At a recent class I was training with a very good Buyu friend of mine, who also happens to be in great physical shape. It was a real opportunity to stress-test my kamae and see if I could get the right positioning and application of a technique. I knew that if I did not have a tactical advantage I would unlikely overpower him. I had one advantage though, he had missed a few classes lately.
We took our time and coached each other through the motions, constantly trying to smooth out the rough edges of our form. We joked that every time we started to improve in one area, we might lose it in another. Our distancing improved, and that threw our timing out, then we improved our timing and we started using the wrong muscles to apply the technique, we started using the right ones and our distance was impacted. Jack told us that this was the whole purpose of training versus fighting, that training was the time to learn and get better. So we had better utilize the opportunity.
At one point my partner got impatient and muscled through the form, this resulted in an incomplete technique that did not quite work. If done quickly it may have caused some damage, but it just didn't feel right to either of us. Of course, this was the one that our instructor observed...
"You muscled it!" exclaimed Jack, smiling.
"I know, I know..." said my partner. And then suddenly he said "I'm supposed to get in to a good position so that I can control him easily, and he finds it very hard to control me, that way a weaker person can take on a stronger opponent and win. Right?"
A few of us stopped. Although nobody, not even Jack, had said it quite so succinctly and directly, that was exactly what I felt we had been focusing on for a while. At least I hoped that was right...
"Exactly!" confirmed Jack, "I couldn't have put it better myself."
It seemed we all knew what we were supposed to be doing, we just had to keep doing it until it became integral to our training.
