holiday schedule

By -

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

training for the long haul

By -
Image
Training for life is quite a commitment. We get to run into ourselves often: injuries, classes where only one or two students show up, ego, rank, whether to stay with a teacher or wander about on our own. We train through times when life is easy and life gets difficult. Long drives, economic worries, issues with other students or teachers... these situations can all seem like reasons to stop...along with having to train with limitatations because of age or a long term injury. Job changes, family commitments, complacency, boredom...people stop training for all sorts of reasons. For me the best way to honor this commitment that I have is to train one class at a time. God willing and the creek don't rise... I will be on the mat on Saturday morning...10:00 A. M sharp...cause I am teaching first.
Read more

force

By -
The other day during a class at MCLA we were practising kata tori ikkyo. I had a line of 8 students or so and was doing my usual as nage and black belt, helping them learn the technique. Dora Sensei has those of us with experience throw first in the line, so set the tone. We show how it feels for an uke, but also how we want them to practise, that is gentle.This went fine until my whole line had thrown and I had the chance to throw again. 2 young men decided for whatever their reasons, to "test" my ki when I had gotten them to the walking down to the mat portion of the throw. The first refused to go down and even began a little taunt about how he would not be defeated. I totally fell into the trap. (the one that is internal and had very little to do with him) I applied a bit of pressure on the wrist and used a sudden tenkan to "make" him abruptly hit the mat. He got up, looked at me odd and walked back to the line. The second fellow did the same and as I began to fe...
Read more

buoyed by the response to beginner’s class

By -
Image
We are running a beginner’s class and I am buoyed by the response. We had 3 new people on the mat on Thursday night.  Other times in recent years we have had no response to the offer of a beginner’s class. When we first started offering basics classes about 25 years ago the response was great….often 12 to 14 people would attend. It seems to me that the trend now had been for more confrontational arts. I think MMA has had an influence on people who are interested in martial arts. Maybe now the pendulum is swinging back to people being interested in martial arts for other reasons than to beat people up or to be stronger than everyone else. I sure hope so. We are ready. Let the influx continue. 
Read more