Quote:
Dan Harden wrote:
Hi George
Has he given actual verbal training tips and steps as to what students should be doing to float someones weight-up, either in say a grappling move? And how to sustain it in a moving motion. Or is he doing it in wrist grabs? How about how to capture their body ?
Cheers
Dan
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Hi Dan,
Actually, I would say that he is increasingly developing a verbal method for describing what he is doing. It's quite an improvement over the "just catch it" that one got for many years. But it's still not as detailed as I would hope for. He will show something and give it his explanation but I actually see three separate elements functioning simultaneously and if you don't know that, you will still have trouble reproducing what he is doing.
Ikeda Sensei has a fairly standard repertoire for seminars. He will do this stuff mostly from grabs. He is quite good at capturing the whole body from whatever contact point he has. He doesn't address a grappling application in the usual seminar venue. I think he is still trying to get people to understand what is happening in the most basic sense. I am sure that he does a much broader and deeper presentation to his students. He has an advanced class in Boulder that is only open to a small group and that's where he works on stuff for himself. That's where I suspect he goes a bit off the grid.
When I teach, I do cover those things. My verbal / physical explanation is much more involved than his. This is probably due to the fact that I am a very verbal person to begin with and English is my first language. Anyway, I do show the principles functioning from a grappling connection, from strikes, as well as grabs. I experiment with getting the float from any possible point of contact. I even connect these principles to the sword. It's an on-going process.
I don't know who's way works better... He keeps it fairly simple and sticks with one set of attacks to show the principles functioning and I am more apt to show how the principles function via a variety of connections in the hopes that people begin to see what they all have in common. I have no real sense of which is a more effective approach in getting people to do this stuff.
I am finding training with Howard Popkin Sensei to be quite helpful in this regard. He has a very detailed system of explanation from Okamoto Sensei, who clearly is not using the "steal the technique" model of non-instruction. If I had access to Dan Angier Sensei I'd go after it but I really only get to see him every few years. But Howard is coming to my dojo twice this year and I am headed to Florida to see Okamoto Sensei and I expect my ability to both do and teach this material will be drastically enhanced by the end of this year.
Once you make the first breakthrough it comes faster but there are still many layers. The structural training aspect is also important as has been discussed. Without it you can do power neutralization of the attacker but you can't generate the kind of power in your own movement which we have been discussing on the forums here. I am pursuing some investigations in that area but haven't arrived at any consistent practice yet... still experimenting.
I'd have gotten to your one of your seminars but they've all been back east and my travel schedule is already crazy... Maybe we could get together sometime when you visit Woodinville, if you have any spare moments and the inclination.