I attended one day of the seminar with Arnaud Coursegue that was held over the weekend. Jeff Christian and Anthony Lucas were the sponsors and the event was held at the Marriott at LaGuardia airport. Overall, training was great!

The day began with Arnaud discussing his take on the overall progression of Budo Taijutsu training as presented by Hatsumi sensei over that past 15 years or so. I often wonder if Sensei puts a lot of thought into what the training theme of the year will be. Well, I can tell you that Arnaud has put an equal amount of thought into it! Essentially, the progression that began back in the early 90s with “Gyokko ryu bojutsu” has covered long and short weapons as well as all the components of what we know as Budo Taijutsu (taihenjutsu, kosshijutsu, koppojutsu, dakentaijutsu and jutaijutsu). These things, combined with the sanshin no kata and the kihon happo present us with the skills to master this art. Arnaud presented several in-depth explanations throughout the day. These were accompanied by notes and charts written on an easel and of course, physical demonstrations of the concepts he was discussing.

After the opening discussion, we moved on to bikenjutsu and practiced suburi. On the previous day, Arnaud had gone into great detail about the proper way of gripping and cutting with the most minimal use of arm strength and the lessons continued into Sunday. The highlight of the morning was the whole group doing 300 simultaneous shomen giri with kiai! My arms are sore today.

Following that warm-up Arnaud instructed is in some advanced applications of ichimonji, jumonji and hicho no kamae. His use of distance, timing and rythm were subtle but the results were painfully obvious. The morning passed quickly and soon it was time for lunch break. The remainder of the day consisted of the 9 biken kata from Kukishinden ryu as well as muto dori from Gyokko ryu.

Arnaud is a great teacher because he can articulate his advanced understanding of the techniques into straightforward (but sometimes baffling!) explanations. His control of his uke was astounding – and definitely baffling! I came away with a lot of material and ideas on which to practice over the coming weeks.