- Joined
- Feb 11, 2003
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(As an aside note here... Im posting this in General, since Ken is Traditionally Trained by Hatsumi Sensei, but has since left the organization... so he is not traditional, by lack of affiliation to the x-kan organizations, but not modern, because of his traditional background)
Yesterday my instructor and I had the opportunity to be in St Louis for a Sword Combat seminar given by Ken Harding, covering the basics of a new series of DVD's he is producing on the subject.
First off, I would like to say Mr. Harding is a very personable, friendly instructor... Its always a pleasure to have the opportunity to train with someone who is happy and enthusiastic about teaching you what they know.
The man's movements, instructional style, and course material really impressed me... but the main reason for this thread was to talk about somthing he did that really "put it all together" for me...
Mr Harding is a big advocate of testing it to see if it works, and the only way to do that is to really perform the techniques, full speed and full commitment, to see if they would hold up. To this end, he had several "safe swords" which in essence were padded swords used for full-speed combat... not "sparring" (although he mentions that as well, I understand thier dojo is big on that) anyhow... not sparring, but actual combat drills, only using a safe weapon...
It was interesting to put the techniques he was showing us to the test to see if they would work... which, when done properly do...
Now, granted this was still a training excercise, you knew what attack your opponent was going to make, etc... but I would tend to believe that an experienced person who learned to "read" his opponent would in fact be able to utilize these techniques...
His seminar really made me re-think my attitude towords "sparring" in my training... like maybe the small amount of randori isn't enough to know what would actually work... :idunno:
Anyhow... If you have the opportunity to work with Mr Harding, I would reccomend it, it was, if nothing else, a great session!
Yesterday my instructor and I had the opportunity to be in St Louis for a Sword Combat seminar given by Ken Harding, covering the basics of a new series of DVD's he is producing on the subject.
First off, I would like to say Mr. Harding is a very personable, friendly instructor... Its always a pleasure to have the opportunity to train with someone who is happy and enthusiastic about teaching you what they know.
The man's movements, instructional style, and course material really impressed me... but the main reason for this thread was to talk about somthing he did that really "put it all together" for me...
Mr Harding is a big advocate of testing it to see if it works, and the only way to do that is to really perform the techniques, full speed and full commitment, to see if they would hold up. To this end, he had several "safe swords" which in essence were padded swords used for full-speed combat... not "sparring" (although he mentions that as well, I understand thier dojo is big on that) anyhow... not sparring, but actual combat drills, only using a safe weapon...
It was interesting to put the techniques he was showing us to the test to see if they would work... which, when done properly do...
Now, granted this was still a training excercise, you knew what attack your opponent was going to make, etc... but I would tend to believe that an experienced person who learned to "read" his opponent would in fact be able to utilize these techniques...
His seminar really made me re-think my attitude towords "sparring" in my training... like maybe the small amount of randori isn't enough to know what would actually work... :idunno:
Anyhow... If you have the opportunity to work with Mr Harding, I would reccomend it, it was, if nothing else, a great session!
