Sumo, Kobudo and Garage Masters

Okay, weird title I know, and this'll be a long post, but please bear with me*.

So on Sunday me and James and Shun head off to take part in an Okinawan Sumo competition.  Now, me being me, I'd sized up the average Okinawan and figured that I'd have a fair few kilos over them, and all you had to do was knock the over or push them out of the ring, right?

Wrong.

Okinawan Sumo is a bit of a misnomer.  They called it that, but it's really Okinawan Wrestling, called Tegumi and there were no fat guys in nappies in sight.  You wear a gi and a sash around your waist.  They called it an obi, but it was a sash, long and knotted at the front in a complicated way I couldn't quite get.  It's a clear Chinese or maybe even Thai influence. You also put a little bandanna around your head.  The sash/bandanna is either red or white, depending on whether you're East or West, which is the two entry points to the ring, the ring being a mound of sand.  By the way, it was raining heavily and the wrestling was done outside.

Anyway, even with all this I was figuring that I had a bit of a chance, go for a leg take down, something like that.  But then the rules got explained to me.

1) Two points to win the match, the match lasting 3 minutes with 1 round

2) A point for each time you got your opponent's two shoulders to touch the floor, so just getting him fully on his back.

3) You have to keep your hands on your opponent's sash at all times, and in a certain way too.

4) There are 2 weight categories: under 75k and over 75k  That's it.

It was rule 3 that really fucked me.

I like to use my hands when I wrestle, come up high, get underhooks, yadda yadda yadda.  This was not an option in Tegume.  Your right hand goes underneath and through your opponent's sash, taking an overhand grip towards the his back.  Your left hand grips the sash at his right side in a thumb up grip.  You then vie for dominance and a good throw.

So... So, the rules are explained to me and we watch the light weights battle it out, lots of twisting and sweeping hip throws.  Okay, I think, this should be interesting.  Clearly I need a game plan, but the way the light weights were moving there wasn't much I could realistically use.  I was hoping to be a few along when it came to the heavy weights, so I could see how they approached things.

So, guess who was called out first?

Yeah, little ol' me.  And against the guy who would end up coming 3rd overall.  Smaller then me, but roughly my height and quick.  We got in position, set ourselves up and start to go at it.  He is really athletic and tries a few things to get me, unfortunately instinct kicked in and I ended up on my knees with my hands wanting to go for a leg grab and take down.  Of course my hands are caught in his belt and he just knocks me over.  Point to him!

So, we restart and now my tactic is simple: he's better than me, he can move faster than me and his balance is really good, I'm just going to become really awkward, so that's exactly what I do.  He comes in with several different techniques but I hold him at bay until he gets a perfect position to throw me, whereupon I sat on him and took the point! Whay me.  The next point and the match went to him though, I gave up on waiting, becoming worried about the time and tried attacking and he counter threw me.  Ah well.  As a reward for not getting past the first round I got a 6 pack of beer, 4 cans of green tea (drinking it now) and a big bottle of sake!  Woohoo!

James had Shun in the first round and beat him, but then fought the guy who beat me next and that guy beat James.  As the day progressed I got a better idea of what I should have been doing, so I've gotten James to agree to some sports fighting practice tonight!  There's another wrestling match this weekend coming, so I'm going to prep for that.

So, that's one of the parts of the title of this post explained, but Kobudo and Garage Masters?

Well, there's this guy Marc MacYoung (whorish shamelessless link) who knows more about combat and fighting and surviving than most people ever get to know, and he talks a lot of sense.  And one of the things he talks about is that there are a lot of people in the martial arts world who teach techniques that are great but aren't brilliant, but they look good and the teachers are showmen and they make money and have lots of students because of it.  Fine, that's the way things are.  And then there's the guys training in their garages with maybe a few like minded friends and their techniques (and the concepts underlying their techniques) are so good and simple and deadly that you would never want to come across them in a bad way.  And no one knows these guys exist.  They don't brag, they don't sell books, they don't advertise, they just train and they know.  He calls them Garage Masters, and I think it's a damn good term.

Okinawa, I'm rapidly learning, is like the Mecca of Garage Masters.  Arikaki Sensei is one, and the guy I came across today is another.  Steve Lyons, a Canadian me and James met at Gojo Ryu told us that there was a Kobudo class on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings at the Budokan and today I made it, setting off before the rain.  The teacher teaching the class is Yogi Sensei and the class was Steve, with me turning up and going "hi" and then being taught sai (3 pronged dagger).



I've had the honour and the privilege to train under some truly tough and skilled guys, Shihan Mac Robertson and Fraser being two of the toughest and... and this guy was a little out of their league.  I have no idea how old he is, but he said he'd been doing Karate for 50 years and Kobudo (weapons work) only 30.  Small, stocky, total economy of movement and that wry, relaxed Okinawan Karate Master humour;  punch like an elephant, finger poke of doom (and fingers thicker than my thumb!), all energy at the tip of the movement, at the exactly perfect point.  He said that he'd teach me 2 kata, a sai kata and a bo kata.  And then he took me through the sai kata, pausing every so often to correct my stance and my energy transfers (there was a fun 5 minutes when he taught me how to punch really hard and channel everything into it). I'll be training with him on Monday, Wednesday and Friday from now on.

At the end of the class he gave me his card and I noted that he was 9th Dan in Karate and an 8th Dan in Kobudo.  As seems typical of the Okinawans, he made no mention of this on introductions; he expects no pay and just turns up on Monday, Wednesday and Friday to teach whoever wants to learn.

I intend to learn a lot.  We talked a bit about conditioning and what he does, which is sanchin kata, the gami, squeezing blocks of wood and kicking a post with his toes, stuff I intend to start doing, so watch this space.

I really am such a lucky bastard to be here, with the sheer wealth of knowledge around me.  I wonder what I'll pick up next...

In other news, went to the gym after kobudo and lifted some weights:

Weight: 104.9
Mobility warm up

Bench mark exercises-
Push ups 30
Hanging Lat raises 10
Pull ups 5
Chin ups 3
HLR 10
Dips 6

Feeling tired but dragged myself to the Squat rack

Over head squats - Bar x 5, Bar x 5, Bar x 7, working on form

Squats - working on form, getting everything aligned, going deep

70k x 3, 70k x 4, 70k x 6, 70k x 7, 70k x 8, 70k x 9, 70k x 10.

Dunno where that came from, suddenly decided to start climbing a mountain.

Body exhausted I cycled (slowly, painfully) home, not quite missing the rain but climbing the hill despite the squats.



Ooh, as a side thing, I'm just going to put a link here to my mate Liz's website.  She's just starting out and it helps for people in blogs to link to her as then it give hers a better mark on Google's search ranking.

http://www.carinorosa.co.uk/

Peace out guys

E!


*Anally retentive spelling fascist that I am I actually had five minutes checking on the internet whether it's "bare with me" or "bear with me".  Such an English teacher at heart...