Chokes and Throws.

It is very hot in New Zealand at the moment with temperatures reaching up to 30 degrees Celsius. There is something about training in the extremes of temperature that I enjoy. Stepping off the mats with skin wet with sweat is invigorating. My body feels loose and supple and I have the warm buzz of exercise flowing through my veins. 

This morning's training at the Hamilton Dojo was great. We don't officially start classes for another week so we have been working on a collection of waza from the Chuden syllabus. Today we started with chokes. We worked through ten different ways to wrap our arms around someones neck. By themselves, these chokes are just a list of possible options. But when combined with certain kata we practice, things start to make sense. One of the chokes is in fact the attack uchitachi initiates in one of the idori kata. So learning how to do this choke correctly aids shitachi in performing the correct response to escape and counter. Another one of the chokes is used part way through a different kata. Understanding what the choke is attempting to do helps shitachi perfrom it correctly. 

After swinging on each others' necks for awhile we moved to some of the chuden idori. Now, these are fun!  I can still remember when Robbie Smith sensei introduced us to these techniques. They are quite...memorable. The first technique starts in a similar way to a shoden level kata but ends, wait for it, with a choke. Being on the receiving end of this kata is not very nice. Threadgill sensei has some stories about people losing bowel control with this one as they can be choked out very quickly. The second idori kata we practiced involves someone coming up from behind to choke you but you counter and throw them. It is quite dramatic.

After idori kata we went to standing throws. The throws we were shown today work off concepts we are taught in the shoden syllabus. It was satisfying seeing the progression of techniques from the "basic" five throws we learn morphing into other variants or versions of the same concept. We are told often that the shoden mokuroku holds some of the key principles and concepts of the school and it is obvious in moments like these how true it is. An understanding of the Shoden syllabus really does make learning the Chuden stuff easier as the waza are often an extrapolation of an idea or movement learned previously. 

All in all it was a great session today.