Bujinkan

Bujinkan tonight was basics as it is every January. Monday was bo (staff) basics, and today was 5 kata basics for 1 hr and bo for 1/2 hr. bo started with us practising a basic strike - grasp the bo with both hands holding it horizontal with your knuckles facing outwards. The hands stay in that basic position except for coming slightly off the bo when you strike so that your wrist is strait and pointed towards your opponent. You strike by sliding your hands down towards the non-striking end of the bo while switching feet, changing sides with each strike and making sure to use the entire length of the bo. The second bo strike was a skee, which is a strait shot which involves the back hand twisting the bo as you hit straight forward, so the bo will turn upside down as it hits. Adjusting your aim is a matter of moving your feet and keeping your hands close to your body. The third strike we practised, usually in a combo with the first two was a skee, then the first strike, but done aiming downwards so the backhand is high up in the air after that hit. You then bring that hand down to your hip which brings the end of the bo up to strike a high hit. Tonight, Jack added drawing back on the bo after that to hit down and then up again in the same strikes but on the opposite side. (I can't help but feel that we're being taught a bo kata step by step here).

We practised the kata first by going down the mat doing the kata very loosely on both sides, and instead focusing on bringing the hip to the heel and using the energy from our core to power the moves. This meant drawing the hara in when moving so as to a) be smooth b) lose less energy (I think). The concept of using your core for movement is very confusing to be honest, and I only had a crash course this week while the others have been working on it for 6 months and still look confused. Anyway, another point he made was to always cut your fingers, ie, replace one hand with another so as not to lose any space. Once we'd finished with all of the kata except for the fourth one, we switched to applying these lose forms to partners. First was just ichimonji but then you came around and placed your palm/fist in their T as a natural form of movement. Another earth/fire form involved taking the space around their face or throat before they came in which required jumping in without hesitation and took a bit to get used to.

All in all, it was fun to train, and I've tried to go into a bit more detail here so I can remember to share this with the group back in Wisc.

Back home, hurricane aftermath, lotr

After the chaotic mess that is my father's house, it's rather weird to come home to my cleaned-before-I-left apartment where everything is put away and the carpet is just vacuumed. Weather wise, it actually started raining as soon as I got back to Wisc so I didn't bother digging out my car yet though I will tomorrow.

I forgot to mention it yesterday but when I went to bujinkan training last night, I found out that the entire boardwalk near there had been completely washed away in the hurricane. That's pretty crazy to think of compared to the paltry multiple down trees and limbs which plague my father's neighborhood (worst damage I found was a tree that had pulled up the sidewalk a few feet when it fell over (decorated jauntily with a snowman, oddly enough), and two cars crushed by a heavy tree branch).

In other news, my dad and I rewatched LOTR (extended edition) for the first time in a very long time. It was a lot of fun and nice to revisit characters I fell in love with years agol, though Tolkien's sexism really shines through in the movies which annoys the heck out of me. He's classist and racist too (the former of which is obscured more by the movie, and the later not so much) which also annoys me a lot... or rather, it annoys me that Peter Jackson didn't take the opportunity to add some people of color.