My musha shugyo
My martial spirit has been falther i felt. Sometimes you have to look outside what you do and see it from their side to get a better understanding of what you do. So I made a journey down to Washington DC to train with Dave Drawdy and his crew for the weekend.
Saturday morning I had the chance to practice Shinto Muso Ryu Jodo with the dojo at the Budokai. This was the first time I practice a weapon other than sword. Jo has an advantage in range and also the weapon itself is more dense than a sword which gives it the edge (no pun intended) on deflecting. The suburi is going through the different ways to attack while moving up and down the floor. They have all different ways of gripping and switching stances, which I found to be somewhat awkwards at points due to the nature of sword being all right handed.
The forms in which they train are kata. It seems like their kata is against sword and always done in pairs. It was almost like kendo where the motodachi stays and the juniors rotate around them. Interesting focal points in jo that i noticed.
- one of the key targets is the base of the wrist. This will most likely mess your hand up pretty badly, enough to not be able to hold a sword
- their seigan is pointed not at between the enemy's eyes, but their third eye which is a budo thing
- strikes are emphasized with big swings, just like in sword
- they have so many different kamae, all with a distinctive purpose of course but nevertheless many
Afterwards I was able to join Dave Drawdy Sensei's Nakamura Ryu class. We went over their version of Toyama kata which is the same but some subtle and not so subtle differences.
I had a chance to share the old Toyama kata and through it, you could see where the differences in the two current Toyama kata sets lie and how each has a semblance to the original.
On Sunday morning I was fortunte enough to get a private class with Dave Drawdy, and Daiki came along as well. We went over Nakamura Ryu kata as well as the first 15 Mugai Ryu kata
Saturday morning I had the chance to practice Shinto Muso Ryu Jodo with the dojo at the Budokai. This was the first time I practice a weapon other than sword. Jo has an advantage in range and also the weapon itself is more dense than a sword which gives it the edge (no pun intended) on deflecting. The suburi is going through the different ways to attack while moving up and down the floor. They have all different ways of gripping and switching stances, which I found to be somewhat awkwards at points due to the nature of sword being all right handed.
The forms in which they train are kata. It seems like their kata is against sword and always done in pairs. It was almost like kendo where the motodachi stays and the juniors rotate around them. Interesting focal points in jo that i noticed.
- one of the key targets is the base of the wrist. This will most likely mess your hand up pretty badly, enough to not be able to hold a sword
- their seigan is pointed not at between the enemy's eyes, but their third eye which is a budo thing
- strikes are emphasized with big swings, just like in sword
- they have so many different kamae, all with a distinctive purpose of course but nevertheless many
Afterwards I was able to join Dave Drawdy Sensei's Nakamura Ryu class. We went over their version of Toyama kata which is the same but some subtle and not so subtle differences.
I had a chance to share the old Toyama kata and through it, you could see where the differences in the two current Toyama kata sets lie and how each has a semblance to the original.
On Sunday morning I was fortunte enough to get a private class with Dave Drawdy, and Daiki came along as well. We went over Nakamura Ryu kata as well as the first 15 Mugai Ryu kata
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