Koshiki and Itsutsu as sport-specific warmup and contextualized ukemi practice

For some years now (Wow! has it really been 6 years!?) we at Mokuren Dojo have been using a peculiar form of Koshiki no kata as a sort of a sport-specific warmup and contextualized ukemi exercise.
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We will take 1-2 of these techniques per class, and after doing some rocking and slapping type warmup and basic ukemi drills, we'll spend the rest of our ukemi time on these rich techniques.  Students of all ages generally love this practice for the variety it provides in an otherwise same-old-same-old warmup and ukemi practice.
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I keep coming back to these videos as a basic reference for this practice.  I find these guys' demonstration mezmerizing and I think it's charming that these two obviously advanced players are wearing white belts!
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BTW, These guy's YouTube channel has a lot of cool, semi-random martial content related to their weekly meet-up, which their website says is still active.
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Anyway, I was thinking about our use of Koshikinokata.  It seems peculiar to our dojo but it seems to work well for us and I intend to continue using this form of Koshiki for these purposes.
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That led me to think about the other facet of modern Judo - that is, ancient Tenjin Shinyo Jujutsu, and it occurred to me that their representative kata in Judo would also make a great advanced contextualized ukemi warmup.  Check out Itsutsunokata - you might wind up seeing more of it!




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Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com