Last night, we were working on kumidachi, in preparation for a demo/lecture that is coming up in a few weeks. Two people are going to assist, and since one of them was at practice last night, it seemed appropriate to start working on what we would be doing later on. In addition, we had a new student. I like this guy - he's polite and funny and seems to have the budo/life balance thing taken care of - at least for now. Unfortunately for him, he is always being pushed into more advanced techniques, because he frequently comes a bit late to okeiko, and also, at the moment, I have no advanced students available to work with him separately. What we do lately, we all do together. But, he has good ma and a fairly good memory, and good humor: When I apologized at one point for once again pushing him into something he was really not ready for yet, he said he was happy with whatever we did. Reminds me of myself, in a way.
Kumidachi is paired kata practice, and "tachi" refers to "sword." Proper execution means good timing, good technique and a good sense of concentration. Theoretically, kumidachi is supposed to be done only by senior students, as it is considered too complicated for beginners, as well as dangerous generally for people not totally familiar with the timing of paired kata of attack and defense. However, we always did a lot of kumidachi compared to other groups, and I started these forms at the beginning of my training. Moreover, from a demo standpoint, it's good to be able to do either bunkai or kumidachi for an audience. Last year, I did this lecture/demo thing by myself, and I had to use a camp counselor as an uke. The crowd loved it, but he was scared, and I was concerned. We were lucky, I think. This year I have a couple of assistants, since I don't believe in ever-continuing luck.
The forms we are working on were designed by my teacher, derived from an amalgam of established styles, and probably including some ideas of his own. One of the old sempai wrote them down, and then arranged them (almost as brilliantly) to build on each other, for the most part. By my personal reckoning, I believe we are the only people who still practice them; which makes them doubly important to me.
And they are not run-of-the-mill kata, either, but a series of mind- and gut-stretching chess moves. In some cases, the uchidachi (attacker) can decide whether to initiate an attack on either the right or the left, and the response by the shidachi (defender) has to change depending on the attacker's choice. In others, the defender can make the choice of right or left for the counter, but picking one or the other increases or decreases the distance to the opponent. Kata that have built-in variations - they are similar to, but at the same time nothing like, kumidachi I have encountered in other styles.
The difference is in my two students - one has a couple of years of training, and the other a beginner at iai, but with years of jujutsu training behind him. Of the two people, of course the newbie is more scary. While the more experienced student, for reasons known mostly to him, has trouble remembering the handful of forms we have worked on so far, after a review he can reliably perform the kata. The other person's timing is totally unpredictable. In particular, when he is the uchidachi, he likes to hang in the opening kamae, whatever it might be, for several very long seconds before attacking, while he reviews the kata in his head before moving.
Of course, it is unwise to do any such thing in reality. Kamae are positions from which one is supposed to do something, not wait. But since he is a beginner, I let him have his hang time, while at the same time reminding the more experienced student he had better not pick up the same habit.
So I decided to be his partner, partly to spare the other guy the fear of the unknown, and partly to see if I could handle the waiting game. Nerve-wracking, and exhilarating. And I did not get much sleep later for thinking about the whole experience. Now THAT'S a good practice!
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