This winter I formalized a modern jujutsu curriculum as a cognate art to my practice of Gao Lineage Bagua. I worked through organizing foundational material into six lists of kata that I believe can efficiently teach locking, pinning, and throwing in a manner that combines well with Gao Lineage Bagua.
Ben Lawner has been training with me for the last twelve years; he began training with me in modern goshin-jutsu and then perservered through a long crucible period where we focused on Gao Bagua together and then brought our two practices together, into what we call Gassankan jujutsu. As part of this compilation and transmission, I awarded Ben a chuden license in Gassankan Jujutsu. He has my permission to teach that art to others as he sees fit.
Gekkiken
This winter I was able to practice shinai gekkiken recently, and enjoyed the experience immensely. It was interesting to notice how wearing bogu, especially the helmet, turned sparring in a very cardio intensive activity -- an excellent workout. Also, it was interesting to notice what aspects of my training came to the forefront. It was interesting that some elements of training were much more reliable than others, and also were able to adapt to new situations easily.
For me, I found some of my Taiji Dao training very useful in a spontaneous encounter. Other ideas from Shinkage-ryū , like maki or wrapping, and kiri kaeshi or reversing direction, were quite useful as well. I think my training partner and I both learned a great deal from the experience and are excited to keep gekken as an adjunct to our kata practice.
I am continuing to work at the Bagua Shi Ba Jie (18 Interceptions) Yangling Dao Form of Ma Gui. I hope to visit Pittsburgh again soon to get further corrections on my dao practice.
The spring weather has made training outdoors easier, and I have been spending more time in my outdoor dojo. I was hoping to visit Portland, Oregon again this spring to visit my kenjutsu colleagues there, but I am likely to delay that trip until the summer or fall when I have the time to make it a longer trip.