bujinkan seminar

Went to the Bujinkan seminar today. Everyone was in a good mood due to the season so things were rather relaxed. I have a few aches, but I don't seem to have any bruises, which is definately a record as far as seminars go. I got to see a lot of people I've missed seeing over the years, and trained with a surprising number of people. All were decent partners, though I did sort of resent having to train with this younger kid (he looked about 11-12) since I wasn't in the mood for teaching.

Training was hand to hand in the first part, mostly avoiding punches and grabs with various free forms. Lots of emphasis on taking the space, and I found it quite easy and relaxing. After the break was knife work, which was also lots of fun, which later turned into knife/ground work (ie, what to do if someone's pinning you down with a knife at your throat) and finally we did multiple attackers, protecting someone, and diffusing a fight situation (J. said while watching me do that last one, "Ariana will kick anyone's ass." which isn't exactly a compliment but it amused me nonetheless.)

The poor ukes suffered the most for this training session. Sensei was emphasizing that for good timing, you shouldn't bother removing a knife from someone's hand until they forget that the knife is there. So he kept asking as he went, "Still remember the knife?" (Various answers were, "no", "it's fading", and the hilarious, "What?"). The ukes really got beat up in the multiple attackers section. At one point Jack was sitting on top of both of them (having already tangled their legs and arms so far together they were nearly spooning) and grinding one's head into the mat, while hitting the other one at any pressure point he felt like - and then he sat there for a few minutes while talking to us. It was pretty funny to see how the two envied each other when one was chosen as the one to be protected (since the attacker got rather beat up...). Whenever Jack asked the "victim" if he was okay, he would always look at the other uke and smirk, "Never been better." which probably explains why Jack switched to difussing fight situations at the end so he could beat them both up equally again...

You could sort of tell one of my partners had been in Japan recently because he quipped, "Fun (no) jutsu!" before he did one of his variations of what we were doing. It's always interesting what analogies you get in our classes, and today it was a bunch of stuff about magnets. I particularly liked how Jack explained he did this take down without even having to touch the other person by "reversing the polarity". I tried it myself on my partner and I could tell she was a bit shocked when it actually worked, but it can be done if you control and are aware of the space (not that I'm that good at it, but it was fun to get it to work).

Other fun quotes of the day:
Jack about a friend of mine: "You see, she's actually here, but since she's a ninja we can't see her."
One of the ukes to one of the regulars on the sideslines - "What are you so happy about?" "That I'm not out there (with you)!"

I finally made an actual Bujinkan icon. That's the actual symbol for the dojo, only it's the stylized one from the back of my t-shirt (since that's where it came from):D

bujinkan seminar

Went to the Bujinkan seminar today. Everyone was in a good mood due to the season so things were rather relaxed. I have a few aches, but I don't seem to have any bruises, which is definately a record as far as seminars go. I got to see a lot of people I've missed seeing over the years, and trained with a surprising number of people. All were decent partners, though I did sort of resent having to train with this younger kid (he looked about 11-12) since I wasn't in the mood for teaching.

Training was hand to hand in the first part, mostly avoiding punches and grabs with various free forms. Lots of emphasis on taking the space, and I found it quite easy and relaxing. After the break was knife work, which was also lots of fun, which later turned into knife/ground work (ie, what to do if someone's pinning you down with a knife at your throat) and finally we did multiple attackers, protecting someone, and diffusing a fight situation (J. said while watching me do that last one, "Ariana will kick anyone's ass." which isn't exactly a compliment but it amused me nonetheless.)

The poor ukes suffered the most for this training session. Sensei was emphasizing that for good timing, you shouldn't bother removing a knife from someone's hand until they forget that the knife is there. So he kept asking as he went, "Still remember the knife?" (Various answers were, "no", "it's fading", and the hilarious, "What?"). The ukes really got beat up in the multiple attackers section. At one point Jack was sitting on top of both of them (having already tangled their legs and arms so far together they were nearly spooning) and grinding one's head into the mat, while hitting the other one at any pressure point he felt like - and then he sat there for a few minutes while talking to us. It was pretty funny to see how the two envied each other when one was chosen as the one to be protected (since the attacker got rather beat up...). Whenever Jack asked the "victim" if he was okay, he would always look at the other uke and smirk, "Never been better." which probably explains why Jack switched to difussing fight situations at the end so he could beat them both up equally again...

You could sort of tell one of my partners had been in Japan recently because he quipped, "Fun (no) jutsu!" before he did one of his variations of what we were doing. It's always interesting what analogies you get in our classes, and today it was a bunch of stuff about magnets. I particularly liked how Jack explained he did this take down without even having to touch the other person by "reversing the polarity". I tried it myself on my partner and I could tell she was a bit shocked when it actually worked, but it can be done if you control and are aware of the space (not that I'm that good at it, but it was fun to get it to work).

Other fun quotes of the day:
Jack about a friend of mine: "You see, she's actually here, but since she's a ninja we can't see her."
One of the ukes to one of the regulars on the sideslines - "What are you so happy about?" "That I'm not out there (with you)!"

I finally made an actual Bujinkan icon. That's the actual symbol for the dojo, only it's the stylized one from the back of my t-shirt (since that's where it came from):D