Welcome to the Matrix

Friday's practice
Not much to report on that one. I worked on some sequences inside my bo kata without doing the kata as a whole. Watched Andrew's private bo class from 6:45 to 7:15 and again got many pointers and some little exercises I will be able to work with on my own. That time slot (usually 6:30 to 7) is available once every two weeks and I've arranged so that Andrew will take a private half-hour of bo class once every two weeks.

Saturday morning
A good class. Got another one of those little nagging cold that makes my sinus get so full it's not even funny. Didn't sleep well because of it so this morning took some sudafed to take care of it. Class went quite well despite the cold though. We did a drill our instructor likes to do every once in a while. Get a mat in place. One person takes place at one end, the rest makes a line at the other end of it. First person in line makes a forward roll on the mat and when he/she gets up, is attacked by the lone person at the other end of the mat. This kind of helps you work out of instincts more, since you don't really have time to think. We did the drill with our self defense against clubs, which seemed to make it even tougher, as it had been a little while we had last worked on them.

After doing all 15 of our club self defense techniques, we went on to work on the advanced self defense techniques. I'm relly beginning to feel more comfortable with these. That felt good.

Saturday afternoon
Bo class was a bit crowded as again, there was a belt test in the room right next to us. Because of it, we couldn't take both room and were kind of limited. We usually start our class with a sequence of 7 strikes that our instructor will call in order at first, then in disorder, usually going faster. Sounds like this:
1
2-3
2-3
4-5
4-5
2-3-4-5
6-7
6-7
2-3-4-5-6-7
etc...

Today, he got the idea that we would try putting together a sequence of 20 strikes, trying never to do the exact same strikes. Some of them would look similar, but have a tiny twist in them. Like we ended up having strike #8 be the same strike as #6, but instead of doing it in a static front stance, we did it going backward to a horse stance. #1 is always done from a natural stance going to a front stance. #2 to #7 are always done from that same front stance. Guess what, how easier would it be to see a video of these strikes? Here are strikes 1 through 7...


All of these strikes appear at one point or another of my bo kata. Now we did get to 20, and I even filmed myself trying to do them again once the class is over, but I sorta screwed it up and only realized once I got home. I was trying to count them again at home and was only able to get to a count of 18, not 20. Turns out I forgot #12 and #13, although I do know what these two strikes are. Anyway, google video is a bit obstinate right now, so the clip of these 18 strikes will be for another day.

Toward the end, the strikes are a bit more elaborate, sometimes including a spin and a strike. Here's one I took out of the group only because I think it's pretty cool (and was able to upload to google video). Our instructor calls it "the matrix spin" because Neo did a move very similar in Matrix Reloaded. I'm just a tiny bit not as flexible at the waist, and I'm also not using any cables :p


Seeing myself on video gives me a few pointers to stuff I need to work on. First of all, my hands are still too close to one another on most strikes. Second, my left elbow is pointing too high, it should be parallel to the ground. Anyway, hope you enjoyed these.

I also filmed my instructor showing off a sequence of strikes so I can try and memorize it to practice it this Wednesday. I had hopes I could get it in the kata before the show, but I have my doubts now. Will probably keep on making what I have better now before adding more stuff to it...

World Championship news
I've got some news from the WKA world championship that was taking place this last week. Emilie Paquet is now a World Champion in traditional hardstyle kata. I was told that she made a mistake in her bo kata where one of her hand kind of went of her bo on a strike, something that she never does. No need to tell you, that's the thing that's very costly at this high of a level of competition. Anyway she still managed to catch second place despite that faux pas. Elymaud Samson, another young girl from our school won in the junior (13-17yo) freestyle kata category, giving us two world champions. We also had two brothers, Mathieu and Sébastien Serré, who took a 2nd and a 3rd place, although I don't remember which one of the two got what. Hearty congratulations to all of these kids, very impressive stuff!

FM