March 26, 2007

When all the black belts gather

The black/brown belt class I’ve been attending for the past few months usually ends up being private/semi-private lessons for me. Tonight was a big switch. There were six black belts in attendance and one very clueless brown belt (that would be yours truly).

I’ve been feeling good lately because I am relatively close to knowing all the kata’s I need to know up to black belt testing. Tonight I got to see the great beyond.

In kobudo, there are four weapons needed up to black belt: one nunchaku kata, three bo kata’s, two tunfa kata’s and two sai kata’s. After that, things get crazy. There are two-man weapons kata’s, and a whole slew of new weapons to learn as well. Tonight I got a taste of some of the other weapons that I had only seen hanging on the wall before.

We worked on eiku and nunte bo kata’s tonight and although extremely confusing, it’s always fun to try something new. Eiku is like swinging around a large oar. It is heavy and awkward for someone who has no clue how to use the thing. For someone who bought a youth bo so that I would have something nice and light, this was a big switch for me. The neat thing about using these weapons is that you can see the history to the weapon, and easily know what its everyday use was and how it could be converted into a weapon if necessary.

Even more heavy than the eiku, was the nunte bo. I believe the intended use for this weapon was as a means to catch fish, Survivor style. The first time we ran through this kata, I just used my bo. One of my instructors gave me a nunte bo to give it a try the next time we ran through it and there is a big difference. The center of the nunte bo is completely different than on a traditional bo, and it is HEAVY. Forget Pilates; if I want to tone my arms, I’ll just need to start swinging around a nunte bo more often.

I also worked on bunkai a bit before class. For black belt testing, I’ll need to know basic bunkai for all of my kata’s. But I’ll need to have a showcase open hand and weapons kata that goes a bit beyond. I think that I’d really like to do a sai kata for my showcase bunkai. I’ve always really like the sai, and I feel comfortable with them which is important.

Of course, every time I thought I had a good handle on a weapon, I realized that I was in fact wrong. . . very, very wrong. So, we’ll see what happens.