We worked a fair amount this last week on slowing things down a bit in our Randori.  Well… “slow” may not be the right word… perhaps “soft.”  The goal is to really take it more careful, and more calm to make sure we are hitting our moves the way we should, rather than just powering through them.  Really, I believe that this class was a great solution to some of the frustrations I expressed (with myself) if my post of Futile Agression.  It’s an interesting trade-off though… This allowed me to really think about what moves I was doing, and how I was doing them, rather than just overpowering an opponent.  But it also removed the strength element a lot, which in a way is unrealistic, since in a real match strength is an element that definitely cannot be ignored.

I don’t think it’s an either-or issue… I’m not saying that I prefer to muscle through things…this really, really helped me in exactly what I need to do, which is looking at my style more than my size in comparison to my opponent.  I need to start really focusing a lot more on this.  All I am saying though, is that I also think it will be key periodically to throw a move overpowering, muscle move to make sure you know how it should feel when you do.  Although, I am sure that the wise little man in my head will advise me:

“Strength is a compensation for a lack of tactics my son.  A warlord my send many horse in to crush a village.  But a true master is so very subtle that the village merely realizes one day that they are now within the domain of a new leader… and are not entirely sure when or how it happened.”  Unfortunately, I don’t always know what the heck my wise little man is talking about… I should have watched more Kung Fu as a a kid

But for now, I look forward to refining my technique.  I’ll keep you posted on how it goes.

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