Japanton – Chronicles of Anton in Japan!

You’re training is unrealistic, it is crap.  This is the basic message that Hatsumi Sensei was telling us on Friday night.

It started with you don’t know how to punch.  If you are taking a kamae to punch then you are fighting like you don’t want to win.  Followed up by your punch is too slow and taking that long kamae is throwing you off balance.  Punch directly just step in and hit them.

While trying to preform a technique that was demonstrated Hatsumi sensei mentioned you must be weak.  If you are strong they will respond to you.  You can not take the opponent strongly.  He told a story about a cat sleeping on a roof (ruff for you Americans) and a hawk flying overhead which thought it had an easy meal.  When it dove down to get the cat, the cat rolled over so that the hawk missed.  If you show strength your opponent will know and be aware of what is going on.  If you are weak then the opponent does not know how to counter.

Finally we got a dose of “I am teaching the connection between the schools”.  Do not get caught up in the differences and the kata.  Even with the kata if you don’t have my feeling it means nothing.  There will be books and videos to show techniques but without the essence they are useless.

As per usual though many people assumed that making something real means that you just have to speed up what you are doing rather than do what sensei was showing.  It takes a lot before Hatsumi sensei feels the need to say something.  If you are not doing something right he will show the right way over and over again.  If finally months go by and you have learned nothing then he will lose his patience and say “you suck, do it this way”.  Hopefully a few people learned something from this cause I would hate to go through a harsh class like that again.

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