What a weekend we had with Jarrett Shihan!
The seminar started Friday night with Jarrett Shihan teaching various kumite drills with a focus on using different ways to block and counter. This was a great course especially for many of our Junior Sport Karate Athletes but it was also an ideal course for all our martial arts students. Learning to block, evade and counter whether with a throw or a punch is crucial for survival and solid self-defense skills.
We started Satruday with training beginning at 9am. We went straight into grappling. Jarrett Shihan worked with the kids and adults on basic techniques such as O Soto Gari, but added a twist by throwing in one legged dual soto gari competitions and other variations. The emphasis on kuzushi was critical in allowing us to better understand the principles of unbalancing our opponent prior to attempting any kind of throw.
During the Aikido session Shihan spent some time on what to do when kotegaeshi doesn't work as planned, weaving the movements into other techniques and essentially going where uke desires to go. He ended with showing how to properly apply kotegaeshi so that all the weaving of techniques is ultimately unnecessary if you focus on the basics and apply proper technique.
We concluded Saturday's seminar with Black Belt Demonstrations and then a Kyu/Gup Test. At the end Jarrett Shihan promoted Jeff Reach Sensei and Tim Morgan Sensei to 2nd Degree Black Belt in Judo and Jujitsu, Chris Fortney Sensei to 1st Dan in Judo and Jujitsu, Loren Fish to 3rd kyu purple belt in Judo and Jujitsu and Randy Herndon to 6th kyu orange belt in Judo and Jujitsu.
Sunday we started at 10am and jumped right into a 3 hour session of Iaido. Shihan taught a new kata Naname Giri and also reviewed the Seitei Gata with all the students as well. To finish the seminar we had Iaido testing. Justin Chadbourn Sensei was testing for 1st kyu red belt and was suprised with a promotion to 1st Degree Black Belt in Iaido. Randy Herndon was promoted to 7th Kyu Gold Belt as was Rick Robinson.
Overall it was an amazing weekend and our school, students and staff are all blessed to have Jarrett Shihan in our lives.
