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View Full Version : A story about light randori



kimq
10th October 2002, 17:06
During last night’s training, our class’s instructor had us engage in some light randori. The drill was to have one person in the middle, the rest of the class circle them, and each person would attempt a random single attack on the inside guy. The middle guy’s role was to defend and eliminate. Everything was happening at a nice, light 25% speed.

The class was predominantly made up of pre-gi students. You know, the guys who have been training for only a short while and have yet to purchase a gi. You can imagine some of the peripheral problems we had as a result of that. This is why things were light. In almost all cases, this was their first time exploring such a training concept.

It was interesting to watch them. In the earlier portions of my training, I was exactly where they are now. It was like looking into my past.

Despite prompting from the instructor and the senior students, the attackers would not do so with intent. The attackers seemed intent on “defeating” the defender and obviously had no grasp of the reasons behind the drill. It’s a natural enough and understandable urge.

The purpose of the exercise was to give the defender a chance to explore his movement at a greater level of intensity than regular training. This was lost on them. Fortunately, the senior students understood and, when it was there time to attack, they did so at a level the junior student could contend with and explore correct body posture, angling, timing, and distance.

When I ended up in the middle, I can’t help but laugh and shake my head at myself. I tried to show them that attack without intent would be met with direct, immediate counter-attack. I was hoping that they would remember to commit with intent and not focus on fighting me. Feints have their place, but not in the specific drill we were exploring. I even managed to trap a few to show them that strength cannot always be relied upon. It took one particular student who relied on strength a couple of “goes” to understand that. Once I felt he had an inkling of what I was trying to convey, I eliminated him.

Here’s the funny part. I’m smiling at myself as I type this. :D

I was so focused on conveying a lesson to this guy that I forget to keep my peripheral up. As I was making sure he was OK and giving him space to get up and away from me to return back to the rest of the circle, I was attacked from behind by a student I train regularly with and possesses similar experience. With an effortless sweep he slammed me down. It would seem I too forgot the purpose of the drill.

Whooo! :eek: Ooof! :o

I managed to break my fall somewhat. He threw me funny and I could only minimize the impact but I certainly couldn’t eliminate all of it. The slam jarred my hernia considerably. That was it. I was done. I backed out of the circle, explained what happened, and sat down. I was in a lot of pain. I understood that it was merely pain and that I wasn’t injured, but it was enough to cripple me.

It reminds me of watching big men go down from crushing their thumb inwards in a goroshi. How big, strong, and skilled we think we are! ;)

shinbushi
10th October 2002, 22:03
We do a similar drill, that I call Jazz (after its impromptu nature)

Noodles
10th October 2002, 22:56
We also do that drill-I agree with you whole-heartedly that it is utterly pointless without proper intention.

PwarYuex
16th October 2002, 13:09
I also like the one where four people hold four ropes around a person in the centre, the ropes (looking from above) would be shaped in a #), the person in the centre then has to get out, and the people on the outside have to disable him only using the ropes...