Chatter Of The Squirrel

Kempo: Uchi-Uke, Tenshin Geri, Jujinuki

Revisited some old techniques for basic practice.

Just when I thought I’m done with the Uchi-uke after becoming 3rd kyu, I find out that I’m still doing so many things wrong.

Was paired up with the visiting Tai sensei from Japan, and he gave me a lot of pointers, despite the language barrier.

i) Hit the attacking arm hard. But without extending the forearm away from the body. Aim to hit the attacking arm with the part of the forearm close to the elbow. Hit with just enough force that it throws the attacker’s facing just a little off centre and expose his kidneys.

ii) Stance: rest just slightly more on the back leg than the leading leg. That puts your head a little back, giving your body more room to manuever to avoid the incoming blow, while maintaining a good upright posture.

iii) After the uchi-uke, when you throw the punch, make sure your stance is right. Too used to practice situations where you merely demonstrate the end of the technique with a tap to the ribs. In combat situations, this punch should be delivered with force. Thus your feet needs to be lined up, body crouched, shoulder lined up to deliver the strongest force possible to the target. Practise and self examination to get this down right. All the manuevering/theory becomes pretty pointless if you can’t deliver an effective punch.

Tenshin Geri

Very new to this technique, so probably am still doing everything wrong. Also a bit mixed up with Han Tenshin Geri.

Jujinuki :

Another technique to break an opponent’s hold on the arm, as illustrated on the linked site. It can be finished in one of two ways, with an upright posture, and smack the freed hand into the opponent’s nose, or break away while in a crouch, and finish with an attack on the groin.

Jujigote :

Starts the same as the Jujinuki. Opponent grabs your fore-arm, but this time you use your free hand to clasp/hook his hand onto your arm, fix it there, while you perform the rest of the jujinuki. This should bend the opponent’s attacking arm into an S shape. After that, it’s a ’simple’ matter of rotating the opponent’s palm.

A few notes: ‘rotate’ the palm. Do not push/pull it. Keep the S shape, and rotate along the median plane of the opponent’s body.

When done right, this twists the arm tendons in a manner that it does not want to go. But only when the arm is held in an S shape.

Kempo: Brown belt. Woot!!

Been one and a half month since my blood-loss incident, and I figure I should be in decent enough shape to get back in action.

It was only a short absence, and it almost felt like I had to start again near the beginning. All my leg muscles have lost some of its stretch, and it’ll probably take a few weeks to stretch them out again. Also getting breathless rather quickly. And muscles aching after the 3hr practice.

Still, am enjoying the adrenaline again, and missed the workout.

I finally got my brown belt and 3rd Kyu certificate from passing the grading exam in September. And while I was gone, a number of other fellow white belts have also moved up to brown.

There’s a new Japanese black belt I’ve not met before. Presumably a visiting sensei. Kids crowd around him during breaks to watch his magic tricks. I also received about a half hour instruction with him. Can’t understand when he’s explaining in Japanese, but was able to assimilate the demonstrations easily enough…

He showed us that on top of the Koho (hard techniques) and Juho (soft techniques), there’s also Seiho (acu-pressure points). And that was very enlightening, as well as painful. Am still a little out of my depth when he started demonstrating a few pain compliance techniques, but I think I can remember one of them at least.

San Kyu Kenshi

Had my first grading exam, and passed it.

Despite the long long list of techniques in the 3rd kyu syllabus, and the complexity and intricacies of each and every technique… the exam only explicitly tests 5 goho and 5 juho tecnhiques. And the exam questions don’t change and are made available since day one of me joining.

So, yar… Just need to practise these few techs well.

Assisting me in the test was a Jap girl. Need a dummy to perform the various locks and throws on.

My goho was alright. My juho was passable. My Ukemi (tumbles) was disastrous, since we’ve never practised it since May, I think… But the test was lenient, I guess…

So, yay!! I’m 3rd kyu! On schedule with Jee sensei’s expectations when he was back in KL for a couple of months from UK.

Shoto Geri
- kick with heel
- keep body straight as much as possible, minimise lean
- turn hip forward to generate the force of the kick
- twist on ball of grounded foot, turning heel towards direction of kick

Uchi uke Shoto geri
- begin stance with slight forward lean and weight on forward foot. This gives u more room to duck when you lean back to avoid a punch.
- after avoiding, bring forward arm in uchi uke, and knock the attacker’s hand away with the momentum generated from the hips as you turn your body away so that your side is now towards the opponent. The forward foot also slides towards the back pivoting foot.
- now you’re in the position to shotogeri to the side

Gyaku Kote

Gyaku-Kote, keep the locked-wrist in your centre-line. From mid-sternum, roll it in a small circle, and downwards to navel-level, keeping it in the centre the whole time and not pulling it to the left or right. This is not a throw technique, you’re not using your strength to push the opponent to the ground. You’re just bending the wrist, and his shoulder should drop on its own.

After the take-down, one foot under the shoulder, the other foot forward and lateral. Grasp the hand with: your 3rd & 4th finger on his thenar muscles, and your thenar muscle between his 1st & 2nd carpal bone. With the wrist grasped and locked thus, his fingers will be loose and open. Now ‘help’ him bend his fingers into a fist.

Tsuki-Ten Ichi, after the Uwa-uke, the leading side torso is deliberately left forward & open to entice the opponent. When the follow-up attack comes, then the torso is pulled back and the attack blocked with Uchi-uke & Shita-uke. After ‘pulling’ back the exposed side, you should be back in the normal & natural fighting stance. Do not pull so far back that your hips become incorrectly positioned to counter-attack with a kick.

My First Randori

I created a category for Shorinji Kempo ages ago, and has thus far failed to write anything about it. My plan was to use it to make notes of each technique I absorb after every session. I’ve been going to most of the sessions twice a week since April. And the technique I learnt in my first class, is still relevant 4 months later. Every time I revisit that one technique, I discover something I missed earlier, some nuance, a different follow-up to the move, a slight shift in body weight that magnifies the efficacy of the technique two-folds etc…

After more than thirty classes, the whole mess of information is overloading me. Had better start making notes, even rough sketchy notes will be better than nothing. Just a few words might trigger the needed scrap of memory, and I might be able to clean-up the info at some other point in time.

To begin though, today I had my first Randori. A young man was leaving for the UK to study, so Hosoe sensei gave everyone a chance to spar with him. Just for fun.

The fellow took it very seriously though. His first bout against 2 girls and a small boy. Funny. He kept grabbing the boy and used him as a shield, or pinballing him at his other opponents. Funny to watch, but everyone took it in good fun.

I was up next, the only other white belt around that day. Spent most of my minute running and dodging. Took a rather solid kick in the ribs when I lunged forward just as he raised his leg to kick. Still, very exhilirating.

Lessons

Already forgetting much of what I’ve done today… But every little helps I guess.

Kote Nuki

- left foot forward, without shifting the torso (which would signal your intention), THEN meuchi. Pointless to meuchi when you can’t reach his eyes.

- after meuchi, the yoshiashi (?) ie the half step forward with right leg… this step forward is to be similar with the hip swing of the gyaku-zuki. This is part of the principle of 刚柔合一. From the gyaku-zuki, same hip-swing forward, the same motion to push the right elbow out, WITHOUT moving the elbow back / sideways or in a manner weakening one’s own defence.

- it’s alright to move in close. You WANT to move in close. The whole point of baiting the opponent with the pro-offered right wrist, IS to get in close and land a flurry of blows while standing in a position where it’s too close for him to hit back effectively. As demonstrated by Kito-san, a rather intense martial arts enthusiast. Took a lot of pain, and pointers, from him while learning the finer points of gyaku-gote.

Gyaku-gote & Okuri-gote

- _Rolling_ motions. Literally rolling. Rolling in a circle, like a wheel. Grip the opponent’s hand, lock it, and roll the hand in a circular movement to bring it down to navel level. Pulling the hand doesn’t work. It’s the circling motion on the locked hand that twists the locked shoulder and bring it to where you want it to go.