By Martin Renshi
After a successful POMW TSM C1 course, where Minouchi Sensei’s thesis thoroughly where proved, it was time for a secondary and more advanced shooting. The question was whether Minouchi Sensei’s thesis also applied when participants had to make transitions (alternation between multiple targets), shooting in motion and IPSC (Practical use shooting) and not “merely” pave the shooting, as it had been so far. We can already reveal that it does so 🙂
A bunch of tired but excited participants, met again Saturday morning to continue the practice from the course from the day before. The amount of coffee and rolls, where not very high, before all were talking with excitement about yesterday’s successful experience, “Yes we can hit the target,” and even do it very well. The prospect was that it was going to be a long hard day as Kimu Sensei put it, and the participants were day before told, to expect that it probably would not finish an hour later that scheduled depending on the level, but it meant only that all participants would receive extra training and in the neighborhood of 8 hours in total. The level on the day before was quite high and it was a tired Kimu Sensei, who announced that because of the participants’ high level he felt obliged to be up half the night and change the course so it was appropriate for the level of the participants, which all could get maximum benefit from. This underlines once again Kimu Sensei’s thinking and respect for other people it’s never too late to do anything more efficiently, if it is at the expense of own resources and in this case sleep.
”Ladies & gentlemen – make your bets!..”
Today’s first lesson built directly on top of yesterday’s shooting, where Kimu Sensei introduced what is called for transitions. Transitions are still stationary lane shooting, but against multiple targets, in this case 2 target boards. Therefore, the participants were also divided into groups of 4, where one had to shoot while the other 3 were either at the loading table, or practiced in the POMW shooting technique from next selected distance. The difference from the earlier shooting are now just, that one takes aim and shoots according to the POMW shoot manual at an oblique angle to one side and then pointing the gun diagonally to the opposite side and fires another shot and then lowers the gun. The difficulties of this exercise is not the first shot, and maybe not even the second one, but when you have to shoot a second time and take the second goal first i.e. you shoot from right to left instead of left to right. Why is this difficult? Well most of us have been trained through life that one eye to be dominant, and this eye would be happy to take over all the time, and it is quite evident when you move the sight to the page where you have your dominant eye. But the participants did have one advantage that most other shooters do not have, they have probably Tai-sabaki from our karate training, which can be used and especially what we call Shiho level 1 (see and do) where you move the focus before you move itself, which is the essens when you shoot at multiple targets, look first, focus, move the gun and shoot according to the POMW technique. The transisionsshooting was of course also trained at several distances. To get a little competition and fun with it, Kimu Sensei had planned a little shoot-out, where the two teams with most points (i.e. most hits in the black area on a slide disk) should meet at the end of transisionsshooting. Apart from the images you can see who were the clear winners with 25% better score – BEAUTIFUL, but there were a few chief instructors who had red ears, but then they took revenge in the return later in the day.
After a short break it was time for the day’s next lesson and the start of the POMW TSM C3, “shooting in motion”. First, the participants were divided into two equal groups, which in turn were divided into several smaller groups. Kimu Sensei would like to build up one more level of firing, which required more space. So one team again took hold with the SIRT and trained transitions towards 3 goals of greater distance, whiles the other team, divided in to teams of two and two, practiced shooting in motion on a straight line back and forth against a target. The pace became louder and louder as the participants became accustomed to move forwards and backwards while shooting with air guns. A queue quietly began to building up at the loading table and several CO2 cartridges were running dry. Rather quickly, most of the participants found the trick by motion and could again create a connection to karate and the basis in this, keep your center of gravity at the same height, then it is also easier to keep the sighting of the same height and target 🙂 It is not enough to move back and forth, so the next on the program was natural enough lateral movement. When you have to go to the right and left site and moving while shooting, it is important that the lower body is twisted so that you actually turned up to 90 degrees against the upper body. One moves along the line that goes parallel with the targets. It was trained as you first walked toward the targets and turned left while shooting, and then went back and shot to the right, and obviously the POMW shooting technique is used, although there was now a difference because the shooting arm was bent or stretched depending on which side you are shooting from.
When all had been through both SIRT and shooting on the move, it slowly began to smell a bit of IPSC. In order not to lead the participants directly into the long pole, which was organized as part of the setup, the participants were led just to try to shoot at the targets that are used in IPSC. For this purpose, there were built two smaller “lanes”, where the one was a set of 8 pcs. IPSC cardboard discs and on the other 3 poppers and a plate with an indicator on, poppers and plates is made of metal. The participants continued in the two groups and one group was re-trained with SIRT against cardboard discs and in the second group they were trained with the air guns on poppers and plate.
Now it was time for what many surely have been waiting for, but did not know whether there was time – the IPSC. Since it would reflect the real competitions where there were many participants, there were only time for us to “walk” the track once. This did of course put some pressures on the participants, which was supposed to remember everything they had learned including all the safety rules, i.e. One always have to point the gun at the target, or away from the audience and judges, also when changing direction on the pitch, which in this case was almost square. At the same time, there was also hospitalized magazine change under way to train this, which goes quickly into IPSC. There was a high rate in many of the participants and it was very clear to see that they were familiar with both safety and shooting on the move, although there were several DQ’s and in some cases more than one to the same person for the same error tsk. tsk. 🙂 The IPSC component was possibly an even more fantastic atmosphere and everyone cheering each other in the hope, that there was an even faster time and more trouble-free shooting.
Almost an hour later than planned but anticipated, the days training course ending. The overall evaluation had only praise to the course, which had given both food for thought, but also a further confirmation of the Minouchi Sensei’s thesis had been demonstrated. At the same time, it was clear to see that even in a competence as shooting; the base technique from karate can be used as a tool for improving and debugging.
The first part of the large POMW project i.e. course is a requirement up to first dan, is now over, and it has been a huge success on all the specified areas, and has passed the most optimistic expectations set a benchmark for this completely innovative and revolutionary key project. Firstly, the main and driving force behind the project, Minouchi Sensei’s thesis chiseled into history as “Approved Myth” and not “Myth busted” to take a well-known American TV series languages. Secondly, Kimu Sensei once again proved that he is in his uncompromising fashion manages to create an international project that is designed for international success, but also has taken unbelievable many resources to implement, since both the world’s top civilian and military shooters were involved so the essence of an experts in each team could be built optimally from scratch.
Shindenkan have added another success to Danish, Scandinavian and European history as the first broad gauge martial arts system that can now also write the modern warrior’s weapon powers in C.V ‘ s, something that certainly will and have aroused attention both nationally, but definitely also internationally.
As always, Shindenkan have an open communication policy, which means that you can read about the participants’ own experiences, recommendations and assessments of progress, process and benefits – all of this is happening in the coming weeks.
We wish all our members, family, supporters and readers all over the world – a great summer! We say THANK YOU for the loyal support you have given us during the season 2011/2012 – THANKS – Domo Arigato Gozaimatsu!
