Sensei Roberto Rodriguez visiting our class this Friday 5/8/09

[Sifu_Aaron]

My friend and coworker Sensei Roberto Rodriguez will be visiting our class this Friday to show us some things about Shorin Ryu Karate.  Sensei Rodriguez has a combination of over 30 years experience in Shotokan and Shorin Ryu Karate.  This includes tournament fighting, classroom sparring, and real life situational experience.  He currently holds a 5th Degree Black Belt in Shorin Ryu, and very soon he will test for his 6th Degree.  This will put him at a Master level in his artform.  He is also an ex-Police Officer from his country of Costa Rica.
     
Sensei Rodriguez will be teaching half of the class, and I will be teaching the other half of the class.  We will go over some of the diferences and similarities in History/Origins, Philosophies, and Concepts of both our artforms.  As well as many other physical areas such as forms/katas, punching and kicking methods, etc...  Since the second defensive concept out of the four is Block, we will definately be covering this. 

We are happy to have the opportunity to have such an experienced individual share his knowledge with us!

Remember, we can learn from anyone.  Keep your mind open and your cup empty.

[Sifu_Aaron]

Everything went well Friday.  We did not have enough time to do everything we wanted to do, but we did most of it.  I think if there was more time and we both had more time on our hands to plan things out better, we could have covered everything we wanted to in a much more complete manner.  I was very happy though because this was my first calaboration with another teacher from a different artform and it went pretty well. 
     Since my computer cord is broken and I am waiting on a new one to be delivered, I am doing this post at work on break.  I can't go into much detail.  So I will just copy the notes that I took on the class:
 
- I was very impressed with Sensei Rodriguez's punching power.  I remember how when he hit me in the chest a few times, as well as when I was using blocking methods to defend myself from his attack, it was like getting hit with an iron bar.
- I can see that we go into History, Philosophy, and Concept much deeper.  As well as health and fitness.  He stated that the school had a philosophy of how you should act and conduct yourself.  I see this as what we call "code of conduct".  I did not really see how the philosophies guided the artform.  There was one philosophy that I did see come out when we were talking.  This was "Hit or kick the person as hard as you can one time to put them down as fast as you can".  Which is a "One hit or block destroys the target" kind of philosophy. 
- I see a clear difference in teaching methods.  Sensei Rodriguez's way of teaching seemed to be very rythmic and fast paced.  (Which I hear is common to most Karate Dojos.)  Not a lot of discussion or explination.
- He explained that his artform has about 30 forms to learn.

     At the end of class, we demonstrated Chi Gong methods from both the Iron Stomach that I am doing right now, and the Hard Ki exercises that Sensei Rodriguez has done.  I was very impressed with his ability to take a hard kick to the stomach several times in a row.  He kept telling me to kick harder, until I kicked him at about 90% of my full capacity.  It seemed to have no affect on him.  We also went over our diferent methods of Chi Gong (or Ki) breathing and Meditation techniques.  It was very informative.

     I would like to say that I have been told for may years from lots of different people in the past that Karate is not a usefull artform.  I would like to say that I do not agree with that statement.  I know many poeple will not agree with me saying that, but I think the difference lies in the Teacher, the Student, and the type of information being taught (Sports/Games, Combat/Self Defense).  Maybe the focus is not the same, but the information that Sensei Rodriguez showed me is very similar to our Shaolin information.  As a matter of fact, Shorin means Shaolin.  Which is where it origionally came from acording to Sensei Rodriguez.

                                                                                                               Aaron

[Sifu_Aaron]

The class on friday was a great experience.  Sensei Rodriguez showed a lot about his art form.  I had no idea his art form was rooted from shaolin kung fu until Sifu Mckillip told me.  From what I learned Shorin Ryu is a very effective and powerful art form.  It is very different than what I have been learning but there where similarities.  It made me realize that many martial arts have a common background.  It also made me proud and thankful to be learning shaolin kung fu, because it is the root of so many martial arts.  Thanks to Sifu Mckillip and Sensei Rodriguez for the incredible information I learned.
                                                                   
                                                                                                            Jake Hattem