Camp Budo 2010: Take Aways

Camp Budo 2010 is over and it was well worth the price of admission. It was in fact, at $80, a fantastic value.

Taking home even a single idea, principle, or technique would’ve been worth the price. My actual take away was much greater than that.

Professor Cates, at 77 years old, still learns and experiments, clarifies, and adds to his Neko Ryu Goshin Jitsu. On Friday night, Professor Cates introduced an old principle to a technique he's taught for years. But, I don’t remember ever hearing this principle used in conjunction with the technique.

Specifically, Professor Cates often taught a technique in which tori (the person executing the technique) lays his forearm across the shoulder of uki (the person the technique is applied to); brushing the arm forward across uki’s shoulder then downward causing uki to fall. Sometimes, this worked for me, but it was inconsistent.

Friday night, Professor Cates taught us to push uki’s arm back until his wrist is behind his hips then immediately apply the original technique with your opposite forearm. This worked every time; now I’m comfortable adding it to my tool box.

Pushing uki’s arm behind him is an off-balance technique – a kuzushi. It subtlety twists uki’s spine reducing his structural stability and moves his center of gravity slightly to his rear corner.

The “forearm take down” wasn’t the only revelation of the weekend. I brought home an adjustment to a standard choking technique after Professor Cates reinforced another principle on Saturday.

I’ve adjusted an arm bar that I practice weekly because of principles demonstrated by Soke Moose Cates (Neko Ryu & Judo) and Master Steve Waulk (Escrima).

Master Waulk taught some stick disarm techniques on Sunday that I’m adding to my cane drills. And, I’m adding a variation of a “back of the neck” take down to my drills that I learned from Soke Moose on Saturday.

There was some great Shorin Ryu & Isshin Ryu Karate and some other very good jujitsu styles taught throughout the weekend. I don’t mean to diminish them at all. The master instructors of these arts are awesome. However, I absorb as much Judo, Neko Ryu, and stick fighting as I can. Little time is left for me to learn from the other instructors.

Many of the students are karate-ka though. They concentrated their time on the other instructors and were suitably impressed and informed.

Beyond the teaching there was also the fellowship. If your understanding of martial arts schools is based on the depictions of “The Karate Kid” then you can’t relate to the “fellowship” element. But, although the “show no mercy” martial arts schools exist, they aren’t representative of martial arts schools generally.

The single most important element of any martial arts school is the respect shown not only from student to teacher, but also from teacher to student, from student to student and even from teacher to teacher.

Camp Budo has all of this, in spades.

I encourage you to put Camp Budo 2011 on your calendar now. The dates haven’t yet been announced, but it’s normally the last weekend of July.

See you next year!