Kobudo Day

I really shouldn’t do things like this.

But it’s spring, and sometimes the body and mind just can’t be controlled. I couldn’t help it. The entire day was spent on ryukyu kobudo.

My glorious days of underemployment are rapidly drawing to a close. Today may have been my last full, complete, and uninterrupted day of being a househusband / occasional part time worker. And my kobudo practice has been terribly neglected lately, despite larger amounts of free time.

It started with the nunchaku. I haven’t covered that form in a while and I needed to go through one of the kobudo forms I know well. That got to feeling pretty good pretty quickly so, just for fun, I ran through an old nunchaku form I had learned in Nebraska. Once through and that was feeling good, but better put in a few more reps to make it better than good. That led into a third form, and so it goes.

After that, well, you can imagine.

The sai came next. I have been stuck between two forms for too long now. The Shotokanized version of tsukin shita haku no sai I learned in the US, and a very different (original??) version I am learning here as part of Okinawan Ryukyu Kobudo.

I say different, yet they are fundamentally the same kata. That is the worst possible combination, because there is too much cross-over and interference between the two. My first idea was to preserve the weapons forms I had learned in Nebraska (each differs slightly from the Shotokan versions I learned here in Japan), and slowly learn the Okinawan forms.

I have not dedicated enough time to either set and have recently felt that I must go in the opposite direction – set aside the Nebraska forms for a while and get these down well, then maybe go back and re-integrate the forms I started with.

Suddenly my progress has quickened and as of that fine day, I can get through this version of tsukin haku no sai (or chikin haku no sai, in Okinawan dialect) reasonably well. Now the real work begins…

Anyway, it was a fine day all in all, working through other weapons in the curriculum and getting ready for the upcoming classes I will be able to squeeze in before the ugly thing that is work raises its head.

I have gotten over the hump, anyhow. For too long I was stuck half-knowing a couple of these forms, able to follow along with the group and maybe able to stumble through it on my own. Now I am where I need to be, able to take a decent version of the form into class and have it worked over and really benefit from that. Then all my solo work at home will be taken up a higher notch, and I will be ready to take in an even better version the next time, and so on.

Like I said, now it really begins.

(photo shows home-made version of tinbe and rochin. real ones are on order)