"What's In A Name?"

Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose
Loveliness extreme.
Extra gaiters,
Loveliness extreme.
Sweetest ice-cream.
Pages ages page ages page ages.
- by Gertrude Stein

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Sidney Sensei is out of town for a few weeks so Charlie with his Tomiki background has been teaching.

Charlie often has the class follow what I take to be the Tomiki style of class. For an hour we work of techniques with a set starting attack and some variation and then to finish the class there is a somewhat structured Ji- waza (or Jiyu-waza or Gi Waza) basically a controlled free style (if that isn't a contradiction in terms). At least he called it that, but there were two attackers so I would have thought it was randori.*

We all took our turns and it is really interesting to see how different people handle the pressure. Sometimes it is the less experienced students that are more interesting to watch. You could sometimes see somebody perform a technique I was pretty sure they didn't really know, but came out naturally because they didn't know what to do and “BANG” they did Sankyo with out any training. It may have been an example of “Beginner's Mind” in action. They had to know enough of the movements to move a certain way but not enough to pause to decide on a technique. Some may just be naturals and keep it up, but I wonder if these moments will disappear until after years of practice and letting go of practice it flows naturally again.

I remember distinct moments over the past 2 and ½ years where after a particular technique I noticed “HEY! That worked out perfectly.” But then it was gone and I returned to my clumsy ways, with the hope or faith that someday, with more practice, it will return.


Is there any point to this post? I think I meant to say it is good to have teachers with different influences. Especially since Charlie is always respectful and deferential to Sidney. But even though they use different terms and teach in a slightly different way, they usually say the same thing, different but the same. Hence the picture and quote. I could have gone with Shakespeare
“ What's in a name? that which we call a rose,
By any other name would smell as sweet;”


*I notice Charlie uses terms that are used more in Judo. For instance we normally say “nage” but he says “tori”. He also would say “Ude Kemi Nage” while Sidney would simply say “Kokyu Nage”.