Black Belt Training

The head sensei of my JJ association decided to call us club instructors in for a session on Sunday. None of us really knew what to expect – except he mentioned something about going over the syllabus to correct mistakes. Maybe we were going to get a grilling, maybe just a lecture (I brought my pen and notebook just in case). Instead, it was a run through of basic common mistakes that Head Sensei commonly sees from the kyu students at each grading and wanted us to be aware of them…and practice them ourselves. In the end, it turned out to be an excellent masterclass of basic ju-jitsu training which had us all sweating buckets by the end. I haven’t been chucked around like that for a long time and I forgot what a really great work-out it could be. When we watch Head Sensei perform a technique, it is pretty phenomenal to watch, the sheer power and efficiency of technique is jaw dropping - that’s why he’s the head of JJ.
My favourite bits were a new way of looking at the first counter to the hip throw and a much improved way of doing the outer winding throw. Head sensei also likes kicks, blocks and stances done a certain way, which made a lot of sense to me.This kind of specific syllabus training sessions for instructors only were never really done before, but now that Head Sensei is going to do them more often, I’m really looking forward to the next one.