The monster in you...

The monster in you...

Did an interesting experiment yesterday, put a reatively new guy in bogu after maybe 2-3 months of practices. He was not progressing at an acceptable speed in my mind, and needed to understand what he had to improve: speed, zanshin, kiai.

I usually don't encourage newbies to wear bogu until they are absolutely ready, which can take anywhere from 2 to 6 months on average. Well D-san certainly didn't expect what he got... After only 5 minutes of uchikomi he was in a state, out of breath and seemed to be in serious pain and panick. Had to stop a couple of times to explain that all he had to do was to attack straight when he had a chance. Men. That's all. But because Jr was going after him when he didn't attack or when he protected himself he got hit a lot and that seemed to bother him. Fortunately, one of the goals was achieved in that he started yelling like a madman. Got the monster out... Even after keiko he was still yelling as we were talking to him !? Odd, but hopefully that's a sign that he's coming out of his shell. For probably the next 2 months he'll keep on working on his basics, without bogu, but will have to keep in mind what he hopefully learned yesterday... He has good potential and sure has his heart at the right place, but he needs to step up his intensity, speed and footwork.