What a fantastic week! With four full days of training we were able to cover an incredible range of content. From advanced basics and bunkai, to foreign kata, various traditional weapons, and even gun defenses. Mind you, when the weather was hot, there weren't many survivors from the water gun defense.
Training in a 'foreign kata', one outside of the Goju-ryu curriculum, gave students an opportunity to not only try different techniques, but also to see their own school in a different light. A transitional 'chamber' in one kata is a clear 'strike' in another. It opens up a world of possibilities with bunkai.
A theme that ran throughout the camp was "how does a smaller person defend against a larger attacker?" One of the answers to this is that we hit with our entire body. I suspect I sound like a broken record when I say this in class. In camp though, we could drive this point home over and over again through various exercises, partner drills, and culminating in board breaking. If you don't put your full body weight behind the strike, the board doesn't break.
Weapons training was a highlight of the camp, with students training in weapons outside of their traditional belt level.
Sparring was also a fan favourite. Through the course of the week, everyone's sparring improved considerably. Working the pad drills, partner work, and combos from kata, feeding into sparring, lead the senior belts to some beautiful technical sessions. All belts though loved putting on the gloves.
For more photos of the camp, check out the Facebook photo album.
Yorumlar