By Claus Hansen, Member until 2017
It was with high expectations that I signed up for TF3. I had been looking forward to this course for a long time and when I looked at what we went through in TF1 and TF2 it could only get more interesting. Expectation did not diminish when I heard what the requirements were for safety equipment. After all, almost a small fortune had to be invested in equipment. But as one of the sayings goes "take care of yourself", it was probably a good idea to buy some of it. And it is also better to be on the safe side than to have been injured if you could have avoided it.
Before the actual physical part could get started, however, we had to go through approx. 1-1.5 hours of back training.
We sat 30-40 expectant students, primarily 4-1 kyu, and listened intently to Søren Renshi and Martin Renshi dai, talk about kumite. They had brought numbers and stats from black belt shiai, which was somewhat impressive and also a little scary. It sounded almost as if all their matches were decided by KO (Knock Out). After a short intro, we started softly with some clips from sport kumite. There were examples of 40 years of development within sports kumite. In the video clips from the first years, you could recognize some of the things in shintenkan kumite. It was not quite so far from our own kumite on the line. However, as the years approached the present day, it distanced itself more and more from shintenkan kumite. In the end, most of all a kind of rousing dance, with sudden outbursts from one party. The last video example from recent times of the new big name in sport kumite most resembled two lallends... I don't know what was for some kind of up competition where it was wrong to jump in and touch the other party the most times. There was a lack of everything, there was no THANKS, there was no MINE, there was No CT. Sports kumite had come "a long way" since its inception, but whether it could be used for anything, the participants at TF3 were pretty sure that was not the case.
After this somewhat "shaking" experience, the participants' emotional register was played. The instructors had chosen some examples from everyday life, taken with surveillance cameras and mobile phones from public places from all parts of the world, from places where ordinary people move. Some clips were a sudden awakening, I caught myself and thought that this just doesn't happen, but one of the bizarre clips was probably from the street in Copenhagen.
There were also clips from MMA matches, which must be said to be some of the ultimate in kumite. Some of these clips were downright disgusting. There was a huge difference between this form of kumite and the sport kumite.
Now it wasn't just disgusting clips, there were also a few clips that showed how to act if you keep a cool head. In the examples shown, this behavior came very far behind the perpetrators.
For me it was clear, better to learn it inside the dojo before it's too late and be prepared for one's reaction pattern, than stand out on the street and be whirled into the events unprepared.
After this theoretical preparation, it was time for the practical part of the course. Various attacks and defenses for these were reviewed here. These were slowly built up progressively harder and with more intensity. First 20 saw 50% to become familiar with the technique, then 80 and 100% where you could see if it held, which it should. To start with it was limited with fixed attack and defense and then it became free with free attack and free defense. It was when 80 and 100% were told to be "alert", this applied both when it was fixed attack and defense and to the greatest extent when the attack was free. If you slept for just a fraction of a second, things went wrong. That's not to say that you could afford to relax because it was 20 and 50%, this was where you had a chance to brush things off and prepare for when the pace was picked up. But you just had to be there so much more with the 80-100%. But it was better to learn it in the dojo than out on the street. Attack and defense were trained in line and defense by breaking the direction of attack as in sankaku kihon. Which was extremely effective but also difficult to carry out in practice. When defending on the line, the lesson was that both sides stood to have a 50-50 chance of winning. Simply by moving out of the direction of the attack, you could increase your odds quite considerably. During the free kumite I managed 10-15% times to move out of the direction of attack and in these cases I won every time. The times when I didn't get to move, I remember it as losing more times than I won. However, a careful calculation should show that it is quite close to 50%.
My motto for kumite in the future must therefore be "move or get slapped". Which, funnily enough, is also what was trumpeted several times. Another phrase to learn is that if a train is coming and you are standing on the tracks, you stay standing and try to stop the train, or you move. Yes, if you are a super man and have to save all the passengers, you can stay standing, otherwise I would recommend that you move, it is wise. Another thing that is wise is to "be there" when you do kumite, that is also wise and then you take care of yourself.
