More fun and games this week in the dojo, our tried and tested private lesson format has the great benefit of a 4:1 student/instructor ratio that lets everyone learn what they need; from syllabus training to partner work. Really helping students prepare for gradings and their ‘Performance Night’ on the 6th of November.
But the sessions also really help the instructors develop and teach interesting ‘off the wall’ concepts like Richard San’s Monday night session on ‘floor control’, or Tim San’s ‘fight tempos’ on Wednesday.
Tim San teaching
This explained that although learning patterns has much to teach us about combat movements – but not the way we think, they dont teach us what to do and when. They can only teach us what to do for one specific group of circumstances.
A real fight situation is much more fluid, requiring an ability to react to an ever changing and unfolding event. But even a fight with random possibilities has ‘guidelines’ that we can follow. For example a sequence of strikes don’t just go on and on, ultimately they stop because the opponent is no longer there. But a sequence has a natural feel that tells you this will be the last, decisive move.
Now that’s hard enough to say let alone teach. But the class seemed to get the hang of it as they applied the concepts involved to their own fight scenarios.
Wednesday evening training finished with culminating sequences created spontaneously by the students. And the ever encouraging efforts of the instructing team raised the level and and the skill of all the students in the room.
See you (for more) in the dojo!
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