No Class

There was no class this past weekend due to scheduling conflicts, and there will be no class next weekend (April 1st) because we will be out of town. Everyone enjoy the break, and we'll see you when we get back.

Mas Shandy wrote an article on The four lines of Self Defense. You can check it out here.
http://ezinearticles.com/?The-4-Lines-of-Self-Defense&id=153807

Breathing and Leverage

In the latter weeks of Cun Tao training, we tend to pick up the pace at which the self defense holds are done. This helps prepare students to react to a dangerous situation instead of thinking it out. It also helps prepare students for controlling the rush of adrenalin and learning to conserve their energy in a tense situation.

One of the important aspects of successfully completing Cun Tao is learning control; controlling breathing is both one of the most, and one of the least important aspects. Most students, once they start having the holds thrown at them faster and faster, tend to try and hyper-ventilate, matching each breath to each move that they do, and when they can't get air, become panicky and less focused on their self defense. Hyperventilation by it's very nature is self correcting; once a person passes out, their breathing will return to normal. This is not what we are aiming for however.

Students should learn to breath slower than normal, taking deeper breaths and trying to remain calm, "finding their center" if you will. This will help them get through the increasing demands of Cun Tao, and later, if they encounter a situation on the street, will help them defend themselves without becoming as panicky and distraught due to lack of air.

A second aspect of learning control in Cun Tao is learning to use leverage. If a student relies too heavily on their ability to muscle an opponent over, they risk tiring themselves needlessly which can affect their ability to breath easily and they risk running into someone bigger than them who cannot be muscled over. In addition there are more mundane hazards to worry about such as pulled muscles and sore backs.

The very basis of Poekoelan, as taught in Cun Tao, is how to use leverage. Poekoelan was created for small people, to use against larger people, but that does not mean a larger person can't learn how to do it; they just have to work harder at it.

Learning to make use of leverage in the end means a lot less effort needs to be put into each situation, allowing the student to conserve their energy in order to face whatever may be coming next. If partnered with calm, slow breathing, this should help the student succeed in Cun Tao and it's increasing demands.

Safety in Class

Martial Arts, by their very nature, are dangerous; Poekoelan perhaps more so than others because we encourage students to put their heart into it and commit to their attacks even in class. The goal in this is to prepare students, so that if they are attacked outside of class, they react automatically, and without panic. This format however makes it more difficult to teach students classroom safety and at the same time makes classroom safety doubly important.

The main points of classroom safety that I want to touch on today are paying attention to your surroundings, respect for fellow students, and respect for the instructors.

Paying attention to your surroundings is important in all aspects of life, and being aware that a situation is potentially dangerous can help to keep you out of trouble. In the classroom, paying attention to what's going on around you can help to keep you safe from unintentional flying weapons; can help you to save someone who has lost their balance and gone crashing toward something sharp; and can keep you from injuring someone unintentionally.

Showing resepect for your fellow students can keep you safe in a number of ways in the classroom. In an ideal world, no one would ever get angry, and you would never need to worry about someone's anger. This is not an ideal world, and people can get angry. Being respectful to your fellow students, allowing and helping them to train to the utmost of their abilities and supporting them when they are having difficulties is important to foster good relations in class. Remember, everything you do to them, they get to do to you. Give them respect, and you will gain their respect.

Showing resepct for your instructors is simply good common sense, especially when they are teaching techniques. They are the instructors for a reason, and know more about their particular system than you do. Because of this, attacking without warning, or surprising the instructor can be dangerous. They may simply react to the situation of being attacked and do what they have been trained to do. i.e. bring down lots of hurt. Being disrespectful to an instructor can have different results at different schools, everything ranging from lots of pushups, to unintentional injuring of a student, to being thrown out of the school.

So as you can see, safety in the classroom is very important to avoid injury to yourself and to others. Pay attention to what's going on, and what you're being taught, and be respectful of others and help us keep Rose and River injury free.

Poekoelan Conference in Austin TX

By all accounts there is a tension that exists within the Poekoelan family. This tension comes from events that happened almost 30 years ago at the time of Goeroe Willy's death, with his students taking one side of the issue or the other. This fracture has haunted the system, and created bitterness (understandably) that still exists.

We (the instructors) at Rose and River are 5th river students. Our students are a few generations removed from Goeroe Willy and those events, and while those events were tragic, we feel that it is time to start working together again, to become a "Poekoelan family" again. It is unfortunate that bits and pieces of the art are being lost due to the inability of those within the system to cooperate and share their learning.

We would like to find out if there is interest within the Poekoelan community to have a 3-4 day conference to bring together the different aspects of Poekoelan so that we may all share and grow within the art. We would like to have a conference in Austin TX, some time next winter (It's nice down here in the winter...Can't beat 60 degrees in February). If anyone is interested in attending this type of conference, or would like to find out more about our ideas for the conference please email me at info@roseandriver.com