Northern Wind

A couple of weekends ago, Patrick Parker Sensei form Mokuren Dojo in Mississippi held a clinic at our dojo focusing on Koryu Dai Ichi Kata. For various reason I won't even attempt to go into here, our school (and our former organization) largely ignored the first and second koryu katas, so this was all fairly new to me. One of the prominent themes in that kata, it seems, is the idea of encountering (or even creating) pressure or resistance, then releasing the pressure (disappearing basically) and then turning the pressure on again. Which may not be the best way to describe it, really. Pat described it as your arm(s) going from being like a stick, to being like a rope, to being like a stick again, which is a good way to think of it. I've also heard it referred to as "on, off and on again." Now, while that basic concept is not entire new to me, my eyes are slowly opening to all the places in can and does occur, both in aikido and judo. So while I've been go

I'd like to work a little over the next several months on some kaeshi waza in judo. There's a series of 5 videos from Mike Swain that highlight a number of nice ones, plus several combination ideas. Below is the first:

Boy, I haven't been very good at posting lately, have I? For one thing, a relentless case of bronchitis has kept me a bit out of it, but now that that's cleared up mostly, I'm able get back in the dojo. Hopefully, now that I'm back into the swing of things, I can film some more of the junk that's rattling around in my head. I start to write about a lot of them, but I find words and even a few photos just don't capture it. Let me leave you for now with this video of a bit of judo randori from 1922. There's actually a series of 5, and I would recommend heading over to YouTube to watch the rest of them. I think it's interesting how the purple belts below throw each other pretty well, but the higher in rank you get the harder it is for the judoka to get each other.