Black Ships Festival

This weekend is the Black Ships Festival in Newport, RI. It's a celebration of Japan culture, oddly in remembrance of the United States forcing the Japanese to negotiate a treaty back in the mid-1800s due to the arrival of the US "black ships"..

The commodore of the fleet of ships was from Newport, RI, so they hold the festival here.

I spent the day at the festival today, mainly to watch martial arts demonstration put on by various schools. While the festival is supposed to be celebrating Japanese culture, the organizers tend to think any martial arts form is Japanese. This gave a wide range of styles at the festival - some Japanese, some obviously not. In any case, it was a worthwhile opportunity to just see a bunch of different styles of martial arts all at one location.

The first event of the day for me was watching an Aikido school - Newport Aikikai. As can be seen by this first picture, at this school they teach people to levitate!

Now that's learning to fall from a decent height!   It was a great demonstration and was about an hour and a half long in 90+ degree humid weather.   I saw this school's demonstration two years ago and during that one I had no idea what they were doing.  Two years ago (at least the part of the demo I watched) it was more of a silent demo with students practicing techniques with no explanation.   This time around the sensei gave a bit of explanation of some of the techniques. Plus, due to my own martial arts experience I had a better understanding of what I was watching.  

It was interesting to see a lot of similarities in their techniques to what I am learning in Palace Hand at the Kodokai Dojo.   They're definitely different martial arts, but a lot of the joint manipulations were the very similar. 

It was impressive how many students they could fit on a small mat area and have them all practice their techniques at the same time without anyone colliding.

This elderly couple definitely won the "cutest couple" award for the day.   I love the little picnic basket with the red and white checkered cloth.  They stayed the whole day and watched all the martial arts demonstrations.

After the Aikido demonstration, there was a "ninja" demonstration which I had a hard time taking seriously. While it had some realistic techniques displayed, it mainly seemed really goofy and sloppy. Watching the techniques being performed reminded me of kids playing "ninja" - they demonstrated all their techniques in super slow motion. Plus some of the explanations of how various weapons were used seemed a bit far-fetched. Even the physical fitness of the instructor and students gave the impression that they never really exercised very hard. Sorry, I didn't take any pictures. Plus, can you even take a picture of a ninja? Won't there just be a blank spot in the picture where they were?

After the ninja, there were two other martial arts demonstrations that were a bit iffy as far as what I think of regarding traditional martial arts. One was a local kempo school which seemed to have more of an emphasis on building false confidence (by cheering on the students during their demonstration) than having actual good technique. The second school was a chain school that gave a very flashy high-powered acrobatic demonstration set to music. It was great entertainment, but was in no way something I would call martial arts. It had lots of back-flips and spinning kicks and flipping weapons around like batons, but I'd have to call it more of a dance or acrobatic demonstration than martial arts. In the intro to the demo, the speaker even said something along the lines of, "This is the type of martial arts you'll see in the movies." I.e. totally unrealistic stuff that only makes a good show. One of this school's advertised selling points is they build confidence and help you get comfortable with public speaking. I don't even know if they claim you might be able to defend yourself. But, if you're interested in getting into performance art, then it might be a good place to go. Again, no pictures from these two demos. I probably should have taken some of people flying through the air.  It might have made a nice snapshot or two.

Throughout the day, there was a school from New York demonstrating what I can best describe as "historic" martial arts - all sorts of techniques using various types of weapons from the Edo period in Japan. It was interesting to take a break from the other demonstrations and watch this one - it seemed there was always a different weapon or technique being demonstrated.  This group was putting on demonstrations from 10 in the morning 'til 4:00 in the afternoon. Given the heat and humidity, they must have been beat by the end of the day. The following are a few pictures during their demo.

In the picture below, the guy on the left is holding a practice ball and chain (actually made of cloth for safety).  According to the guy presenting the demo, this is what was used within the palace walls for restraining an attacker. Supposedly it was forbidden for the guards to draw blood within the palace walls.

In this final picture, the guy is holding a practice police baton from the Edo period. (Sorry, I forgot the Japanese name of the weapon.)  It's normally made all of metal, but for practice it has wooden parts.  The all metal version is useful for disarming sword wielding attackers.

The final demonstration of the day was by a Rhode Island jiujitsu school - Kuntao Jiujitsu. This school stresses practical self-defense. It was a great demonstration of self-defense techniques and the sensei has a great knack for talking to a crowd. Unfortunately, this late in the day I was a bit tired and didn't take any pictures.

All in all, it was a good time at the festival. It was interesting to be able to see several different martial arts styles and notice a lot of similar themes in techniques throughout the groups as well as some very different approaches to a similar situation. It was definitely a worthwhile trip.

Bogu Kumite Video

If you are interested in seeing the not very pretty sight of me being totally overwhelmed in my first bogu kumite match from last night, you can view a portion of it here. Also on that web page there's a very good description of the whole point of using the bogu gear and how it applies to karate (and even zen). I'm not sure how long the video will remain on that web page - the web site gets updated fairly often - so if it's no longer there when you take a look, sorry.

Oh, and in case you can't pick me out in the video, I'm the person who is constantly being hit and who keeps backing up.

The Dreaded Bogu Gear

As I mentioned a few days ago, I picked up a set of bogu gear and was looking forward to using it. Tonight in kumite class I learned first-hand why people say they hate the bogu gear. I wouldn't go so far as to say I hate it, but it's not exactly a fun experience either. It is, however, definitely a worthwhile learning experience and I look forward to trying it again.

Before the bogu kumite match tonight, I didn't really know what to expect. I've been taking kumite classes regularly for about a year now, but those are all controlled matches where action stops when a "point" is scored and all hits are meant to only lightly touch cloth or skin. I have never watched a bogu kumite match.

So, here is how it went...

We had a regular kumite class first. Then, for the last few minutes I was to wear the bogu gear and face Sensei in a match. After I was helped into the gear and it was all snuggly tied, Sensei explained to the class what they were about to see. I listened intently hoping to get a better idea of what I had gotten myself into. He mentioned something about how in Okinawa it was not uncommon for people to be thrown about, perhaps into walls, through windows, etc. I then thought - "Wait a second! Did I just hear that right?" My immediate thought was he must be joking. He continued on, explaining how the match usually proceeds - you start about 10 to 15 feet apart and then rush at each other, punching, kicking, etc. and never stopping until someone falls to the ground in which case the two people are pulled apart, placed 10 to 15 feet apart again, and pushed towards each other. This goes on for 3 minutes. Now after hearing this, I wished Angie hadn't tied my gear on securely behind my back with a double knot. Maybe there was still time to take it all off. Sensei then asked if I had any questions and I resisted the urge to ask if this was all some kind of joke to scare me half-to-death.

So, with that explanation complete, we bowed to each other and the match began. I don't really remember many details of the actual fighting other than repeatedly being hit in the chest and thinking the chest protector wasn't really doing that great a job of protecting my chest. I think I spent most of the time backing away, trying to get far enough away to throw a kick (probably I was also hoping to just get far enough away to stop from being hit). I think I might have remembered once to actually try to block something.

It was a very eye-opening experience. It was completely different from the regular kumite class - there was no comfort zone of getting to pause each time a hit was scored. In this case the opponent was constantly there, forcing me to deal with a very unpleasant situation. Having never been in a real fight, I'm only guessing here, but I suspect this bogu kumite is a much more realistic portrayal of how a real fight would proceed. So, in that way, I think it's a very worthwhile experience and there is much to be learned from it.

And, in the end, I'm happy to say, the gear did its job well. While the force of a lot of the hits were felt, there we no lasting injuries or even bruises. Of course, Sensei was going easy on me. I would not want to suffer the full force of his hits even when wearing the full bogu gear.

Oddly, the whole experience in some way did remind me of playing ice hockey. If you've ever played hockey you might know what I mean. There was the same feeling of going full tilt for a short period of time until you are totally out of breath, stuggling against someone else all while getting violently knocked about (but also being protected by a bunch of gear). Obviously there are a huge number of differences between the two activities, but the base emotional feeling brought back some memories of when I used to play hockey.