Hi guys, Erick you are losing me a bit, but that almost goes without saying! j/k. I do think about shear a lot in terms of moving uke (isn't holding a playing card lengthwise with thumb and forefinger, and then "popping" it away an example of very simple shear?).
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Erick Mead wrote:
or driving the shear point of cutting out the blade length and through the target -- you do the same in uke's body -- (and stiff or loose) it finds any point of discontinuity that naturally wants to separate -- and then you help it separate.  |
Well it might be that I overinterpretted your ikkyo/arm-sword example, because now it sounds like you agree with me. I thought of a good way to say why I take issue with the "put a sword in your hand while doing a technique to show if it is right" school of thought: depending on how uke has been twisted, there could be 3, 5, tens, or hundreds of little sword shear examples throughout his body. They are key, and they are what give you control of uke and take away his control.. but to suggest that there is one main sword that happens to be cutting the neck when you are doing it right (or that all the little swords sum to that neck-pointed sword) seems like fantasy to me.
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William Hazen wrote:
If it's coming at the end and the tip is moving then there maybe too much tension in your forearms which is affecting your "follow through". Folks that are right handed have a tendency to "jerk" the tip until they learn to relax.
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Thanks! That reminds me of two things, one is Phi's comment above, and the other is more right-hand related as you noted. Sometimes, to make sure my right hand isn't doing things it shouldn't, I take away some of its influence by holding the bokken without a good grip there. I basically don't use the thumb and just loosely cup the bokken, for the right hand. (This is halfway between correct grip and left-hand-only.) Right hand can still support the bokken (put upward force) and it can still exert some sideways force (to steady it), and it can still guide the bokken back towards me in its arc, but it cannot shove the sword forward or yank it back. Just a little "check" I do to see if I am doing what I think I am doing, and then I go back to holding it less wrong!