We started the class with randori practice; I’d planned to suggest randori because I’d read Parker Sensei’s series (e.g. Randori is not about winning ).
Curious aside; I think that Parker Sensei is referring to two person randori. I find it mildly confusing that we use the same word to refer to group attack as we use to refer to a two person exercise that bears some similarity to push hands. I did a quick search on the terms ( google’s take on randori) and the definitions are … let’s just say somewhat varied. This is one of the reasons that my S.O. prefers that I use English words rather than Japanese. Easy enough to say “group attack”, but I don’t know of a word that conveys the two person version of this exercise. My daughter and I tried to use randori to refer to the two person exercise and jiyu waza to refer to the group attack, but I don’t think there is a consensus on how the words ought to be used.
Geoff prefers that we work on multi- attack group attack; I think he’s right, we’ve gotten stale and comfortable with the straight thrust attacks, and the exercise of recognizing an attack and responding to it is very useful. We broke up into two groups and worked one defender against three attackers. Since we had a couple of juniors, we worked to be slow and deliberate. I think I’ve done better than I did; I wasn’t as mindful as I want to be. But that’s why they call it practice.
We had about a half an hour left, so we split it into two sessions with two different partners. Worked with my testing partner Dave for the first session. We only had time to work the standing 8 of classic form number three. I’ve kind of hit a plateau, and it is time for me to ask for some feedback. My second session I went down to the new student section and worked on the fifth of the striking techniques with our newest student. She’s been around long enough that she didn’t need me talking at her, so I tried to give her attacks for a good solid 10 minutes. I only threw her when it seemed like she was getting comfortable and needed to break up the flow. She started pretty good and finished excellent. She has a real gift for timing and a couple of those throws she managed to pull me off my feet when I didn’t have a good foot planted and I had to work hard to do a proper breakfall. (If the thrower catches you at just the right/wrong instant, you have to work hard to get your butt down to the mat before your head hits.) Loads of fun, but I have to admit that I was standing up much more slowly at the end of the practice than at the beginning.
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