Just wanted to post a quick notice – I’m going to be doing some system admin stuff this afternoon, so apologies for any wierdness in the interim!

Update: Looks like everything went smoothly, will update with some fresh content next week!

Have a great weekend!

Bloginated Saturday, 15th August 2009 / Wordpress/system stuff
No tag-isms applied to this post due to unruly laziness :P

Training this week was a little bit different – Sensei wasn’t able to make it, so we had training with Dai-Sensei (the Big Sensei), who is actually my usual Sensei’s father (and who I trained under during 2007-2008… which reminds me, I really should add a couple of posts to fill in the blank spaces between the old Gisoku no Jutsu and the new Gisoku Budo blogs).

Anywho, training was different, as it sometimes is when Dai-Sensei takes our class. This time, we focused on bunkai from some of the lower kata, which was good as I’ll be required to demonstrate it in my future gradings. Now, this is all well and good, but Dai-Sensei brought in some goodies to accompany training – kobudo weapons 😀 We had a few options to work with, including jo, hanbo, sai, nunchaku, tonfa, katana, wakizashi and kama. What Dai-Sensei was trying to demonstrate was the relationship/connection between open-handed forms and kobudo forms, showing how one complements the other and that your open-handed karate kata has forms the work well with weapons. More importantly, it demonstrated that the principles of attack/defense/counter in kata can be re-enforced by applying the same principles in kobudo.

But the best part of the evening was playing with these:

Image sourced from Wikimedia Commons, original image by chris ?

Sai are awesome, and that’s probably because I watched too much TMNT as a kid 😀 Was great fun using them in class, and while I didn’t learn much that was all the useful due to the short period of time using them (though I learned a basic method for how to trap a Bo!), it was still so much fun 😀

It also brought to the fore my interest in kobudo, and that I’d really like to get into it down the line. Though I can imagine the look Wifey would give me if I came home with more stuff to complement some of the staffs I have around the place from when I started doing mixed-style stick fighting last year 😉

Bloginated Friday, 7th August 2009 / Karate, Kobudo
Tag-isms: Karate | kata | Kobudo | sai | TMNT

Original image by chris ?, sourced from Wikimedia Commons

Had grading this morning – went very well (i.e. I passed my grading 😛 ). Got up early and did some stretching to get me ready for grading. Picked up Jyastin-kun on the way there, and got to class around 20mins to 9([am] – early start for a Saturday for yours truly!). Those of us grading for 7th kyu ended up being the most senior (aside from Sensei of course!) – there were a few white belts (including Jyastin-kun), one red and a couple of orange belts joining me for grading. After the usual warm up, we took our seats to let each group jump up and do their grading. We were the last ones up, though I was called up during the red belt’s grading to assist with ippon kumite.

Anywho, my grading. Good points: good kime, remembered everything, strong stances, good technique. Points to improve on: lengthen stances more and increase their finesse, much more focus for ippon and go-on kumite, and I fudged one of my stances during heian nidan. Overall I was happy with it, despite the fact that I can still see ways I could have improved my performance. It’ll give me some fundamentals to work on whilst learning my new syllabus next week 🙂

Bloginated Sunday, 2nd August 2009 / Karate
Tag-isms: grading | Technique

Was doing some random Googling and found this awesome blog – The Adventures of the i-LIMB. The blog’s author, Darin, has had his left arm amputated from just below the elbow from what I can see in the videos he’s posted, and he’s documented a daily journal of his experiences with his i-LIMB, an awesome piece of crazy cybertechnology (i.e. his prosthesis 😉 ). There are plenty of videos documenting what he’s been up to and stacks of content – regardless of your background, check out his site and read up on his experiences.

Oh, and check out the vids, the technology is awesome to see in action 😀 I’ll be adding a link to his blog in my side bar, so if you forget where his blog is, you’ll be able to easily get to it regardless of where you are on my site.

Bloginated Friday, 31st July 2009 / Blogs/websites, Prosthesis or amputee stuff
Tag-isms: Blogs | Darin Sargent | i-LIMB | prosthesis | prosthetic arm

So, I was out of the loop during June and a little bit of July as well (click the links for the monthly roundups – not looking as healthy as my usual efforts!!), and this also means I’m also out of whack with what’s been happening in the martial arts blogs I regularly read during the week.

So, it left me feeling a little sheepish that I hadn’t dropped by Black Belt Mama’s blog to read up that she was successful in not only getting her 1st Dan in Okinawan Kenpo Karate, but she double-graded and also earned her 1st Dan in Okinawan Kenpo Kobudo as well. Crazy stuff, and really awesome to hear. She’s had to fight through ACL hell to get there, and I think it’s brill to read that she’s achieved her 1st Dan in both of those styles. I’d encourage you to check out the full post on her blog (click here), and I reckon I’ll have to think about the beer idea she had. Might come in handy for whenever I manage to progress that far 😀

Congrats BBM! Sorry it’s so belated! 😉

Bloginated Thursday, 30th July 2009 / Blogs/websites
Tag-isms: grading