Oh my frack. George Ledyard is the fastest person I've every trainined with.
I got the whole 1.5 hour class with him. I was lucky to be standing next to him when Sensei calls our "Bokken". He turns to me and says, "let's play".
"Sure" I said. While in my head I though, yea, you play, while I freak out behind my mushin face because you are so above my pay-grade.He's a Rokkudan, and me a little shodan. Well I have it a good collage try. But seriously, he's so fast you have Nooooo idea.
Saotome's starts class with a pronoucement. Dan grade students must now train with a tsuba. People are getting away with sloopy bokken grips. no more!
Then he grabs his kattana. Yea, it's going to be that kind of class...
We were doing basic two sword forms, single cut counters ect ect. Same ones we did in Missoula in October.
But doing them with George...intense George...different story.
First he expects a strong and intent-full strike. My shomen is so slow by his standards it was embarassing. I'll be working on thaaaat!
I have the basic theory right, but have to turn up the speed about (seriously) 4x...?maybe more. raise, cut step all at almost once instantly.
Once I was delivering faster strikes, Ledyard started to open up on me. His read of my body language was so creepy right-on.
First of all I was working on content from his last class on Monday (day2) with totally relaxed body to generate the fastest strike possible. So i'm relaxed, but in a ready state. Ok, so the 1/10th of a second after the thought crosses my mind to strike, he's read it and done the counter. NO really. The moment my bokken raised half way to cut him,he was done with me....i'm dead. I'm still a bit stumped. I was trying my hardest to hide as much as humanly possible.
Smooth face, relased arms legs, spine, eyes ect ect. No matter. The moment after I think about raising the bokken, BANG! Kiai, two cuts and i'm dead.
Meanwhile Saotome's waving the katanna around and lecturing about modern society's lack of personal responsibility. There's no one on the battlefield to blame when you die exept your self.
Then we trasfer over to empty hand training, keeping the same feel and intent as the bokken training. Strong shomen/mune-tsuki, nage brushes aside and strikes.
But I'm doing this with Ledyard. Plenty of excitement with someone 2x my weight, and 6x my rank.
Then we switch to front kicks. And for the life of me I can't dodge his kick. He tracked 100% of the time.
I was soooo unused to that attack I had no idea what to do. Not that it was much different from a strike. But I was all locked up.
After some good coaching from Ledyard I finally relaxed enough to not tense up by his 2x the size "column of force" projecting towards me.
With a relaxed stance, and simple half turn/pivot on the back foot I was finally brushing off his kicks. But dear lord do I/we have a lot to practice.
It was by far the most intense 1.5 hours of the whole seminar...and totally worth the price of admission alone.
I need more training...
but wait, there's more
Part 3 is next
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