Continuing Steps in Karate

I had a silat suffian seminar yesterday with Guru Maul Mornie and was once again deeply impressed by his skill, the depth of thought and care put into the seminar's content and by his art. What follows are some of my impressions, observations and thoughts on the seminar.  I was only able to attend Saturday's class, which was primarily concerned with basic drills that were to form the foundation for a lot of Sunday's content.  While I would have loved to have gone to both days, I was really happy to have attended just the Saturday session.  If truth be told, I tend to get more out of days where I can focus on the fundamentals, as too many techniques in one sitting can make my poor head spin! As usual, what follows is my interpretation/impression only and is subject to my general lack of memory, filters and incomprehensibility. correct distancing is vital.  Too far away, the attacker can reset, too close, the attacker can overpower the technique.  For practice,...

I have been attending some silat seminars recently and, with my sensei becoming increasingly involved in learning silat, I have made myself some training knives. It seems a waste to go to a seminar and then not practise the techniques or principles learned - a waste of money, of my time and of the instructor's time. So, at the last silat seminar we did some golok (machete) work - no "techniques" as such, just basic stances, basic cuts and some djurus/flow drills with the basic counters to the basic cuts.  At the seminar I only had a stick, which is less than optimal as it is hard to get the correct feel of blade direction through the air. So, after looking at some of the goloks that others had at the seminar, I made a couple out of 12mm plywood, with polypropelene rope handles. They are modelled on a machete I used as a teenager to hack through blackberry and ragwort on my parents' property.  The blade length is my fingertip-elbow length.  They are a little l...