During the first week of July
in 2014, I had the opportunity to train under Sensei Paul Lopresti (Koryu
Uchinadi Kenpo-Jutsu, Aiki Kenpo Jujutsu, Shotokan karate) at his dojo,
Lopresti’s Mixed Martial Arts, in Sewell, New Jersey. While I’d had the
pleasure of training with Sensei Paul previously at a few different seminars
and the annual Koryu Uchinadi (KU) Gasshuku, this time proved to be a little
different from those previous experiences. I was a guest at his house and his
dojo, so this was much more like a week in the life of Sensei Paul. The fact
that I was participating in his regular teaching/training regiment meant that I
would have to hit the ground running, which proved to be no easy task.
The
Schedule:
In the
five full days that I stayed with Sensei Paul, I attended five classes, three
of which were dedicated more towards Aiki Kenpo Jujutsu (AKJJ) skills, and two
of which were oriented more towards KU. The AKJJ classes were two hours each in
length. The first hour was dedicated to practicing drills and refining
technique, while the second hour was exclusively rolling with a variety of
different partners. We finished those classes with five to ten minutes of high
intensity core conditioning, which would have been challenging even if we
hadn’t already gone live for an hour. The Monday evening class was done with a
gi, while the Tuesday and Thursday night classes were no gi.
Wednesday
and Friday during lunch hour, we trained for about an hour and a half,
primarily in KU curriculum-based drills. These classes were a more intimate
environment, with only a few dedicated students in attendance.
Selling
Style, Teaching Substance:
I got the impression that Sensei Paul’s
classification of styles for his classes was based more on the idea of
appealing to particular markets than it was based on the contents of his
teachings. The AKJJ/MMA class contained a higher percentage of young and
competitive martial artists, whereas others who trained in more mainstream,
“traditional” martial arts (including a group who practiced at the same
facility) tended to stay away. Conversely, the classes that were labeled as KU
attracted students who had trained previously in other traditional karate
systems, particularly Shotokan, and were looking to add some teeth to their
pre-existing practices.
However,
there was a great deal of similarity – not just conceptually, but technically –
in what was taught in all the classes, regardless of their stylistic focus. For
instance, we started the first KU class with an exercise in using full body
pressure to trap an opponent against a wall. While this has immediate
self-defense relevance as well, this skill is also often associated with cage
fighting practices, and would thus be more commonly found in an MMA class.
Similarly,
Sensei Paul showed me some two-person flow drills he had been utilizing which
apply Shotokan’s Heian kata – including their unique I-shaped enbusen. This served the dual purpose of
introducing his students to KU’s common two-person flow drill learning format,
as well as utilizing their background knowledge to help acclimatize them within
their new system of learning. If this weren’t enough, Sensei Paul also mentioned
that he was working on synthesizing a similar two-person application flow drill
for the kata Naihanchi (Tekki Shodan) – but that the entire drill would take
place on the ground. These samples demonstrated how well Sensei Paul is able to
bridge the gap between stylistic restraints and transcend the cosmetic
appearance of techniques to get at the underlying concept that makes it work.
Screwing
Around:
Sensei
Paul emphasized to me personally several times, above the number of times that
he had already told all his students, that understanding the underlying
principle is always more important than simply being able to perform a
technique correctly. In keeping with KU’s conceptual structure, he also spent a
lot of time illustrating how all techniques utilize the five ancient machines (the
lever, wedge, wheel and axel, pulley, and screw). On the ground, we especially
looked at how to utilize the concept of the screw to improve our execution of
techniques.
Just like
the mechanism you put into your wall, Sensei Paul showed us that simply doing a
twisting motion was not enough; there also has to be pressure applied into the
screw head. In martial arts, this translates to the act of rotating as well.
There has to be pressure, typically down, on the opponent’s body as you rotate.
The concept of rotating one way to release pressure (loosening the screw) and
rotating the other way to increase pressure (tighten the screw) was also
employed in looking at how to most effectively apply sankaku jime (the triangle choke) and escaping an americana armlock
when your opponent is in side control. Illustrating these how these concepts apply
made the execution of a lot of these techniques much more effective when it
came to rolling.
Of course, there was also an adequate amount of humour
attached to this. Our instructions at one point were, “You have to screw your
partner. Then he’ll be screwed.”
Making It
Work:
In
addition to giving us technical advice and illustrating the principles on which
that advice was based, we also had lots of time and opportunity to work what we
studied against resistant partners. Against the wall, we were fighting back
against each other at full resistance within the first minute of class. On the
ground, with a full hour of rolling, we eventually ended up facing most of the
situations that we had drilled earlier.
From the
first moment, you had to find a way to make it work. Of course, this also meant
that it inevitably wouldn’t work as designed or planned, and you had to find a
way to make Plan B work for you instead. This is not any kind of flaw in the
technique itself, but rather the individual’s application of it. In case you
needed reminding of this, the more senior students demonstrated the correct
execution of those techniques very effectively, i.e. painfully. This reminded
you that there is nothing wrong with the technique itself.
In
addition, Sensei Paul also rolled with the students for the whole duration of
the allotted time, giving everyone, no matter how senior or junior (including a
couple students who came for the very first day) the chance to test their
skills against his. His thinking is that improvement in unlikely to occur
unless the students are pushed to (or perhaps past) their limits. If they can
hold their own with him, they should be able to do fine in grappling
competitions or cage fights. So far, that has proven to be the case.
Pathways –
All Roads Lead to Victory
The
ability to flow is one of the most vital aspects to any effective method of
self-defense, but it seems to be one that many learners – myself definitely
included – find difficulty to achieve, especially on the ground. Sensei Paul
was quite adamant that there was no way that his trainees should lose. His
thinking on this point was simple: “If A happens, you should win. If B happens,
you should still win. If C happens . . .”, etc.
This
approach is premised largely on knowing how the opponent will counter
particular techniques and how to prevent those counters from being effective.
However, that is still not enough; if the counter is effective and you lose the
technique you were attempting, you also have to be able to recognize that
immediately and identify what other techniques would be effective in that
position. Again, if you know the counter that’s coming, you should also know
the opportunities that the counter leaves.
This was most evident the night that we worked on what’s
called in AKJJ fushiogamu hotoke
(kneeling to worship the Buddha) or, in its BJJ terminology, the omo plata. We began by looking at the
correct entrance into the technique from a guard, which included how to pull
the arms down, where to trap the arm, how to push the face, how to control the
hips in transition and how to flatten the opponent out if they maintain some
space between themselves and the ground. All of these tidbits made it a lot more
difficult for the opponent to counter.
However, if the opponent does manage to counter the initial
omo plata attempt, we looked at a
number of possibilities to find an alternative pathway to victory. If the
opponent attempts to counter by posting up and looking up to the ceiling, you
can still throw the other leg over and switch into sankaku jime (triangle choke). If the opponent identifies that, he
or she may try to reach across and grab the arm that’s being attacked. In that
case, if you switch the direction that the leg is over the head, you have an
armbar on the other side already in position.
In addition, the main counter that we experimented with for
the omo plata was when the opponent
rolled forward to escape. The obvious idea is not to let the opponent roll by
controlling their hips as the omo plata
is set up. However, we also looked at other failsafe techniques in case the
roll occurs. Sensei Paul’s first solution was just to step over into a mount
once the person finishes rolling. This may not be the flashiest possibility,
but for someone to go from being on their back to being in a mount represents a
definite change in advantage.
When the person begins to roll, it’s also possible to hook
the near leg (from the crotch towards the feet – otherwise, it is possible that
the person will catch you in the omo
plata if they’re able to finish rolling) and log roll to the side.
This allows you to take the
mount again, or simply to keep the arm trapped and front roll yourself to end
up back in the omo plata. This
solution bookended the exercise: if you attempt an omo plata that doesn’t work, you counter with an omo plata.
The Point of
No Return:
For all of
the submissions that we worked, and the corresponding escapes and reversals,
Sensei Paul reminded us as well that you eventually reach a point of no return,
where the submission or lock is being put on so well that there is no longer
any window left through which to escape. This idea only reinforces the idea
that being able to identify and react to situations immediately is vital to
effective execution; hence, all the spontaneous practice that we did to develop
those instincts.
I found
myself being taken to that point of no return many, many times during our
training sessions, which reminded me of why I decided to make the trip in the
first place: it’s being taken to a place outside of your comfort zone that the
opportunity for learning occurs. Being open to going to the point of no return
is a skill unto itself, and a difficult one to maintain as we become more
practiced at the martial arts. Often we get caught up in what we are supposed
to know and ignore or forget what we are supposed to learn. This trip was a
nice reminder for me not to do that.
Whether it
was application-based practices for the Heian kata or different entries into
the omo plata, Sensei Paul’s strength
is his ability to move seamlessly between techniques of all kinds and apply the
immutable principles of correct execution to all of them. He was very
encouraging and positive throughout the process, and very direct about what
needed to be done, which is a quality that I value as a student; there is no
ambiguity to his teaching. Having worked with Sensei Paul previously, this
experience differed in many ways, but the value of his instruction was every
bit equal to those other experiences.
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