Copyright Peter Morton Academy of Judo Jujitsu Karate
Kaleen junior seminar 2005
5 March 2005
The seminar was hosted by the Kaleen branch and held at St Michael's Primary School, Kaleen ACT.
The day started at 9am with a bowing-in ceremony and a welcome to everyone. Next Renshi Wilson allocated the forty-four participating students into coloured teams. This was followed by warm-up exercises with Sensei Ramsden.
Tsuki and Keri were demonstrated and practiced, with Shihan Scharrer concentrating on the straight punch and the heel of the hand strike.
When all had mastered the two of these, Shihan Scharrer then put them through a good session of Double Round Kick and Ushi Geri. Students liked this exercise as they could kick as hard as they liked into a punching bag. Some tried to kick the Sensei holding the bag into next week.
Judogi game - following morning tea, which was a feast, came judogi folding and belt tying with Shihan Scharrer, then it was on to a game with Sensei Patrick.
For this game, all the folded and tied judogis were put in a large pile in the middle of the mat. Each judogi was given a point value according to belt colour. The teams lined up in their colour group at various points around the mat then, on a given signal, one member from each team ran and grabbed a judogi. Each team member took turns at obtaining a judogi and when all were gone from the centre teams were allowed to steal from other teams' piles. Finally a signal was given to stop and points were added up. The victors were the green team with the highest point score.
Basic Steps was practiced as a group with Sensei Owers, followed by Shihan Rowley for a couple more runs through and some comments on the finer points of this kata.
On the last run through the second half of the basic steps, the students continued on without an instructor and it was done so well that all in the dojo clapped their effort.
"Be as though you are not there," said Renshi Essery.
"What's he talking about?" came as a whisper from somewhere within the captive audience. Renshi Essery was explaining the finer points of breaking an opponent's balance when participating in judo. He was demonstrating this with a breaking of balance game where two people face each other and touch hands, feeling your opponent move as you use a soft touch.
The idea is to take your opponent off balance without force and he was explaining that you had to make your moves so light that it was like "you are not there" and your opponent would come looking for you, thereby putting themselves off balance.
Renshi Essery then went on to demonstrate and talk about the nine ways of breaking balance and the correct way to execute these. He made a point that sight is not needed for judo. To demonstrate this he got the students to play the breaking of balance game and perform four of the nine ways of breaking balance with their eyes closed.
At the end of this session, when all were around the mat, a white belt girl asked Dave and Eddie as they were demonstrating some throws, "can we see you in a fight after this?" Guess she wanted to see who was the better of the two.
Lunch came and went and to settle everyone down Renshi Wilson got all involved in a game where two students held on to each end of a belt and tried to pull the other off balance without too much force. This eventually degraded into a tug-o-war between students.
Breakfalls and the right way to fall was the next session with Senseis Teys and Ramsden. Here the side and back breakfalls were demonstrated and practiced through a series of exercises leading to a full breakfall. By the end of this practice some students complained that their hands were stinging.
The misconception about women being able to defend themselves was the subject that Renshi O'Malley spoke about and demonstrated in her session.
She demonstrated various blocks with Renshi Essery and to show that women can fend off an attacker or two she called for two black belts to attack her.
Suddenly the dojo went quiet. Renshi Essery said that he would take part and then Sensei Maconachie, who had never been up against Renshi O'Malley but knew of her reputation, stepped forward like a lamb to the slaughter. The rest of the Dan belts stopped hiding behind each other and breathed a sigh of relief.
The attackers never knew what hit them. They were hit, punched, chopped, thrown and kneed in the groin. Every time they made a move on Renshi O'Malley they found themselves on the mat.
Finally, to the relief of the attackers, the demonstration was over and Sensei Maconachie remarked, in a very high voice after receiving a knee to the groin, "that was fun!" The students burst out laughing and gave a rousing applause to the attackers and Renshi O'Malley. She definitely proved her point.
Never before have students been so keen to be attacked, so as a follow-on to Renshi O'Malley's session all students participated in individual two-man attacks.
A short break for afternoon tea and it was back into the programme.
The martial arts guest this year was John Bear who demonstrated the art of Kokusa Jujutsu. He and his assistant, David, demonstrated a few katas with the use of a long and a short sword and gave a brief overview of what and how these swords were and are used for.
After their session, Shihan Scharrer presented a Certificate of Appreciation to John and David as a way of thanking them for giving up their time to do a demonstration at the seminar.
The Basic Steps competition was hotly contested and all competitors put in a great effort but there can be only one winner and that was St Edmunds, ACT.
St Edmunds had one student and a chief instructor in their group, so it was an excellent effort on their part. After their win was announced a black belt remarked about the student's effort, "He is the Master's student!" What more can be said?
The Two Man-Attack competition was not held in the usual way of one contestant from each branch. At this stage the programme was running behind time so it was decided to pick a winner from the earlier two-man attacks where every student had participated. It was by unanimous decision that the clear winner was Batemans Bay, NSW, and it was won for them with an extremely good effort by Caitlin Saunders.
Certificates and awards were presented, everyone was thanked, the closing ceremony was performed and the seminar finished at about 4:20pm for another year.