Was thinking today about a conversation I heard between Sakamoto Sensei, and another of the senior students after practice had concluded on Wednesday night. Just to bring those not familiar with the dojo up to speed, after practice we all line up (seiretsu!) and meditate (mokuso!), then bow to the front of the dojo (shomen-ni-rei!), the sensei (sensei-ni-rei!) and each other (otogai-ni-re!). Then we remove the armour (bogu) and if you had a good practice with one of the sensei, it is customary to go up to them before you start taking your bogu off to thank them for the good practice, and hopefully pick up a few tips. While I was packing up Maeda Sensei's bogu (also customary if you are junior ranked student; sensei is 88, and still has seme that sucks the energy out of you like some psychic vampire) I listened to Sakamoto sensei and the other student talk about their free-sparring session (jigeiko). The student had been using a short and long shinai together in a two sword or nito style. I had never seen nito done up close, and it was just as cool as I thought it would be (yes, I am a total tosser, ha!). Plus Sakamoto sensei went on a little tsuki frenzy, and you know how I love tsuki. (although though I always seem to be on the receiving end :P )
And no Farid, that does not make me a "catcher"....
Anyway, they were talking and the student asked if Sensei could have scored tsuki (throat strike, usually) on him whenever he wanted. Sensei replied (finally, the cool bit, neh?) that no, he couldn't, and that he could only strike tsuki when the student was thinking about hitting him. When he was thinking about hitting, sensei could see it in his kamae (stance...kind of), but when he wasn't thinking about anything then he couldn't hit him with tsuki, as the opening was no longer there. Well, that type of composure and ability is a long ways off, although it is cool to hear about. Plus, it is good reminder for the rest of us mortals to stop thinking about what to hit and just hit it already.
1 comments:
Whahey!
I actually understood what you were talking about there.
Well, not the jingo, but definitely the gist. It's the body language that gives you away, and you succeed in combat when you don't think, but do.
'Muscle memory', as people call it, is way faster than any thought process. Thus, we practice. And practice. And practice some more. And eventually, we think less and do more, and our opponents say "what the hell was that?"
It's a good place to be. :-)
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