The work went with a strict and thorough procedure that prevented accidents when, in the tiny and dark workshop, five blacksmiths were squeezed working on three anvils for 12 hours a day.
An interesting ceremony, that repeated even in other workshops in Germany I visited, was the ceremony of quenching the steel.
Every blacksmith was busy doing his work, and when he reached the time to quench the heated steel in oil the Maister himself would knock on the anvil and everybody, in unison, loudly proclaimed: “Good thoughts” (Gute Gedanken).
There is a possible forecast for snow next week in Jerusalem. If snow is predicted, please call (not SMS, only voice calls) the organisation phone to find out if the session takes place. Call 052-5108747
This Friday, 29.1.2016, at 08:00 exactly, we will have a ground fighting lesson in Honbu dojo. Here’s a link to the event on Facebook.
During the week we will emphasise the connection between upper body sabaki and rapid direction changes. We will also focus on closing distance for throws.
This Friday, 22.1.2016, 08:00, at Honbu dojo, we will conduct a DETANT seminar (1st part) for conflict managment. The registration for this seminar is already closed and there are no available places left.
A DETANT seminar necessitates active participation so I would like to ask all veterans to abstain from coming unless already registered.
This DETANT seminar (1st part) is part of a series. When enough veterans will pass through these workshops, in few months time, we will start enrolling the 2nd part.
This week, in all the dojos, we will hone Sabaki. Those that could train this week already have a lot of material to work with, but I suggest watching the seven (7) videos below to get a better grasp on applying AKBAN sabaki in various martial disciplines.
A simple example of an attack/defense game will show the active principle. Suppose the attacker has a choice between two locations. Likewise, the defender can choose to defend either location (for illustrative purposes, the option of allocating some of his forces to each location is omitted). Success is defined as an attack against an undefended location. It is apparent from their construct that, Ceteris paribus, the attacker has a 50/50 chance of choosing an undefended location.
But, what if the attacker could convince the defender that there were three possible locations for the attack? Here it follows that the success probability climbs to 2/3, and so forth, reaching unity as a mathematical limit when the number of threatened sites grows arbitrarily large.
It is, of course, necessary that the options introduced be both individually and collectively credible to the victim.
From: Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) research paper, “Deception Maxims: Fact and Folklore”, April 1980
This week we will have an ECR Japanese sword session in honbu dojo at 08:00, 15.1.2016.
During the week we will continue with the arm locks flowchart, research applications of Sutemi waza against counter to seoe (two on one) and add Ganseki to this branch.
Some time of each session will be devoted to advanced kicks.