VikingPower
06-06-2005, 11:02 PM
I've known for quite some time that my kicking skills quite simply suck ass. I have a decent front kick but that's it, as I much prefer fighting with my hands, elbows, and maybe the occasional knee or foot stomp, as well as sanpo geris (basically a kick right to somebody's little ninjas). So, I've been looking around for quite some time for a good place to get in some good kicking training as well as some quality sparring, as our little group has shrunk considerably and now only two guys are interested and can throw down once a week if they're lucky.
So I looked around, checked out MT (over $100 for a private lesson once a week, 90 min total, and all he did was private lessons so fuck that), blah blah blah. So then I found out that they teach Kyokushinkai at a local college, but upon getting in touch with the Sempai there, he told me they canned the program due to it being "too intense for most students" so he now teaches out of his own house 2 or 3 times a week for only $45. So I was pretty interested, talked to Ronin a bit about it through PMs and whatnot but decided to keep it on the downlow until I decided I liked how he taught it.
Got to his house and entered his garage and already I liked what I saw: heavy bag, weight machines, medicine balls, kicking pads, focus mitts, a few sets of cloth and instep pads, homemade makiwara, and a PVC pipe covered in foam and duct tape he used for shin conditioning. He introduced himself as Sempai, not Sensei, which I like when some people do that as it implies they're not really a teacher yet (which he is). I trained with two other guys that night, all three were big fellows (smallest out of the three was at least a good 220) and good fighters. We did nice intense drills to start: the usuals (one strike, strikes with blocks, double kicks per cadence etc.), then started working in good combinations and the like, 20 reps for all of them. Got a nice good sweat going on, they showed me some of their kata (two were exact duplicates of ones I've done before but I won't need to know them for a while: Sanchin and Taikyoku Sono Ichi), then we got down to sparring. Nice, hard sparring. Got myself a bloody lip and a sore stomach, as the Sempai was getting in some hard digs into my solar plexus. Some clinch work and a little groundfighting was thrown in there too. We then finished up with a lot of abdominal exercises and medicine ball work.
Talking with him after impressed me the most. He told me he doesn't teach kids because he's irritated they won't listen or follow instructions, and he isn't out to teach everyone on the block. He's interested in dedicated, never-say-quit guys as everyone he teaches is a reflection of him and doesn't want them looking like shit. I'm pretty stoked about it, as I've always had a fondness for karate (first martial art I took, after all) and I like how he blends in a good mix of traditional and contemporary. So this ninja's gone over to the Dark Side, but yes, I still will be hitting up my Bujinkan dojo as well :headbang:
So I looked around, checked out MT (over $100 for a private lesson once a week, 90 min total, and all he did was private lessons so fuck that), blah blah blah. So then I found out that they teach Kyokushinkai at a local college, but upon getting in touch with the Sempai there, he told me they canned the program due to it being "too intense for most students" so he now teaches out of his own house 2 or 3 times a week for only $45. So I was pretty interested, talked to Ronin a bit about it through PMs and whatnot but decided to keep it on the downlow until I decided I liked how he taught it.
Got to his house and entered his garage and already I liked what I saw: heavy bag, weight machines, medicine balls, kicking pads, focus mitts, a few sets of cloth and instep pads, homemade makiwara, and a PVC pipe covered in foam and duct tape he used for shin conditioning. He introduced himself as Sempai, not Sensei, which I like when some people do that as it implies they're not really a teacher yet (which he is). I trained with two other guys that night, all three were big fellows (smallest out of the three was at least a good 220) and good fighters. We did nice intense drills to start: the usuals (one strike, strikes with blocks, double kicks per cadence etc.), then started working in good combinations and the like, 20 reps for all of them. Got a nice good sweat going on, they showed me some of their kata (two were exact duplicates of ones I've done before but I won't need to know them for a while: Sanchin and Taikyoku Sono Ichi), then we got down to sparring. Nice, hard sparring. Got myself a bloody lip and a sore stomach, as the Sempai was getting in some hard digs into my solar plexus. Some clinch work and a little groundfighting was thrown in there too. We then finished up with a lot of abdominal exercises and medicine ball work.
Talking with him after impressed me the most. He told me he doesn't teach kids because he's irritated they won't listen or follow instructions, and he isn't out to teach everyone on the block. He's interested in dedicated, never-say-quit guys as everyone he teaches is a reflection of him and doesn't want them looking like shit. I'm pretty stoked about it, as I've always had a fondness for karate (first martial art I took, after all) and I like how he blends in a good mix of traditional and contemporary. So this ninja's gone over to the Dark Side, but yes, I still will be hitting up my Bujinkan dojo as well :headbang:
