Topic: Training
I have been training really hard on working proper form with the katana sword the last few days in order to get ready for some heavy torture cutting in order to put the sample blades that Loren Graves from Orochi Sword Store has sent me through the ringer. He wanted a non-biased opinion of how the blades cut from some One outside of his group. I plan on putting these blades through as much torturous cutting as possible. Hopefully I don't blow out an arm doing this...

I ran quite a bit last night after I got done with my sword workout. My arms were dead from all the swinging so moving the legs a bit more, really balanced things out. Of course there is the obligatory soak in the Jacquzzi after all is said and done to make the muscles less twitchy afterward. My training for the next test in Jeet Kune Do is going well. I have several of the requirements that I need done and all I have to do is make sure that I am in shape enough to survive the test. The major problem I seem to be having is that I have a tendency to lean away from my opponent even when attacking. Bad form and posture that is going to get me cracked in the skull one of these days.

I have been playing around with some shadowboxing lately to help with the hand speed and vary the techniques that I am playing with in sparring. One of the techniques that I have been working vigorously is getting in close to work the uppercut. I noticed that infighting in the school is usually done by going to some sort of attack using the legs. I found a few times that throwing the uppercut in this range has been forcing the other guy to abandon the attack on this line and retreat to a safe distance. An uppercut combined with my own set of knee strikes might be used well in this range.

A friend from Kempo has asked me recently to help him with problems he has versus varied "styles" and how to address them during fighting. I offered that fighting the other person is not really the way that you want to train...and that in my opinion it was making the other guy fight you that often determined who wins or looses. If you don't stick to the other person's range as well as don't take the bait they give you and make sure they take all the bait you offer them, you should do just fine. But doing the same technique over and over again without adapting to the opponent and your environment/situation would get some one badly hurt in a real fight.

We'll see what happens in class tonight...

Regards,
Walt