The week kicked of as usual with a great sword session on Monday night, with three of our students (including Mark San & Kevin San) hoping to take a national sword grading very soon, it had a distinct edge to the night! Richard San was in charge and making sure every Kata and Waza would be polished to perfection by the big day.
Sword Practice
Its always a treat to see high grades pursue new belts in other subjects, especially sword. Although its a different subject for them they do bring their Black belt understanding and focus to the table, the results are always a joy to watch! Plus their original skill sets whether in Karate or Aikido always improves when they come back to them. Each moment on the mat deepens your understanding of each subject, so the more subjects you try, the more potential there is for creating understanding!
All those in attendance on Wednesday night certainly got some great martial arts value and understanding from some excellent 1-2-1 tuition. Our latest addition to the instructing team; Lucy San, did a marvellous job instructing Kohigh Heidi and improving her syllabus work. Kohigh Heidis’ performance has dramatically increased after Lucy Sans’ input. A new black belt never fully understands how much they have learned about their subject until they have to teach somebody, the results always surprise them…because of course teaching is a new subject!
Meanwhile Richard San was exploring a new Aikido training system (stay tuned for his latest blog post!) which really got the Dohighs and Sempais working well together and adding to their interpretations of the syllabus katas. Tor San too gave some cracking input to the Karate Dohighs going for gradings, you can’t beat experience when it comes to insight!
Although there really is no substitute for diligent practice there is a huge amount to be said for having great pointers and tips offered by experienced instructors. It’s those little details in any performance that make it into something special, a little tweak here and there and a student’s kata or technique can go from mediocre to marvellous in minutes. Focusing in particular is an element of syllabus performance that is always best explained and demonstrated by an instructor. Sometimes a subtle turn of the head or use of the eyes can make the world of difference.
I’m sure most of you know of the @_wisewarrior twitter account, but if not check it out, every day we are offering advice, insight and thoughts about this amazing subject of Martial Arts tweeted straight to your phones! Every little helps!
See you in the dojo!
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