I just got back from a 1.5 day seminar with Kevin Choate sensei, and I thought I'd present some of my experiences.

The seminar was held at Aikido of Tamalpais up in Mill Valley, CA. The space there is quite big, hosting about thirty people comfortably this weekend. Just so people know, the mat is smooth for suwariwaza, provides good grip for tachiwaza, and is firm yet giving for rolling and break falls.

Kevin Choate sensei from Chicago Aikikai is a very personable fellow. Throughout the day and a half, he was funny, humble, and very instructive in the areas of aikido that he was exploring.

Perhaps my biggest draw in how he teaches is that he is _not_ afraid to try something that is difficult for him in front of the class. As one of my fellow classmates said to her husband, "Kevin, sometimes when showing a particular technique to us, doesn't get that technique off cleanly 90% of the time; however, the other 10% is amazing, and I can't figure out just how he does it." As Choate sensei himself said during class today, "With Bill here, I can maybe get this off once out of a hundred times. With Chrisopher, maybe once in a thousand times."

In this way, Choate sensei doesn't just get up in front of the class and "perform" (as Dennis put it so well) what he does best; instead, he lets us see what he's working on, lets us in on what kind of mistakes he makes as a fifth dan, and allows us to say, "Hey -- those are the same mistakes _I'm_ making!" When he feels himself getting tense up in his shoulders, he lets us know. When he feels he's concentrating on a particularly strong grab, he says so.

One thing he continuously says to his uke is "Strong is OK." He was very happy to find me willing to just go in with a punch as though I meant it; he kept saying, "Good! Good!" when I was able to actually connect with a munetsuki. He constantly uses people _I_ wouldn't be able to budge even had I a crowbar. In this way, I can tell that Choate sensei really still is working and delving into the intricacies and details of aikido -- something which I feel is necessary in any teacher.

We worked on a whole bunch of stuff over the weekend, but I think one common thread really ran through everything we did. Choate sensei was continuously delving into using the hips as the source of all movement, whether it be a tenkan movement, an irimi movement, a kuzushi (unbalancing) movement, or any other way we may move.

One "tip" he gave us was that he sometimes works on concentrating upon moving one particular part of his body while practicing a technique; he might really think about using his knees to blend, using his elbows to dig underneath uke's center, and so forth.

Today, we also did about an hour and a half of kumitachi (too little, if you ask me!). We went through the first five ASU kumitachi which was a really good review for me. Choate sensei just has the most amazing control of his weapon and his body while wielding his bokken; at one instant, he may be in hasso gedan -- the next instant, he's in seigan, his bokken pinning uketachi's throat section.

For those of you who read my review on Choate sensei's seminar last year at around this time, you may recall I did (totally inadvertently) a cartwheel ukemi from iriminage; his response then was, "Oh man, I feel I'm going to get my butt kicked." Well, this year I think I topped that, once again completely inadvertenetly. We were practicing kokyunage, and Choate sensei came around to throw me around a bit. At one point, I did a breakfall and hit his face with my feet as I was, basically, flipping in the air in front of him -- this gave him a bloody nose. Choate sensei was surprised at this, but seemed to be enjoying the fact that such a thing happened to him. A few minutes later after plugging up his nose with some tissue, he came out on the mat saying, "Where is that little bugger?" and used me as uke the next time around, tossing me left and right in the same kokyunage breakfalls. He knows my name now, at least.

We had a potluck at Wendy Palmer sensei's house on Saturday evening. We had some really good lasagna, watched some Jet Li movies (fast forwarding to the awesome fight scenes, of course), and had some great conversations with Choate sensei and a lot of other people who trained that day.

Overall, I had a great time at the seminar. I would recommend Kevin Choate sensei if you're in the Chicago area or notice he'll be in your area for a seminar; he's a great guy, does wonderful aikido, and teaches some really pertinent and interesting stuff.