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I hear through the grapevine that in actual fact things at HQ seem to have improved. People are working together rather than bonking heads.
In other news a new guy showed up at our dojo. Apparently he likes our atmosphere, he visited some other dojo where there "Was no talking when everyone came in, no talking when everyone got on the mat, no talking when sensei came on the mat and no talking when everyone went home."
Sounds like a cheery place. Sensei commented that he wished we'd talk less; it is one of his ongoing battles and I doubt he'll ever win it.
Our dojo at times can be rather rowdy and rauchous with pleanty of banter; it's a very lively place with lots of big personalities.
Most of that is a ton of communication between uke and tori that I've not found in any other dojo. Uke will tell tori what they felt and will actively tell tori what to do during the technique so that tori can adjust their technique as they're going.
And then in the interval where tori and uke swap over there's some kind of banter or repetition of a running joke, "It'd be far easier if we just used guns you know" "Lacks finesse though" "We could do a western style shoot out" "Ahhh, that's a good idea" *bow*.
Or, again unique in my experience, there'll be a brief discussion between uke and tori about what tori is working on and what they want from uke or what uke wants from tori. Or perhaps uke will tell tori what he needs to do next time, "You need to cut up more, you're alm
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I don't want to go training. It's a course and I hate courses, no-one trains with kyu grades on courses; we're avoided like the plauge.
Then there's the reason I'm going. I'm off to brown nose some shidoin so that finally I can pass 1st kyu.
Not that after two years of failing it I care about it, but Sensei wants me to pass it and so I'm playing "Sensei says." Sensei says pass 1st kyu, I do it.
Not that anyone gives a flying f*** about shodan because the way the past two years have gone has pretty much devalued rank to the point were no-one in my dojo sees any value in grading. Last night Bob said, he's said it before, that he probably wont bother with Shodan because the only way to get it is to kiss ass and if he has to do that then it instantly devalues shodan to the point of worthlessness. I totally agree. In fact all the senior students are struggling to find a reason to take shodan.
I hear the shidoin are bitching because 1st kyu gradings interupt the teachers course. Which is ironic because the reason 1st kyu gradings were moved to teachers courses was that most shidoin found something better to do when gradings were held and so putting together a panel was becoming impossible.
Not that 1st kyu gradings are held in front of a panel even on teachers courses. Nope usually we're shuffled into a back room where we're asked a bunch of interesting questions about which teachers we've been training with. Then after we've failed we're politely told not to train with
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09-23-2009 08:27 PM 
Sensei commented that he wished we'd talk less; it is one of his ongoing battles and I doubt he'll ever win it. 
