I had the pleasure of attending the recent Taira Bunkai Seminar in New York, co-hosted by Sensei’s Chuck Nuccio and Milada Kuracova.
It was another great weekend spending time of the floor with Taira Sensei, meeting old friends, meeting fiends in person for the first time, making new friends, and of course ‘more training’…
The seminar was at Sensei Milada’s dojo in Brewster, that had facilities for a catered n ‘in house’ dinner’ and opportunity for socializing with everyone…catching up with old friends and getting know new ones.
Similarly, over the weekend Sensi Milada paid attention to detail and had provided food and snacks for the in between training breaks
Over the weekend, that training started with the mandatory warmups, then on to specific ‘hand drills’ directly related to the Bunkai that was covered in that session. Again, it highlights the importance and need to practice these drills in order to ‘get to where you need to go…’.
Over the weekend Gekisai (always a favourite), Seiyunchin and Seipai were the theme, and along the way highlighting how to look and think about the kata and see the movement, in between the movement.
It was interesting to see, not only the next example of a particular Bunkai that one may have done previously, but also how newer ‘versions’ seemed to be bringing the Bunkai even closer to the Kata movement…The other aspect that I felt was interesting, was examining ‘the sequence order’ of some elements of Kata. For example, if we have a particular point in a Kata that involves a forward step/movement associated with arms executing a strike and/or re-direction of opponent, how that particular Bunkai’s effectiveness can be determined by either, the re-direction first, the forward step/movement first, or the strike…
Sensei Chuck and I assisted Sensei during the Sunday training session, which was actually a great opportunity to have more ‘hands on feel’ with working with other partners, who may move differently, react differently, resist differently…I think this can assists in developing a more universal ability in undertaking the techniques.
Overall, it was another enjoyable seminar and well worth the long trip from Australia.
On a personal notes, I wish to express my gratitude to Sensei Chuck and Sensie Milada for their gracious and welcoming hospitality and looking after us during our visit.
Steve Nedelkos
Melbourne, Australia Shibu
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