A Day of Training and Fellowship

Earlier this week I received a call from Sensei David Ossian, asking me if I was available to come in on Saturday to take part in his sparring class. It was one of those invites that starts out something like, "hey...what's your schedule look like on Saturday?" As soon as you say, nothing, why, you want to kick yourself in the ass for not asking "why?" in the beginning. This Saturday time slot is set aside for his regular sparring class, which focuses on kicking and striking, so I wasn’t completely sure what my role would be. Although I consider myself somewhat of an expert kickboxer, based on attaining a green belt in TaeKwonDo about twenty-five years ago, I don’t regularly practice kicking and punching. I get some practice about four times a year through our defensive tactics program at work, and the odd physical encounter on the job, but obviously not enough to make me proficient. Dave briefly explained that he had also invited some Judo instructors, as well as some folks from other Karate and TaeKwonDo schools to take part in the activities. What kind of crazy plan could Dave possibly have in store? Of course I said, yes.

Let me give you a little background before I go any further. When I first started coming to the dojo, Sensei Dave was the first person that really took the time to get to know me. David made it a lot easier for me to feel welcome and our friendship grew quickly. Needless to say, I was honored that he asked and I was more than happy to take part.

Dave’s plan for the day was to incorporate principals of Judo and Jiu-Jitsu into his sparring class. I had assisted with the sparring class one other time a couple of years ago, teaching the stand-up fighters how to defend takedowns and how to get back to their feet if they were taken down. I imagined what must have been going through the minds of this unsuspecting group of sparring students when they found out Dave had lined up a Jiu-Jitsu instructor for their class. Teaching a class like that is really all about relevancy. It doesn't matter how simple the techniques are, they have to be able to see themselves using them and have some motivation to want to learn them. It turned out to be a great class. The upcoming Saturday's program of instruction was going to be a lot different. Dave’s vision was to focus on the principal of kuzushi (off-balancing), and how it applies to Karate/TaeKwonDo, Judo and Jiu-Jitsu.

Having said that the focus of the day was on the principal of kuzushi, I have to admit that’s not entirely true. The really cool aspect and overriding message of the day was about fellowship. There were folks from Sei Shin Kan Karate, Shotokan Karate, Shin’s TaeKwonDo Academy, and of course our very own Sho-Rei-Shobu-Kan Karate folks in attendance. Not only that, as it is with many martial artists, a lot of us have trained in multiple styles. For instance, Ken Haddix used to train in Kung Fu! How crazy is that? It wasn’t about which martial art or discipline or style was better, it was about looking at the commonalities of our disciplines to reveal the overlapping principals, and how we all use them. And most importantly, it was about building friendships.

We started off with a series of traditional warm-up exercises, called Daruma exercises. Sensei Ossian talked about their history. According to legend, the theory behind the Daruma exercises taught in Okinawa traces back to around 520 AD. At this time the Buddhist monk, Daruma (aka Bodhidharma), traveled to the Shorin Ji temple in China. On arriving, he discovered the monks were weak and unhealthy. Daruma taught the monks a set of exercises to restore their strength and health. Since the monks at the Shorin Ji temple couldn’t own weapons, they began to practice unarmed martial arts for self defense. It didn’t take the monks long to discover that the exercises Daruma had taught produced tremendous internal power for the martial arts. Daruma's method of Kiko, recorded in two books called Ekkin Kyo and Senzui Kyo, eventually reached Okinawa and merged with the Okinawan fighting arts. Today most Okinawan masters still regard Daruma's teachings as the "most fundamental precepts of Karatedo."

After the warm-up, each instructor demonstrated the role of kuzushi as it applied to each discipline. Dave started us off with a push-hand, or Kakia exercise. This was a cooperative exercise where both practitioners push back and forth adding some resistance back and forth. The contact is always kept between the hands, and as you’re partner pushes, you receive his strike, and then push back. In this manner, you feel for the moments when your partner can be unbalanced. It was a good reminder to feel how foreign the stand-up principals were for me. It gave me a new found perspective on how foreign the ground principals can be to new students of the game.

The sparring portion of the class was kicked off after Sensei Ray Peterson and I taught our segments. I stayed on the mat with a handful of folks and went over some basic survival positions. Some of the attendees who were suited up with pads also came onto the mat to spar. They started on their feet, and were able to continue their sparring when it went to the ground. There was a lot to be learned by all with this added MMA-style element introduced.

James Harrington, one of my Jiu-Jitsu students, is also a seasoned MMA fighter. He’s been going to the sparring class for some time to help improve his stand-up. During the seminar, he was sparring with a younger sparring student on the mat, teaching him how to defend the takedowns. Even with such a short session, James commented on how quickly his partner was learning how to maintain his distance.

Sensei Ray is also a blue belt in Jiu-Jitsu. After the sparring, he commented on how the MMA aspect entirely changes the ground fighting aspect. When you have someone trying to punch you in the face, it can be a lot more difficult to secure an armbar.

It was a good class, which I was honored to have been a part of.