Duncan Stewart Seminar 07/22/2011
Another fine example of a foreigner able to capture the movement of the Japanese. At least that’s how I imagine the Japanese moving, considering I’ve never been to Japan. 
The seminar was on Saturday and Sunday but he was also teaching at a local dojo on Friday and Monday. I attended the Friday class with some friends. The class was in a small space with a lot of bodies so some of the movement we did wasn’t to completion as shown by Duncan. The movement was focused on utilizing the elbows which was great because it wasn’t something I’ve seen much of. I had never met Duncan before but I was quite impressed with his abilities and demeanor. He used me as uke for a few techniques and I have no doubt he could destroy me. The movements we did were too free form to take notes on or to try and remember. The best I could do is try and remember his distancing and elbow usage. After class we had a group photo and a shot of whiskey before sitting around and listening to his thoughts on Japanese culture. After that we left and got some really good Indian food before crashing for the night.
Saturday was a bit different. This session focused almost entirely on how Duncan trains the basics. A lot of the exercises were solo drills and Duncan joked that we would be doing karate all day. I really enjoy seeing different exercises that are easy to practice and teach. We did exercises for jumonji no kamae, ichimonji no kamae, hicho no kamae, jodan uke, omote shuto, ura shuto, gedan uke and zenpou keri. Then we practiced the kihon kosshi sanpo followed by the kihon torite goho, the tenchijin version I believe, with muso dori instead of ganseki nage and omote gyaku tsuki instead of oni kudaki. All of that was followed with various dakentaijutsu exercises. And that was followed with lots of bruises. Bigger ones for Duncan’s uke I’m sure. Training was followed by drinks and karaoke. Little known fact, Duncan is very skilled with the tamburin.
Sunday started off appropriately easy; completely opposite of Saturday. We worked on some light movements and exercises focusing on distancing: how to gauge it and maintain it throughout your movement. This was extremely helpful in starting to understand how he was able to move the way he does. Simple, repeatable exercises are great. This session was too free-form to take notes on and at one point I was getting well lost. Duncan also showed some basic naginata kata that were basically bo kata and sword kata combined, which makes sense. I think that was pretty much it. After the seminar he talked about training although I can’t remember much of anything he said. I think someone asked about how to acquire the spirit for training correctly but I’m not sure.
That was pretty much it. A fantastic weekend overall with great training. Duncan is a very skilled martial artist, a good instructor and funny guy. I’d definitely like to study with him in the future. Thanks to Duncan Stewart for sharing, Chris Chen for hosting and Kate, Lauren and Dave for some good times!
がんばってください！
