Moving boxes and Kumi Jo

After reading about all the fun Bryan had moving his residence it just seemed clear that we should move too. Not to Iwama, though, in fact just about a half-mile away from our current house to a little quieter part of town. So over the past two weeks I've been spending all my time packing and moving furniture, even though our actual move isn't until mid-August. There's just a lot of stuff.

Someone once suggested to me that a measure of how enlightened you are is how many trucks you fill up with your stuff. A truckload or less and your time of suffering is almost over; Samadhi is just around the corner. Alternately, if you fill up a whole fleet of trucks you are just a poor schmuck doomed to an endless progression of eternities on the great wheel of cosmic pain. We will fill up a very large number of trucks, even after giving away or throwing away mountains of once precious debris. So it goes.

During all this activity I've managed to get on the mat once a week for early Saturday weapons class at Bay Marin. Today we continued our review of the 31 kumi jo sections, beginning with moves 13 through 17 and then finishing up class adding on 18 through 22 to the awase.

A very confusing aspect of the 31 kumi jo is that the segments proceed differently when they end on a move, like 17, than when they continue on to a later move, say 22. I suppose that Saito Sensei designed the segments so that the attacker would suffer the ultimate fate at the end of each one as they are done separately. So that when you tie two of them together, like 13 through 17 and 18 through 22, the sequence at move 17 is different because the attacker doesn't die right there, but a few moves later.

So, not only is the 31 continuous form for the defender different from the solo 31 kata practice, on which the kumi jo is based, but the segments all end differently from the respective moves in the continuous form. There is sometimes a little grousing about this added complexity.

On top of this source of difficulty, everyone falls into the trap of spontaneously switching sides, say from defender to attacker, right in the middle of the form. Often two students working together will, without any outward sign, switch roles at precisely the same moment. This is confusing to someone watching, since the awase quality is preserved, yet something is just not right. We found that counting the moves together as the awase unfolds helps stay on focus and guard against side-switching.

We are beginning to get some newer students in the class, and it's nice to see the more advanced students pick out the newcomers to work with, so that everyone who is just beginning to learn has someone who knows the form to work with.

Unfortunately, I was unable to stay for later classes because I have many moving boxes to fill up with things I can absolutely not live without. some of these things are objects that have sat in drawers or in the back of closets for the past ten years undisturbed. Yet they are vitally essential elements of the passing show. Soon I will begin researching truck rental outfits, looking for very large trucks. Perhaps filling up a few big trucks will feel better than filling up a lot of regular sized ones. We'll see.

Comments

[Richard]

That's a common dilemna with the 31 kumijo. Ryan was teaching it to me for my 2d kyu, and he kept switching roles, and getting annoyed with me because it wasn't working out. We usually count, too.

[Jeff Dooley]

Today Tatoian Sensei told me that once about fifteen years ago a big Japanese sensei had come to the US and had wanted to see the 31 kumijo. Tatoian Sensei said that he and his partner, Jay Bell, went out to demonstrate the form and ended up switching roles on each other about four times, adopting the new roles each of them without missing a beat. When it was over nobody knew anything had been out of order except for the two who did the demonstration, and Goto Sensei, who had been watching.

[Andrea]

I, too, am a descendant of Penelope and Christopher Clark. Their dhguater,Rachel Clark, married Thomas Moorman and they had a dhguater ,Rachel Moorman, who married Stephen Goggin (Jr.) see #10 post above.My line changes from yours, Frances. My descendancy follows Stephen and Rachel Goggin; they had a son, Stephen,III. He married Jannet Robertson and they had a daugher, Mary Alice Goggin. She married David Parker and they had a son, William David Parker. William married Susan(nah) Joanna (Johanna) Graves, dhguater of Francis Lafayette Washington Graves; they had a dhguater, Elizabeth Ava Parker. She married Peyton Graves Edwards, son of Harden Haviston (& Roenna) Edwards. Their oldest son was Daniel Peyton Edwards. He married Esther Valentine Griffin. They had a son, Daniel Peyton Edwards, Jr., my father.I would welcome anyones input regarding my ancestors and also if anyone has an available copy of Todd Bolens book, e2€œThe BOLLING, BOWLIN, BOLEN Family in America before 1800 Id like to get a copy. I have been in recent (e-mail) contact with Todd and he has been most helpful but, unfortunately no longer has any copies of his book.Any assistance would be greatly appreciated! Anita