get hit a lot as well since I get bored staying in one place with my back to the wall. If it's any consolation, my tactical ability does seem to have gone up over the years. I placed 2nd place overall last time I did laser tag, and that was just by applying some basic buyu strategy (staying low was the key).

*hugs* I like getting lots of comments at once, so no worries. I'm sorry for your loss. *hugs again*

[c0d3-w4rri0r.livejournal.com]

you see my experience is rather different. People who actually want to hurt you and are used to fighting people who actually want to hurt them, people who have experience of that sort of fight do like to gang up. I remember one situation in my teenage years where I got in to a fight with 3 kids at a youth club. They started circling me about 3 or 4 feet out of reach stepping to the side while facing me. If I went for some one at the front or side they just took a few steps expanding that side of the circle away from me and before I reached them I'd feel a blow on my back. If I tried to step back and grapple for them they just interrupted their stride to stay out of reach. Of course in retrospect running break neck to the wall would have been the right thing to do. It was the trying to adjust to them evading me that slowed me down and made it so easy for their friend to catch me. If you're thinking in terms of passing by some one by if they evade you it's not such a big deal.

As for the situation. I was more thinking of the hypothetical secret government strike team that abseils down from a helicopter rushes in to the local shopping centre with orders to take you alive. I used to have dreams like that.

I also tend to rank high at laser tag. when I'm not playing club members. Then I tend to do quite badly. I think some of the packs may be miss calibrated to be honest. I hit a player right between 2 sensor points half way down a corridor. At that range I'd have expected the cone of infrared light to cover at least one sensor but no hit registered. I think part of their 'skill' may be being more familiar with the packs. it's frustrating though. not to know for sure how much is their skill and how much is dodgy packs.

[c0d3-w4rri0r.livejournal.com]

Ps current police training is to basically jump on some one you want to restrain all at once. I've seen as many as 3 police men going for the same guy at once trying to hold him down (which they did with ease) the subdue with numbers approach is the norm for them.

[deralte.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it always frustrates me when I end up playing laser tag with someone who's obviously very familiar with the place from the best places to hide to where they should aim on the packs. So it goes.

[c0d3-w4rri0r.livejournal.com]

what frustrates me the most in laser tag is when I'm stuck in a team game with a team with no competitive spirit or co-ordination. You agree to push forward to take a bit of territory then they don't move or they turn back with out announcing retreat leaving you in front to get slaughtered. You indicate to go round an obstacle the other way to you to pincer some one and when you get there they're still behind you. Kids are the worst because you feel obliged to show them the ropes but they generally don't pay attention so you get shot up while trying to show them how to not get shot because your attention is divided. I prefer solo games to team games by a long way. My weak point is generally getting caught in the other teams cross fire with my team members no where to be seen.

[deralte.livejournal.com]

Yes, people are ganging up, but what I meant is that in practice, they really don't all attack at once. Just like in the situation you describe 1-3 people might attack at once, but not all of them no matter how many people are there. It's natural instinct for people to wait in a fight like that. If you want a group larger than three people to attack all at the same time, you have to train them to do so because people naturally hang back (unless they have projectile weapons, that seems to lend people some courage).