Monday, April 17, 2006

Martial University

Received the class schedule for Martial University over the weekend. Damn.

Once a year Kris Wilder, a goju instructor in Seattle puts together MU. It's a cool seminar. He hand picks a variety of local instructors. Each hour, five of them step forward and describe what they will teach for that hour. The students who signed up thus get to pick from five possibilities each hour. That runs to six classes plus the noon bonus. The last few years the noon bonus has been a lecture from off the beaten path. This year it will be a kendo demonstration

Kris assigned me to teach five classes. Crap, do I know five things? We'll see. We won't have the lecture room this year, so I'll do mostly mat time. I'm thinking a class on pain. Everyone knows what pain is as an event, but most haven't thought it through as a tool. It will also allow some segues into strategic and tactical thinking and the tactical matrix.

Then a class on entries, requested by John Migliore. He asked what I teach/do for a sudden ambush. It's a good skill and allows an intro to the strategic matrix as well as operant conditioning as a training method.

I want to do a knife eye-opener. I don't claim to teach knife defense largely because I have so little confidence in most of what is taught. I'll print out some pictures of knife wounds and then we'll play two games- the Manson Drill, designed by Tony Blauer and my Reception Line drill. They're both myth busters. Then we can talk about the tendency to tailor training to create unrealistic success.

Love to do a class on Sosuishitsu-ryu kata, let them see some true koryu stuff. Not sure who will be up for it, but it will be cool for me at least.

That's four. In the past I've done principles-based classes on joint locks and takedowns and lectures on violence. If there hasn't been a big turn-over in student base, that might be boring. Maybe infighting strikes? Blindfolded infighting? Power generation at three ranges?

Should be fun.
http://www.westseattlekarate.com/martialu.shtml

Martial University, May 20th. Bellevue Washington.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Why don't u contract to start your own MU here in town on the opposite side of the year from the Seattle one. You know enough people, and those people know people, where you could put on a slam-bang, overall theme-based program. And our community colleges, if they collect class fees (instructors would be paid instructor fees) would provide space and college credit under community ed. As far as I know, it's not been done here in town. Another bonus - most of the paperwork would be done for you.