A change of scenery

Tonight was my first night back to class since the weekend seminar with Grandmaster Tatum.  After the seminar was over my sensei tested for his fifth degree black belt.  I wish I could have stayed for the test but family obligations got in the way.  Tonight I had hoped to congratulate him on his achievement.  However, tonight our newest black belt was running the class.  I am not sure why Sensei was out; however, I believe that that test might take its toll (this is purely speculation on my part, Sensei may have had some other obligations for the evening).  Our newest black belt has lots of energy and her technique is very sharp.  Personally, I enjoy training with different instructors in the school.  I like to see different perspectives on the same techniques, because there are differences in the way people do the techniques.  None are really wrong it is jut some personal variation.  As Master Chow (William K.S. Chow – founder Karaho Kenpo) said, “Kenpo is for the streets.”  Which in short means if it works it is right.

So tonight the class was a bit different than usual.  This is simply due to the fact that a different instructor was running the class.  I like the way that our new black belt harps on stances.  I like this sort of detail in the training.  Stance and stance transition are very important in all martial arts.  However, at times I will admit that as of late I have not paid as much attention as I should.  This is mostly due to my right heel injury.  I have been nursing an injury that is most likely a bad heel spur that is painful on some  transitions (as well as walking, but not running – strange).  But tonight I winced through the proper stance work and I feel like I have reinforced some good habits.  For practice to make perfect you have to practice perfectly (or nearly so).  It seems I am full of sayings in this post.  Stances matter.  I remember when I was 16 sitting in low horse stances doing blocks and punches thinking, what are we doing this is so boring.  But more than 20 years later, I am glad I put effort into the boredom.  Today, my stances are generally good and but for my injury I would have been keeping up with my stances in American Kenpo as well.

We also worked some free style Kenpo.  This is my term for it, essentially it is just defense against random attacks and multiple attackers.  It is nice to work on different things.  I like to work locks and take-downs during this time as well as some of my previous kung fu and jujitsu (Danzan ryu) training.  I like to flow the strikes into the locks and this training is perfect for this.  Some days are better than others, today was good.  The change of scenery kept me more on my toes I think.  A different instructor can do that.