10.24.05 - Practice Out of Class
Met at Walt’s Home in Raleigh
Alex, Phyl and I met Walt at his place in Raleigh. It was quite chilly with the threat of rain so we decided to work out on the covered porch space in the back of his apartment. After some warm ups, they asked me to do the Orange belt form. I did it several times and they critiqued me in several areas. The placement of my blocks is better and the general movements are good, but the footwork still needs work. Walt had something in mind for me on this though.
He went in the house and got a roll of duct tape and proceeded to tape a straight line down on the floor about 5 feet or so in length. He told me to stand at the beginning of the tape and start the form. On the second block he called for me to stop and check my stance. I was way off. My stance was too wide and the depth was too tight. I tried it again and looked down to see no improvement. I worked on that for a few minutes and then they put another strip of tape down on the floor for the turn in the form.
At this point Walt and Phyl broke off to work on some other stuff and Alex continued to work with me. I was having trouble with the depth of my stance shrinking up on the turn during the form. Alex showed me how you need to actually step a little wide on the turn in order to compensate for the lost depth when the foot pivots around. I continued to work on this for a few minutes more before we started going through the Orange belt techniques.
We went through Thunder and Lightning without too much critique, and then into Escaping Ram. The only real things that were critiqued on Escaping Ram were to keep my hands in front of me for defense when I kick, and to turn my head early when judging where to place the adjustment step as it just depends on the location of the target is.
Next was Returning Serpent and they didn’t give me too much critique on that one. The one thing they did mention was to make sure to watch the back fist and to make sure I lead with the knuckles. At about this time, Alex and Walt changed places and I started working with Walt. He picked up where Alex and I left off and then we went into Deflecting Thunder. I had all of the gross movements for the technique down but needed practice. Walt came at me time after time for about 15 minutes as I practiced this one. He determined that I need to focus on the initial downward block, as it was the one area that I was having some difficulty with. He padded up his leg and started throwing some light kicks for me to block. I was surprised to see how much out of position the blocks with my left arm were. I was so far off on a couple of them that they hurt. Walt wasn’t kicking hard, but it was the right angle and location as I had been practicing for the technique and I could feel that I was weak there. After several minutes of blocking, the pads came off and we did the technique again. The ‘pop’ in my blocks were much better and the whole technique seemed to flow better.
After that, Walt asked me what was next. I told him that Bill had shown me Beheading the Dragon and that I had only tried it once or twice. He asked me if I was up to it and if I wanted to wait for Bill to show me some more. I decided to go ahead with it and we started practicing. Walt was a little surprised at how quickly I picked up the gross movements of the form and started critiquing me shortly thereafter. The first item was moving in far enough. I wasn’t coming in to the knee and therefore was out of position when it came time for the hand sword. We discovered the reason why I was doing this very quickly and it turned out to be something I have been fighting all along. I have this tendency to l lean forward and tuck my chin. The result of doing this in this technique is that I am crowded when I come in for the strike to the base of the skull. While in position, I just straightened my back and everything came into place.
The next critique was the placement of my chop. I was low and had a tendency of striking across the back with my forearm, thus dissipating the effectiveness of the strike across the surface area of his back. I was bringing my hand down at an angle instead of bringing it on a horizontal trajectory. Making this change helped me adjust my position and I started hitting the mark.
Phyl stepped in and gave me the last two pointers of the night. My knuckle rake was weak, as I was brushing past the ribs with the flat of the back of my hand. He showed me how the knuckles need to lead, just like the backfist in Returning Serpent and also where the target was. This helped a lot and I was able to correct that one once I understood better. Finally, we all discussed the leg buckle in the end before the chop. Walt, Alex & Phyl all seem to do it slightly differently but they all describe the same thing – with the exception of Phyl, who has this little ‘hop’ thing going on. When questioned about it, he stated that he does that to gain maximum force for his size. He further stated that his height and size requires him to utilize everything he can and that little hop worked great. Walt chimed in stating that if they all did it that way, it would still be very effective.
I was driving home reviewing what I had learned in the last couple of days and just thought about how fortunate I was that Bill invited me to join his class. I don’t like to do this but couldn’t help comparing the differences between the TKI students and (some other) group(s). The focus, intensity, and meaning of what we do seem to be somehow ingrained to a point where there is a visible difference. I feel doubly lucky as the Purple belts have been absolutely great to work with. They take the time to review and teach me with a focus I’m not used to having – and they seem to enjoy it. I hope I have the opportunity to help them out at some point as it feels like I’m somehow getting more out of this than they are.
Alex, Phyl and I met Walt at his place in Raleigh. It was quite chilly with the threat of rain so we decided to work out on the covered porch space in the back of his apartment. After some warm ups, they asked me to do the Orange belt form. I did it several times and they critiqued me in several areas. The placement of my blocks is better and the general movements are good, but the footwork still needs work. Walt had something in mind for me on this though.
He went in the house and got a roll of duct tape and proceeded to tape a straight line down on the floor about 5 feet or so in length. He told me to stand at the beginning of the tape and start the form. On the second block he called for me to stop and check my stance. I was way off. My stance was too wide and the depth was too tight. I tried it again and looked down to see no improvement. I worked on that for a few minutes and then they put another strip of tape down on the floor for the turn in the form.
At this point Walt and Phyl broke off to work on some other stuff and Alex continued to work with me. I was having trouble with the depth of my stance shrinking up on the turn during the form. Alex showed me how you need to actually step a little wide on the turn in order to compensate for the lost depth when the foot pivots around. I continued to work on this for a few minutes more before we started going through the Orange belt techniques.
We went through Thunder and Lightning without too much critique, and then into Escaping Ram. The only real things that were critiqued on Escaping Ram were to keep my hands in front of me for defense when I kick, and to turn my head early when judging where to place the adjustment step as it just depends on the location of the target is.
Next was Returning Serpent and they didn’t give me too much critique on that one. The one thing they did mention was to make sure to watch the back fist and to make sure I lead with the knuckles. At about this time, Alex and Walt changed places and I started working with Walt. He picked up where Alex and I left off and then we went into Deflecting Thunder. I had all of the gross movements for the technique down but needed practice. Walt came at me time after time for about 15 minutes as I practiced this one. He determined that I need to focus on the initial downward block, as it was the one area that I was having some difficulty with. He padded up his leg and started throwing some light kicks for me to block. I was surprised to see how much out of position the blocks with my left arm were. I was so far off on a couple of them that they hurt. Walt wasn’t kicking hard, but it was the right angle and location as I had been practicing for the technique and I could feel that I was weak there. After several minutes of blocking, the pads came off and we did the technique again. The ‘pop’ in my blocks were much better and the whole technique seemed to flow better.
After that, Walt asked me what was next. I told him that Bill had shown me Beheading the Dragon and that I had only tried it once or twice. He asked me if I was up to it and if I wanted to wait for Bill to show me some more. I decided to go ahead with it and we started practicing. Walt was a little surprised at how quickly I picked up the gross movements of the form and started critiquing me shortly thereafter. The first item was moving in far enough. I wasn’t coming in to the knee and therefore was out of position when it came time for the hand sword. We discovered the reason why I was doing this very quickly and it turned out to be something I have been fighting all along. I have this tendency to l lean forward and tuck my chin. The result of doing this in this technique is that I am crowded when I come in for the strike to the base of the skull. While in position, I just straightened my back and everything came into place.
The next critique was the placement of my chop. I was low and had a tendency of striking across the back with my forearm, thus dissipating the effectiveness of the strike across the surface area of his back. I was bringing my hand down at an angle instead of bringing it on a horizontal trajectory. Making this change helped me adjust my position and I started hitting the mark.
Phyl stepped in and gave me the last two pointers of the night. My knuckle rake was weak, as I was brushing past the ribs with the flat of the back of my hand. He showed me how the knuckles need to lead, just like the backfist in Returning Serpent and also where the target was. This helped a lot and I was able to correct that one once I understood better. Finally, we all discussed the leg buckle in the end before the chop. Walt, Alex & Phyl all seem to do it slightly differently but they all describe the same thing – with the exception of Phyl, who has this little ‘hop’ thing going on. When questioned about it, he stated that he does that to gain maximum force for his size. He further stated that his height and size requires him to utilize everything he can and that little hop worked great. Walt chimed in stating that if they all did it that way, it would still be very effective.
I was driving home reviewing what I had learned in the last couple of days and just thought about how fortunate I was that Bill invited me to join his class. I don’t like to do this but couldn’t help comparing the differences between the TKI students and (some other) group(s). The focus, intensity, and meaning of what we do seem to be somehow ingrained to a point where there is a visible difference. I feel doubly lucky as the Purple belts have been absolutely great to work with. They take the time to review and teach me with a focus I’m not used to having – and they seem to enjoy it. I hope I have the opportunity to help them out at some point as it feels like I’m somehow getting more out of this than they are.
posted by Bonzai at 10/24/2005 10:00:00 PM
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