Scott Connor Stick Seminar - Sunday, October 2nd, 2005

Sunday's warm-up was a bit like Saturday's, starting off with freely stretching, "like when you first wake up in the morning," with breathing of course; elongating your limbs, rolling back and forth from stomach to back, starting the motion with the hip, and using the floor as a passive stretching partner for various limbs. At least, that's how I do it. I'm sure everyone has their own variations. I find this to be a soothing exercise, like a massage.

We also did the breathing exercise, laying on the floor, inhaling and exhaling as Scott guided us through tensing and relaxing different parts of the body, then different sections (just the legs, just the left side, etc.), also different wave patterns, tensing from the toes to the head, and vice versa, and relaxing in this patterns, too, and breathing at different speeds, slow, or sharp…actually, it is only as I type this that I realize how much this exercise explores your own biomechanics. When I do this exercise, I feel the places where the tension already exists. And I have to admit, I don't like to tense those places any further! But sometimes it helps to do so, to see the contrast.

Then some partnered exercises with the stick. Back to back, we did squats with both our arms draped over the stick. For all the stick exercises where our arms were draped over and the stick horizontal, Scott had us hold the sticks at the crook of the elbow. Draped over the shoulders, like a milkmaid, is much easier than at the elbow, because most of your arm is free. At the elbow, we had to use the body and not the arms to lead movement.

For two minutes we did a static pushup…I don't think the sticks were incorporated into this one. Scott had told us something about the whip and how the being hit with the stick and whip evoke different emotions. He asked Edgar if by any chance he had one, and Edgar fetched a short braided whip so Scott could walk around and whip us as we held the position. I thought it wouldn't hurt too much, the whip was short. But it was surprisingly painful. Even so, it took my mind off the difficult task at hand.I wonder how I would have reacted to a second hit? One of my classmates moved as if to draw away, he may have been joking. I recall that Scott said, "You can take it, she did!" referring to me.

We did some partnered and solo exercises with the sticks, including a stretching exercise for the legs. But I can't recall these, sorry, my notes are too vague. I remember that we held the stick in the elbow, behind the head, and practiced falling and getting up again, from the back and the stomach, keeping the stick in place.

Scott had us stand in a circle around one person, who closed his eyes and swung the stick around at all of us, as on Saturday. I did a little better with this than on Saturday, when I was unsure of how to evade. Then we threw the shorter sticks around in a circus type of exercise, one person still standing in the middle, the rest of us circled around. We started with one, gradually working up to four sticks, by which time they were flying all over the place. But as I recall, we dropped surprisingly few of them, and some people fared very well in the middle. We did the same thing with everyone sitting down. This exercise is a lot of fun.

Back into pairs with the longer sticks, one person swings the stick, the other simply evades. Then we moved into taking the stick away. Then, one person punches, and you use the stick to take them down. We did the same thing with kicks and then with grabs. It was a bit easier for me than on the previous day. I guess I was feeling more confident. But I still had this vague feeling of having to use the stick, which is how I am sometimes "burdened" by a weapon, almost as if it takes away one of my hands. I felt that if I didn't use the stick, it would be "wrong," but Scott did not tell us that we only had to use the stick. He wanted us to make use of it, but not exclusively.

One person held the stick, the other tried to grab it and take it away. I have in my notes that I got very stubborn about this. I could not see how I was supposed to take the stick away from my much stronger partner. He was very kind about trying to help me but finally lost his patience because I kept insisting I could not do it. This is one of my classmates who has more confidence in my ability than I do myself. I am prone to stubbornness, but finally Scott helped me get the hang of using leverage and working on different areas to take the stick away from my partner.

On the ground, one person has the stick, the other grabs and tries to hold. The person with the stick has to free themselves, using the stick if possible. This one came more easily to me, perhaps because we were on the ground, my favorite place for training. I commented to my partner that we seemed to be freeing ourselves very quickly whereas other people were struggling for much longer. He said that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. It's indicative of my state of mind, that I was worried that we were accomplishing the task too easily. I found, when my partner was using it to free himself from my hold, that the stick pressing into me is so uncomfortable, I just wanted to let go of him immediately. However, just as I commented that we were freeing ourselves so quickly, my partner put me in a lock that was difficult to get out of. It took me a long time to free myself. It was pretty uncomfortable, and I think he was applying some pressure to my head, because I was a bit dazed when I finally got out.

Next, we did an exercise at which I did quite poorly, and didn't really understand the correct approach. Two people were swinging sticks at me. Scott told us to get behind one or the other and not stand in the middle. I thought my job was to evade and I began to run around wildly trying to stay behind one or the other moving persons, no easy task. I must have been hit with those sticks a hundred times! Finally Scott told me that I could do a bit more than just try to avoid, I could hold onto one person, even take the stick away. Evasion is often harder than applications. Once I saw that I was free to manipulate the other two people, it was easier to use one against the other.

Finally, we all lined up and attacked one empty-handed person with the long sticks, one after the other, running at them. Scott kept up a constant commentary of not only the person being attacked, but also the attackers. I was surprised that he complimented me on the way I was taken down. Some people believe I fall too easily, but the truth is, I just don't like to endure a lot of punishment. I feel I have a better chance while falling and even after I reach the ground, than standing up and accepting a lot of punishment. I prefer to work softly, and some people see this a limitation. Maybe it is, I don't know. But Scott complimented me on my "survival" as I fell.

Scott kept the one person under attack until he saw what he was looking for, an understanding of the work, then switched to the next person. After almost everyone had their turn, he asked if we had all gone. "You haven't gone," I said, pointing at one of my classmates. "Neither have you," he replied. We both tend to stay in the background of things. But he went up to take his turn. Then it was my turn. I asked my classmates to come at me slowly, but after one or two, they saw that I didn't need to be treated with kid gloves and started running at me quickly, except one student who always treats me like a rank beginner. I'm not sure why, I don't even know him too well, but I do know that I have been training longer than he has. But everyone else came at me at a pretty good clip. Scott was very pleased with my handling of the attacks. He said the summer camp had really helped me. I think that the two years with Edgar helped me more than the summer camp, although that was immensely helpful, but I don't think I would have gotten as much out of it if Edgar hadn't prepared me so well for the experience.

I was quite surprised at Scott's complimenting me during this final exercise, as I felt that I had struggled through the entire seminar and wasn't doing too well, but fast attacks are often easier to deal with than slow ones. As yesterday, it was only in the last ten or fifteen minutes that I was able to let go of my inhibitions and self- doubt and use the skills I've worked hard to acquire.