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Jodo Dojo with Jojo the Dodo.
May. 19th, 2009 02:46 pmI packed up my gear on Thursday evening and managed to run away from work at a little before noon on friday. I felt a little guilty skipping out on work halfway through the day, even though I booked the afternoon off. I think it's mostly because I'm not used to this "vacation days" thing. Either way, I made good time to the mall where I met up with my ride. We made surprisingly good time to Guelph, though we stopped off at a lousy pub for dinner in Pickering and it was not worth the money. Made it through Toronto with almost no traffic and got into Guelph at a reasonable hour.
The seminar was a tad unusual, in that the focus was not, in fact, on grading as it usually is. There was a bit of politics in terms of grading, meaning that no one of my rank or higher was permitted to grade in Jo. This meant that we were just practicing with the senior sensei from Japan who taught us a good number of techniques. I managed to clean up a large number of basic moves and the more complex Kata, even though I spent almost no time on the higher level ones. Perhaps next year I will have more of a chance to work on the higher level techniques, but I think I may have gotten more out of this session and the different emphasis.
I actually spent a significant portion of the seminar teaching students more junior then me, something I found both surprising and useful. I have a rather goal oriented approach to martial arts techniques and I find that telling people _why_ they are doing a physical action helps them do said action in a more effective way. I have amassed a decent selection of tips and tricks over my years and this seminar gave me a number of other ones to use for instruction. In the process, I also wind up identifying my own mistakes and it forces me to work on correcting them. I have also improved my ability to detect problems in other people's techniques which is a much needed skill. I think that I will attempt to get some formal training in coaching/instructing so that I could better teach Jo in the future. I have seen the stark difference between sensei's skilled at instructing and those unskilled at instructing. I would much rather be one of the former if I can help it.
The weekend was interesting in a few ways though. I bought two bottles of 180ml fine Nikka Whisky from Japan, apparently purchased from a corner store while some of our folks went off to Japan for training a month ago. I shared one of the bottles with many folks at the seminar and it was appreciated, but I still have one remaining. I also purchased a hand crafted wooden sake cup called a masu (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sake_set). Coincidentally, I managed to get some writing done during the weekend which is a relief. My netbook helped a great deal. Now just to deal with a very small bank account balance for the next week or so.
So, how were your weekends?
The seminar was a tad unusual, in that the focus was not, in fact, on grading as it usually is. There was a bit of politics in terms of grading, meaning that no one of my rank or higher was permitted to grade in Jo. This meant that we were just practicing with the senior sensei from Japan who taught us a good number of techniques. I managed to clean up a large number of basic moves and the more complex Kata, even though I spent almost no time on the higher level ones. Perhaps next year I will have more of a chance to work on the higher level techniques, but I think I may have gotten more out of this session and the different emphasis.
I actually spent a significant portion of the seminar teaching students more junior then me, something I found both surprising and useful. I have a rather goal oriented approach to martial arts techniques and I find that telling people _why_ they are doing a physical action helps them do said action in a more effective way. I have amassed a decent selection of tips and tricks over my years and this seminar gave me a number of other ones to use for instruction. In the process, I also wind up identifying my own mistakes and it forces me to work on correcting them. I have also improved my ability to detect problems in other people's techniques which is a much needed skill. I think that I will attempt to get some formal training in coaching/instructing so that I could better teach Jo in the future. I have seen the stark difference between sensei's skilled at instructing and those unskilled at instructing. I would much rather be one of the former if I can help it.
The weekend was interesting in a few ways though. I bought two bottles of 180ml fine Nikka Whisky from Japan, apparently purchased from a corner store while some of our folks went off to Japan for training a month ago. I shared one of the bottles with many folks at the seminar and it was appreciated, but I still have one remaining. I also purchased a hand crafted wooden sake cup called a masu (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sake_set). Coincidentally, I managed to get some writing done during the weekend which is a relief. My netbook helped a great deal. Now just to deal with a very small bank account balance for the next week or so.
So, how were your weekends?
