Kanku Review
Sensei R taught last Tuesday and picked up where he had left on on Kanku instruction. He’s inspirational, and often has interesting and creative approaches to Zoom class. This time, he had us do pieces of Kanku as part of our warm-up and kihon.
We had also had a socially distanced park workout a couple Saturdays back, and Sensei T also went over it. Learning a kata in person, particularly one as complex and detailed as Kanku, is much easier than learning it over Zoom. Sensei T also watched each of us perform the kata and offered individual corrections. He’s patient and conscientious; I learn so much from him!
Hapkido with Sticks
Finally, this past Saturday, we had another Sensei from a different style teach a class on stick fighting. Sensei AJ has trained in Hapkido, as well as Kyokushin with us and a third style. Saturday’s class was a lot of fun. One of our adult students worked with a PVC pipe, while another armed himself with a spatula. My kids and I were well prepared; we had decent sticks that Sensei R had given my son. Sensei AJ showed us first how to stretch using the stick. That was new. You can use it as leverage to help lengthen different muscles.
We learned basic figure eights, reverse flowers, down and up strokes, side to side, as well as using the stick to strengthen an elbow-strike. In many ways, it was similar to both bo staff and nunchucks. In fact, our young weapons expert, Senpai SL, was a natural. It was a great way to work out your arms and shoulders, in particular. Afterwards, we used the stick to open our chests in stretching, by holding the stick behind you, stiffening your arms and bending forward.
Self-defense with Canes
The closest thing I can find to what we practiced is a video that demonstrates the use of a cane for Hapkido self-defense techniques, featuring Master David Herbert of World Martial Arts. This video contains some of what we learned regarding strikes. However, from web searches, it seems there are short stick, cane and long stick techniques. We focused more on exercise and play, and less on self-defense.
What’s interesting to me, after these web searches, is how common cane techniques show up for martial arts for varying styles. In Masutatsu Oyama’s book, This is Karate, he also devotes a section to the use of canes for self-defense. Oyama aimed his cane techniques specifically at the elderly for self-defense. On the one hand, I am happy to see one of our great masters putting time and thought into self-defense for our elders, a group certainly overlooked in many areas. It’s prevalence, however, makes me wonder how often elderly persons are targets for criminals and bullies.
