Tonight I got to practice for the first time with my new next-door neighbor, a long-time shotokan guy. We painted heian shodan and nidan with broad strokes and looked briefly at some interesting application for tekki shodan. My stances are too high for a Shotokan guy's tastes, partly because of disuse and partly because of old broken ankle and fat accumulation. I'll work on that.
In trade, I showed him tegatana no kata, hanasu no kata, and shomenate from aikido. He did very well. I'm really going to enjoy having a precise kata guy to work with again
I note that you've blogrolled me; I appreciate that. I've noted your blog on the "folks that have been kind enough to blogroll us" section, and I'll add you to my "Google Reader" list.
ReplyDeleteI hope not to disappoint people too badly; of the total volume of posts on my blog, only a relatively small percentage deal with martial arts.
Stances too high? I recall reading Tsutomu Ohshima's translation of Funakoshi's Karate-Do Kyohan, and him remembering Funakoshi saying "high stances for experts!"
Maybe you're better at Shotokan than you knew...
Thanks, Dan. I really like your blog. I felt like I'd met my twin when I saw that you were blogging on martial arts as well as conservative evangelical Christianity. Very interesting material. I also enjoyed that you manage to keep all your interests into one blog. I have separated my reading and martial arts and Christianity into different blogs, though they often overlap a good bit. I occasionally consider folding the other blogs into this one but always come back to the idea of keeping them focussed even if I can't devote enough energy to all three to update them all daily.
ReplyDeleteHa! I'd forgotten about that Funakoshi quote! more likely than my being expert is the fact that I havent practiced shotokan consistently over the years and i have practiced multiple varieties of karate, leading me to use isshinryu fist formation and 3/4 turned lunge punches instead of completely rotated, and different spearhand and shuto formation and...and...and...
My karate has truly become what one of my rommates once referred to as "watakushi do" or "my way".