All Bottles

Our new black belt was back in class this evening. Most of the class was spent going over bunkai for wansu and seisan kata. It was interesting to see the differences in her kata and ours. One big thing I noticed is that she did her kata with what I consider to be a lot of excess movement. I'm not knocking her. I'm sure that's the way she was taught. There just seemed to me to be a lot of flips and flourishes in her movements. There was a lot of telegraphing.

Another interesting difference is that she takes really high steps. I mean exaggeratedly high, like lifting her foot up to knee level and kind of swinging her leg when she steps. She said it was to gain distance, but frankly, I don't see it.

Her kata had other slight differences, but basically they were the same kata. She got lost at first trying to follow Joshua and me, but sensei told her, "Just do your kata."

I'm not criticizing. As the master said, "All bottles are good." It's just interesting to see the variations within the style, even in the same lineage. She is under Willie Adams, who, if I'm not mistaken, is also of the Nagle-Pittaway lineage.

After doing kata, Josh started asking a bunch of self defense questions about situations specific to women. Turns out he's been teaching a self defense class and wanted to make sure he was covering everything. Our new student told us a mnemonic she'd been taught: SING

Solar plexus
Instep
Nose
Groin

Interesting, but if I'm being attacked, I'm not going to be thinking, "let's see....SING..." In a real life situation, you don't have time for that. You have to react and react fast.

And you'd better know what to do.

Your life could depend on it.
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