My
Goju-Ryu Journal
My name is Bill Woodward, and I've been studying Okinawan Goju-Ryu under Sensei Ty Yocham since October 20, 1996. The class is taught at Round Rock Martial Arts in Round Rock, Texas. Classes are currently held on Tuesday and Thursday nights, from 7:30-9:30.
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email about the page. It started out as simply a convenient way
for me to record my progress, but I've received email from people
around the world because of it. I love to hear from people.
I have some other links and miscellaneous martial arts related
stuff on my Martial Arts page. Check it
out.
We had a very small class tonight. Just five students and Sensei. We bowed in and started working on rank requirements immediately, with Sensei running Sempai Williams and I through Shisochin and Sepai katas and making corrections. We then ran through Kakuha dai ichi and Bunkai kakuha dai ichi. In the bunkai, there was one specific section, where the attacker goes into shiko dachi and strikes the defender's groin while the defender chambers the leg and kicks to the attacker's knee, that Sensei had us go through about 15 times each way to work on the timing.
Towards the end of class, I worked out with Alex N. and did a preliminary pre-test for 9th kyu. We bowed out about 15 minutes early and headed home.
We only had a half dozen people in class tonight. We went through a shortened exercise period (everything except for kicks), and then geared up for sparring. Sensei had me run the class through the rules we use for tournament sparring, since we have a tournament this weekend. I then ran everyone in the class through two rounds of point sparring, with me acting as the head judge. The people who weren't sparring took turns as judges. After everyone had finished sparring, I geared up and sparred everyone a quick round with Ashley P. acting as head judge.
I sparred Alex, Pia, Charemon, Matt, and Ashley. Ashley was the last round and she beat me by one point. She's very fast, and my first hit on her, I caught her a good shot in the ribs, harder than I meant to. She bounced back to win the match, though. Good job!
We had a very small class tonight. Sensei came in, but he needed to head home before heading up to the tournament in Mart on Sarturday, so he asked me to run class. Before we started, though, he worked with me on Seisan Bunkai Kumite. I've started Seisan bunkai several times, but didn't get it all before Sensei had his auto accident earlier in the year. At that point, we kind of let it lapse, so this was starting it over. We got all of one direction (me defending) before he had to go.
After Sensei left, class was myself, Matt, Alex, and Ashley. We did a quick stretching session and then moved into rank requirements. I worked with Ashley on 3rd kiso kumite and 4th bunkai before we rearranged and I worked with Alex. We also did some kata application, specifically playing around with the elbow block/turn sequence in Sanchin. Alex asked about it, so we took turns coming up with applications.
Off to the tournament Saturday.
Today was the tournament in Mart, as well as my son's 12th birthday. The whole family drove up to Mart and watched Matt compete. I decided not to compete because I thought that the black belt competition wouldn't be until the afternoon, and we wanted to get back to Austin to celebrate Matt's birthday. Instead, they ran black belt kata first.
Matt took a second third place in weapons kata.
We started a few minutes late, and then went directly into a fairly quick exercise session. Same exercises, just run a bit faster, which is why I didn't describe it as shorter. After the exercises, we paired up, rolled up our sleeves, and did arm and leg conditioning. We had an odd number of people, so Sensei, Sempai Williams, and I took turns pairing up for conditioning.
Towards the end of class, Sensei had me take Alex and do a pre-pretest for his orange belt test. It would have been a pretest, but Alex was training with no belt due to forgetting dojo kun.
We have a new student in the Round Rock class now. Sempai Pew joined us from the Austin class. He's a high school student and plays football on his school team. The Austin class conflicted with his football schedule, so he's joining us for the later Round Rock class. Basically this means that he comes directly from football practice, which I'd imagine is pretty exhausting. So, welcome, Sempai Pew!
We were supposed to start a white crane class this evening, taking place on Thursdays before the karate class, but Sensei was ill. Lee and I got together for the white crane class, practiced the kata that we knew, and experimented with some application. This is an extra class, supplemental to the Goju-Ryu training.
The karate class was pretty packed, which was very nice to see after several weeks of very small classes. I ran the exercises through the first half of class, and then we broke up and worked on rank requirements for the rest of class.
Before class, Sempai Pew and I worked on saifa bunkai and 8th kiso kumite, and I worked on 9th kumite. I also worked with Charemon on 2nd kumite.
As class time rolled around, a lady came in to discuss the class. It turns out that she either is or was a Shodan in Shotokan/Shotokai, and s looking to join a class. Sensei spent time talking to her, so I got the class paired up and working on rank requirements, which we did for most of class.
I spent time working with Alex, Matt, and Charemon. The lady who was asking about the class said she will be joining us on Thursday.
We had our first white crane class with Sensei Yocham this evening, with myself and Lee in attendance. We started off with a quick discussion of energy training and what the class would consist of. Sensei recommended putting together a bag for hand conditioning from an old gi, filled with rice. We also went through Hakutsuru So kata. I had seen this form before, but had not really been taught it, so we spent about 20 minutes working on it, working on specific points.
We started the Goju-Ryu class and ran through exercises. We had a new student, Maria, join the class. She has a Shodan in Shotokai, but has not studied in a number of years.
After the exercise period, Sensei took Sempai Williams and I outside to discuss some class stuff. Sensei and Shihan want me to start taking on more of a teaching role in the class, and to do this, Sensei wants me to start taking the Tuesday class and teaching it. This will give me some much needed teaching experience as well as giving him a chance to visit some of the other schools if he decides to. As art of this discussion, Sensei wants me to start lining up at the head of class instead of in the senior student spot, and to be addressed as Dai-Sempai.
All of which is somewhat uncomfortable for me, but I think it's a natural progression to learn to teach. Since I'm not currently in a position to run a class of my own, this sounds like the next best thing. I'll also be taking on more responsibility in the class, being responsible for class dues and role taking and reports to Sensei Marble. Lastly, Sensei told me that I would not be eligible to test for Sandan until next summer, so that's a bit of a relief.
Bill Wallace was in town doing a seminar over at the Fourth Degree Martial Arts. Sensei Yocham, Mr. Bonicoro, and I attended. I worked out with Woody Thompson for most of the class. I also ran into a fellow, T.J., who I used to work with over at PSW Technologies, a now non-existent consulting firm.
We spent most of the seminar working on sparring techniques from a leading backfist.
Tonight was my 38th birthday, so Matt and I stayed home and the family went out to dinner. Chuy's, and I need an extra hard workout on Thursday.
Sensei had to go out of town to take care of some family business, so I ran class this evening. I met Lee over at the dojo for the White Crane class, and we worked on Hakutsuru So. I had also put together a canvas bag with 4 pounds of rice, and we took turns striking it and also throwing it back and forth to work on grip strength.
My wife was off at some school meetings for our kids, so I had all four of the kids in class until about 9:00. They got a little rambunctious during the White Crane class, but calmed down and were great for the karate class.
For Goju-Ryu class, we had eight students including myself. The Monday/Wednesday class had done 1,000 techniques, and we needed to do the same, so after stretching, we broke up into two groups, with me eading one and Mr. Bonicoro leading the other. We then proceeded to do 1,000 basic techniques, with the people in the group taking turns calling out the count. My group conssted of Maria, Dr. Hensley, Charemon, and myself. We did 100 of each of the four kicks, 200 reverse punches from Shikodachi (jo and chu), 100 jo blocks, 100 chu blocks, 100 ge blocks, and 100 back fists.
After exercises, we paired and and worked on rank requirements. I worked with Maria for most of the class and then finished up with Alex.
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