bujinkan

Every year I forget just how annoying it is to train in 90+ degree heat in an unconditioned room. Then summer rolls around and I remember all over again. That said, tonight's training wasn't bad, I just ended up with a newbie again which led to a lot of tired teaching on my part. He had done karate a million years ago and it showed in that he punched lamely, but then strengthened his arm so it was like a steel bar. He thought this would keep it from being hurt while I just rolled my eyes and told him I would just break it in an actual fight. As it was though, I couldn't do that so I had to put up with blocking his steel bar punches over and over again which led to the 2 inch bruise on the top of my wrist which is swelling into a goose egg despite me icing it periodically. Meh. He wasn't really listening to me much and saying stupid things like, "In a real fight, people will punch faster." until I finally gave up on modesty and pointed out that I've been training for 12 years, and I do know something about this bujinkan thing. (Do they think I got the black belt in a cracker jack box?) After that he was more willing to listen, though just not very good at figuring things out so I spent a lot of time explaining and demonstrating. He also didn't know how to roll/fall and had a lot of injuries to knees and biceps and stuff. I expected him to tell me when I was hurting him and encouraged him to do so, but he kept being macho instead which annoyed me cause I didn't want to be the person to break another thing on his body (and if I know where the injuries are on a person, I can guide them down in a way that doesn't aggravate their injuries... instead, I had to have J. (who was teaching) mention that the guy's knees were bad and I shouldn't do a certain throw on him. He did tell me about the biceps at least.) Anyway, it was a lot of repetition on my part reminding him to do certain things, and I'd had been more annoyed but I decided to take it as a challenge to still get the techniques to work on him despite his awful punching style, lack of movement, and stiffness. So really, I just wish he hadn't given me such a nasty bruise (or that I had some arnica). Training wasn't all that unusual except for all the techniques began with the uke defending against a punch (it's usually the other way around), so I kept having to remind myself that I was the person doing the technique despite the fact that I was starting off with a punch. We just don't do offence that much in Bujinkan.

Amusingly, T. told me after class today that he'd run into a guy (Ma.) who used to train at buyu, and he mentioned specifically how we're the real thing and he knew that cause I'd kicked his arse. I laughed and pointed out that Ma.'d been asking for it, but T. pointed out that I'd done the same thing to him in the beginning... and still do. *grin*