Planning for tonight...

Last night I was in the back yard practicing the kata Bo Furi with my 5' jo stick, putting much emphasis on the rolling of my joints and spine, while releasing more and more of my grip on the hard wood and feeling the subtle directional control take the rotating energy of the spinning staff in it's figure eight pattern. This was a good exercise for me; it had been a while since I picked up my jo staff. Normally, this kata is done with the 6 foot rokushakubo staff, but I've had to modify it to the 5' jo stick in order to teach it to my Intel guys. The facility they have is indoors and has a standard height ceiling, which means the rokushakubo would knock off any number of sprinkler heads hanging down from the cieling tiles, flooding the room in minutes and causing major damage. One does have to be careful about the environment they train in!

For the last month or so, I have been focusing on little things in my class that are prepatory to sojutsu, or spear combat. One thing I've been doing is spending considerable time on the kamae of Seigan no Kamae, with their lead hand outstretched and pointing at their own eyes in the mirror that covers the entirety of one wall in our training room. Then, while keeping a steady aim at the eyes in their reflection, they push forward and bend their forward knee so that the rear leg straightens out completely. Their rear hand, positioned at the hip, now moves up at a line to their lead hand and they begin stepping forward with their rear leg. Finally, as the feet and hands pass each other, the lead hand and foot now become the rear hand and foot. The rear hand now swings down to the hip as the new lead hand performs a punch at the eyes in their reflection and they extend on their lead leg until they have bent their forward knee enough to make their rear leg perfectly straight. The goal is to maintain a contstant hand/target sight line, first with the lead hand, then with the rear hand as it replaces the lead hand. If the body doesn't move smoothly along the same target line, the perspective will change. This will cause the sight line to go off target. By doing this movement correctly, the person maintains proper aim. This is how you execute a proper tsuki, or forward lunge attack.

In sojutsu, this forward motion is good for driving a spear in a straight line to pierce the enemy. By having a line directly to the enemy's eyes, they cannot tell the length of the spear and their brain has a hard time determing the sudden close of distance as the spear tip is launched at them along this line.

In this week's training email to the group, I announced we were going to start training with the jo staff as a prepatory phase to sojutsu. Even though training with the jo will fall under the bojutsu catagory, or stick/staff combat, I feel this is an important step in learning good sojutsu skills. So, I dusted off my jo stick last night and started 'reminding' my body of those basic skills that encompass good bojutsu training.

My hope is to take the class through some basic kamae, or postures, then into some basic striking and blocking drills. Of course, the emphasis will be on using the legs and spine to move the weapon and to develop a sense of the proper ranges. Then, we'll move on to the important kata of Bo Furi, to understand the energy of the weapon when it has a life of its own through continuous movement.

From there, we will look at how this weapon is used in our basic foundational katas of the Koshi Sanpo Waza. There are 3 and, at this point in my teaching, have more to do with the use of kukan, or space, than how to strike. The first, Jumonji no Kata, will be about protecting a 'buffer zone' between the defender and their attacker, using a series of good thrusts with proper kamae, then re-establishing the protective space. The second, Ichimonji no Kata, will involve entering a vulnerable space to close the distance and dominate the attacker. This will involve using the tip to open up and extend the attacker, then come in at an off angle to destroy them. The third and last, Hicho no Kamae, will involve using the contours of the attacker's body to find the weak targets which open up during their attack. Mostly this will involve piercing from underneath the contours of the body, which if armor was worn, would mean going under the protective plating.

Combine together, these three kata will set a good foundation for Sojutsu, using the bojutsu concepts as a base.

Finally, we'll end the class with some kata ideas on jo versus jo and jo versus katana attacks, just for some free play fun.

I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow...

Cheers!