Cutting on 6/15

[rawnshah]

It was a good session last Sunday. We had lots of time doing cuts for each person, and even one shodan cutting test for Andrew Cameron. We taped it again this time and I should probably edit and upload that video when I can find free time. The video camera I have doesn't take shots fast enough. It's pretty standard for most vidcams but what we really need is a high-speed camera that can take many shots per second in burst mode. There's a nice Casio EX-F1 which can do 60 shots per second either in a series of stills or even in video, but costs $1000.


Generally lots of suihei practice for most of the students, aiming to get them really flat. It is probably the hardest of the basic cuts to get correct, i.e., really flat than angled. Typically the angle goes up because of the way they swing.

The hard part of the cutting is when you are trying to perfect technique or fix bad habits. There are so many details to remember, and the adjustments people need to make may change with each new cut. The only real way is to repeat the same cut over and over again within a short amount of time, remember the mistakes each time, and try to correct each time.

One bad habit is not carrying the suihei cut wide enough, and simply going to e.g. jodan-kamae as soon as they are through the goza. What that does is limit the range of the suihei, so even if you get it right and flat for one goza, it probably won't work when there's two goza before you. You have to keep making yourself remember to stretch that cut wide and correct yourself every single time.

I didn't do the snap cuts like I said I would. Instead went for 6-cuts repeatedly on three different goza, without messing up, and at speed. The cuts worked, but the first two kesas always made the wrong cutting sound to me, even if they did work. I only made 5 cuts on one, coming a little close above the peg by my guess so I made a point-decision not to mess it up. I'll have to look back at the time-clock on the videocam to see how long it took to cut all three, but that's still so few goza it's not an useful reading to extrapolate from.

My goal in the next session is to go through 5-10 goza, as many cuts as possible, in as short a time. My guess is that that should be 50+ cuts over 10 goza. I could bump that up higher with just repeated kesas or kiriages but only perhaps once or twice (otherwise it gets boring). To make myself even more tired, I can try pretend-cutting a whole bunch of times right before getting to the real cutting.