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Although 'caresses' is a weird way of putting it, I was happy that today's theme for training was being as soft as possible, which is something I will, no doubt, always need to work on. What shocked me was when the sensei told me that I was being very disrespectful and had not been doing his techniques for the past month, but had instead been substituting my own. I told him I was sincerely trying to perform his techniques and meant no disrespect, but at the back of my mind I was trying to figure out what the hell was happening because I had no idea I was doing anything like that. It was only as I was showering after class that I realized the nitty gritty reason why I've truly been so frustrated. See, I'm very good at this point at observing someone doing a technique once or twice then adapting and recreating it so that I can do it to my training partner. I make a very detailed observation of what the sensei is doing noting everything from whether a punches power is coming from the spine or from the whole body to what angle the left foot is at in relation to the uke. I also try to keep track of whether I'm using the right or left hand/foot for each part of the technique because my dyslexia means it's insanely hard for me to keep track of such things, and even without anybody talking, there's still a good chance I'll forget which foot I'm supposed to kick with. Jack, Hatsumi soke, and most other teachers (who base their styles on Hatsumi) show things, then simply tell us to "Play!". This means I can take all my observations and immediately apply them. What E. does is that he starts talking and since I'm trying to be respectful, I listen to the sensei. All those observations which are stored in my short term memory are either overwritten or loose large amounts of detail. I'll no longer remember that I observed the angle the foot was supposed to be at or that I knew the exact location it was suposed to be put down in to take the space. Instead I remember something general like, "Foot goes around here." if I remember the foot at all. My theory is that the movements E. kept seeing me do instead of his own were what my brain substituted into my short term memory whenever my observations fell short. I've sent him an email explaining all this which I hope will help us both because he did make an effort to demonstrate things more for me today and I made an effort to ignore him when he spoke and keep my mind on our training which means I can actually remember in some detail some of the things we did tonight (which looking over the last few entries of this journal, is a first).
One technique was someone grabing your shirt and you cradling it gently, while hitting (kicking in my case) to the lower stomach, groin area. Then you used your fingernail on their pinky, by pushing against the bone right at the bottom of the finger and pushing in and up in a hooking motion. At the same time you move to turn the hand over then perform whatever form of gyaku or arm bar you want. He also did what to do when there's a knife at your throat and a wall at your back. (I remember doing something very similar with Jack before). You arch your back as you lean against the wall and bring your arms up in suposed panic (E. made a good point that you can actually get away with placing them pretty close to the person with the knife so long as you sell it). Then you twist your hips into the space your arched back give you turning to the side. This brings your hands with you and traps the knife which is at your throat, then you keep the knife there and use control of the elbow to get the knife away. A variation which I liked was if the knife wasn't directly against your neck but was instead just held there by a fist that was. Since the person's elbow is right there, you take the space beind the elbow and by that you control the rest of the arm, and you just keep crowding in until you have all their space. I would have liked to have tried it on someone tall though.
E. suggested I look into learning methods for dyslexics, which I've never really done because I compensate quite well in an academic setting. While I found some surprisingly good tips (and found that I'm using a lot of them already), I'm also sad because doing this research reveals that my need to focus so hard to listen and absorb anything at the expense of everything else is probably the fault of the dyslexia as well.
One technique was someone grabing your shirt and you cradling it gently, while hitting (kicking in my case) to the lower stomach, groin area. Then you used your fingernail on their pinky, by pushing against the bone right at the bottom of the finger and pushing in and up in a hooking motion. At the same time you move to turn the hand over then perform whatever form of gyaku or arm bar you want. He also did what to do when there's a knife at your throat and a wall at your back. (I remember doing something very similar with Jack before). You arch your back as you lean against the wall and bring your arms up in suposed panic (E. made a good point that you can actually get away with placing them pretty close to the person with the knife so long as you sell it). Then you twist your hips into the space your arched back give you turning to the side. This brings your hands with you and traps the knife which is at your throat, then you keep the knife there and use control of the elbow to get the knife away. A variation which I liked was if the knife wasn't directly against your neck but was instead just held there by a fist that was. Since the person's elbow is right there, you take the space beind the elbow and by that you control the rest of the arm, and you just keep crowding in until you have all their space. I would have liked to have tried it on someone tall though.
E. suggested I look into learning methods for dyslexics, which I've never really done because I compensate quite well in an academic setting. While I found some surprisingly good tips (and found that I'm using a lot of them already), I'm also sad because doing this research reveals that my need to focus so hard to listen and absorb anything at the expense of everything else is probably the fault of the dyslexia as well.
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