IALEFI 2007
SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS
WEDNESDAY, 23 MAY 2007 - AM
On Wednesday, my first class is Jeff Hall's Hojutsu-Ryu: The Martial Art of Shooting. The course blurb is:
Hojutsu-Ryu was founded five years ago, integrating the Modern Technique of the pistol and Japanese training methodology. After years of development, the art has been accepted by the U.S. Martial Arts Hall of Fame. It integrates handgun, shotgun, submachine gun, revolver, carbine, and precision rifle with hands, feet, sticks, and edged weapons. The study of Hojutsu-Ryu allows the practitioner to master all of the above weapons. Training includes the study of the history of firearms development along with testing on shooting and weapon manipulation. We also study weapon retention/disarming and empty-hand techniques.
From the very small sample of what we saw in the class, I feel that we were given a very good glimpse of the art. I think that the "Art of Shooting" is an accurate way to describe the skill set being taught. Being a martial artist myself, I was very honored to observe Master Hall and his student provide the four hour demonstration. It was striking to me that Master Hall appeared before the class to talk to us without his weapon. I was first struck in this way many years ago when I observed that Master Eisai didn't bring his fukusa one day. I asked Kiyoshi about this later and he said, "Masters will do as Masters will do!", and he hit me...but I'm getting off the subject. In time Master Hall did retrieve his weapon and proceeded to provide a demonstration which I was privileged to witness and that I feel defines perfectly Musashi's description of "skillful to watch".
You do not have to take my word for it, however, because Peter captured the demonstration on video. I have watched it a few hundred times by now. It is certainly skillful to watch. Be warned that it is 23 megabytes, so if you have a dialup connection be prepared to go take a nap while it downloads. As we say in my country, the man has mad skills... Click Here For Video If the video does not play, right click on the link and select 'SAVE TARGET AS', save the video and run it from your hard drive.
After the demonstration and some further instruction, we were given the opportunity to try some of the shooting drills designed to evaluate students in the Art of Shooting.
Peter takes a run at a one hand drill.
I just love it when the shutter fires at the same time as the gun.
Hmmm... Needs work on that one handed recoil control. :D
Peter's
turn at one of the Hojitsu-Ryu tests. His first and second shot are
clearly in the right place.
On the line.
Perfect one hand technique.
The gun has just fired and the slide has JUST started to reciprocate.
