Dojo Update, October 6th

It being Thursday, it must be time for an update!

Well done to all who came to yesterday’s or to Monday nights session. Monday was the lovely split between the class doing  live sword training with Richard San and Nick San, and Tim San and Mark San getting stuck in to some really great combat classes, well done to Kohigh Chris for hanging in there, its making him a seriously skilled orange belt!! Richard San also began some in-depth tuition of the new blackbelt Aikido kata to the higher aikido grades, hope they can remember what they were taught for next Monday!

On Wednesday night everybody was looking very good for their upcoming part one gradings. As well as the normal personal tuitions for the class, Sensei Tim ran a great one hour session on the use of the short staff called a ‘Jo’. With people encouraged to learn as much as possible and as fast as possible purely from observation, and then having to jump on the area to perform the pattern and spar with any and all grades, the lowest grade of Orange belt working often with the highest grade of 2nd dan black belt! It was a very rewarding and buzzy class! Watching the class all get into it, and improving so much over such a short space of time was proof that all grades can benefit from this type of advanced speed learning that we use in our black belt classes, this is the kind tuition is what wisewarrior really excels at! We are intending on running similar set’s with some of the other weapons on a regular basis, so be ready!

The Art of sword workshop is now only two days away! In preparation for the event, and to get you in the mood, we have now filmed two short clips, which can both be viewed on our YouTube account (link on the website). The first is a feel for the workshop itself and shows how the sword can be used to improve the general movement and expression of a person, much of which we will be focusing upon during the workshop. The second clip is a “gentle” reminder that, despite its’ spiritual nature, a sword is still very much a weapon first, so this short film clip was of Tim San and Richard San doing some unrehearsed  bokken (wooden swords made of Oak) sparring. Normally this has some rules when performed with lower grades, but I think the sen’s forgot about that! It looked like honors were even, but please, don’t try this at home!

We have started to have comments and feedback from you through the blog and Facebook pages, please keep them coming, in fact we are welcoming more feedback to this blog, so if you would like to submit a piece of writing about your lesson or maybe your training so far in wisewarrior then please do so. One of the things that you have asked for is a gallery, so if you have no issues with pictures of yourself on this blog or on the Facebook and website page then just let us know. So all of you attending the Sword Workshop might be having their pictures taken during or after the workshop if you would like, so if you’re coming and own or can borrow hakama and/or nice Japanese style tops then please wear them. Also if you own a bokken then please feel free to bring those along as well. So we hope to see you there, or if not next week!