What a wonderful weekend of practices we had when Norman Welch visited our KC Dojo April 28-30.
Norman arrived Friday afternoon and black belts treated him to a great steak dinner and apple pie alamode at the locally famous Jess & Jim’s 1938 Steakhouse in Martin City.
Satuday morning at 10am we gathered at the dojo where Norman led a wonderful practice that began with 20 Jion kata pretty much without comment. Then Norman focused on several parts of the kata, making general corrections and we did another 5 or so Jion with some corrections between each. After that, the practice was not the normal fare. Norman described “nanba” walking as the way samurai of old walked – not with arms swinging in opposition to the legs as we normally walk today, but with arms and legs moving more or less in unison. We see this style in most of our kihon (oizuki, ude-uke, etc all step with the same arm and leg forward. We practiced this kind of walk a while with very small steps. We practiced walking with very rapid small steps, keeping the same side shoulder and hip always forward. Then we walked with small steps keeping one side forward, “one – two – three – oizuki! – four – five” over and over many times. We did the same with maegeri. Then with maegeri-maete. We paired up and practiced this kind of walking, reaching forward one arm and pointing at the partner’s center, following wherever they moved.
We broke at noon and returned for a second practice from 4 to 5pm. This was very similar to the morning practice except that we warmed up with a number of Bassai kata.
The photos above are from all three practices. Part of Sunday morning’s practice was sensing an attack from behind. We paired up and one would turn to face away while the other made a big feeling and lightly slapped them on the back of the shoulder. We tried to move out of the way as we were attacked from behind. It was interesting, and most of the time we escaped. But also most of the time, the attack came after a predictable interval – not too soon but not much later, either. This will require more study!
From 6:30pm to about 11pm we enjoyed a huge pot luck dinner at Lyon’s home.
And there was lots of quality time to get to know one another and especially Norman. After dinner we presented Norman with a scroll painted by the Zen master Nakahara Nantenbo. Whether you can answer Nantenbo’s koan or not you get hit from his ironwood stick. You can read more about Nantenbo and the subject of this painting (his ironwood bo) HERE. A hanging scroll similar to Norman’s is usually displayed in the KC Dojo.
To me, I suppose the best part of the visit was having time with Norman outside practice. He’s an incredibly warm and generous man, sharing what’s most important to him, and he’s a good listener. It was uplifting and validating to be with him. I think others felt much the same way.
Thank you, Norman!