Whole curriculum in two hours!

My instructor is away on holiday. So training always falls to those of us left behind. 

One of my fellow deshi lives in Cambridge which is only 15 minutes away from my house. I asked him to come out and train at my dojo for the weekly Saturday training session. We decided that we would attempt to work through the entire shoden curriculum (60 Omote Kata, 24 Goshinjutsu Waza) in the two hours we had available. 

Vigorous training!

We decided to do just one kata each before moving on to the next. The challenge was to remember the kata and not to be too concerned with the quality (although we would do our best on the one take). I have done this before with another training partner and it gives an insight into what is actually memorised and what needs more work. 

Very early on we were making good time and we actually got through all shoden kata including Tachiai Te Hodoki, Idori Te Hodoki and Tachiai Tedori Kuzushi. We also covered all weapons kata such as kumitano and kumitachi. The only kata we decided to leave out was batto as we do these often and don't need a training partner for these movements. 

We bowed off with 10 minutes to spare. 

It is now the next day and my body is stiff from the practice. This is good. It feels like I have ironed out some kinks. I don't recommend this kind of practice very often. This is about the third time in eight years I have done this. Training in this manner does not endorse quality of movement. It is merely a 'check in' to see what we can remember and what our bodies can put up with. It really is a full body work out!

Happy training out there!