Over the weekend I went to N.C. to watch my niece and nephew test for their Orange belts in this style of Ju Jitsu. It was pretty interesting, I will tell you guys what I rememeber about the test. It was all kids, from White belts up to 2nd green. I think the oreder was white, yellow, orange,blue, green,second green but I may be wrong) Has anyone here ever studied this style?
The test started with warm ups. Jumping jacks (I between 50-125 depending on rank)push ups ( from 20 up to I think 50 then 5 each 1 handed and 5 or 10 claps) sit ups - again, a range. Then they did break falls for a while.
Next they did kata. Now to me, most of what they called kata we would have called either basics, or sets, like a blocking set or a striking set. What I mean is it would be like stand in "standing horse" and puch left, punch right, left upper cut, right upper cut ,etc. then a blocking one, then a kicking one. Fron kick left, front kick right, left round house, right round house, etc.
Then they did a few other katas, more of what I think of as a form or kata.
Next it was on to self defense. all of the kids paired up and did slef defense against things like two handed grabs, head locks, "haymaker" hook punches. This was interesting to me, becuase you could really see the traditional JJJ and Akido influence. Not alot of striking, but alot of reaping type of throws followed by joint locks, or joint lock type take downs. I would have liked to have seen a little less cooperation from the the uke, but they are kids.
Then came the sparring. I have to say, that I didnt see alot of clean technique or stragety in the sparring, but for kids I saw alot of hard contact. They were kick boxing pretty much full contact. head shots and all. Also, no chest protectors. But basically they just ran at each other and started flailing. The other thing that suprised me was they let the parents stay and watch the sparring. In my school they always make the parents leave the room for sparring.so when little johnny starts crying his mommy doesnt baby him. Little johnny will be fine. Stand up and keep fighitng.
All in all I was pretty happy with what i saw. I would have liked to have seen some of the adults demo some stuff, but I think I got a good idea of what they do.
So, any of you guys ever study this art?