On Saturday, I attended the Larry Turner seminar at Jeff Christian’s [url=http://www.muzosa.com]Muzosa Dojo[/url] in Queens. It had a great time and it was a well-attended event. Josh came all the way out from [url=http://www.bujinkanomahashibu.com]Nebraska[/url] to attend the event, so I was looking forward to seeing and training with him again.

The day started out well as I had done my homework and researched a better way to get to Queens using [url=http://maps.google.com]Google Maps[/url]. With my good planning and printed maps, I was able to cut the frustration down significantly from my last trip out there!

Anyway, I got to the dojo on time and we started training around 10:30 or so. It was really interesting to see Larry teach because he had a bit of that “old style” from the Shadows of Iga days while his movement was certainly more akin to what we see from senior Bujinkan folks these days. Still, it really reminded me of when I first began training.

Larry referred to himself as a “simple guy” who’s only kamae is ichimonji and that’s how we started the day. We began with an uke nagashi movement against a punch into what started out as onikudaki. Within 15 minutes, the technique as shown by Larry had become more of an exercise in taking the uke’s balance without attacking the arm. The day continued in that vein with Larry demonstrating a movement and then working on refining it. We covered about 4 techniques prior to lunch and another 3 or 4 after we returned.

At the end of the day, Jeff presented Larry with a beautiful calligraphy from Soke that read ???? ???????? “shinki fudou” to celebrate his 25th year of training in the Bujinkan. Jeff and Loren explained that the Japanese people who they had asked to take a look at the painting had said this was a very deep concept in that the two parts of the phrase are a bit of a contradiction. It was a fitting and moving tribute to Larry’s accomplishment.

After training ended, I thank Larry and Jeff for a great seminar and introduced myself to Kevin Schneider (who had a lot of input throughout the seminar) and a few other folks. Josh and I chatted for some time until he had to get ready to go to the banquet that was taking place later that evening.