Well, to unwind from the test I had on Friday night, I went up to Aikido of Tamalpais in Mill Valley for a two day seminar with Hiroshi Ikeda sensei. Thought I'd write a "quick little" review on it.

The mat was pretty crowded on both days as usual, although there was less people on Saturday than Sunday. I think we had about 80 people on Saturday and about 60 or so on Sunday. Although there wasn't enough room to really take ukemi on the first day, we had more space on the second day to actually fall onto the mat.

As usual, we did a whole bunch of stuff with spirals. Ikeda sensei loves doing small spirals, so we pretty much did small spirals, tiny spirals, and even tinier spirals over the weekend. In fact, these miniscule little spirals were the crux of everything that we did, basically.

Ikeda sensei repeatedly emphasized the importance of coordinating the movement of the hip with the spirals you create by turning your wrist. He motioned time and time again that people were either turning the wrist then moving the hips or were moving the hips and then turning the wrist. He likened this to throwing a ball or throwing a punch; both the hips and wrist turn at the same time.

One thing that I really liked that he said was regarding timing. He said that people should not try to do things in the exact same timing as he does, since his timing would be different from everyone else's timing. He said to keep practicing, and sooner or later, we'll find our own timing, one that works for our bodies and movement types.

I think we practiced ikkyo for about half of the time through both days of the seminar. By combining the turning of the wrist and the hips with movement into the other person's centerline, he effectively showed us the principles of kuzushi.

I was lucky enough to actually feel Ikeda sensei for the first time this weekend while he was walking around the mat during a technique. Once, we were doing really simple exercises of executing tiny spirals downward. My partner seemed to just be pushing down, so Ikeda sensei came around and demonstrated with us. Grabbing that man's wrist felt like I was grabbing onto a firehose that was just coursing with water -- extremely strong, heavy, and alive. No wonder why John (Murray) once said Ikeda sensei is one strong "MF."

Another time, we were just working with crossed hands in front of us (like when we practice shomenuchi ikkyo without really doing the shomenuchi) and then cutting downward through our partner's center; he came around to demonstrate. I have to tell you, it didn't feel like he was pushing my arm or using strength or anything like that -- rather it just felt like he was totally relaxed yet affecting my center to cause me to just drop.

I also got the chance to feel him several more times through the weekend, although not in a real (as Wendy Palmer sensei says) snot-coming-out- of-my-nose, roller-coaster, wham-bam throws, unfortunately. I was in the mood for some koshinage, but I think there were just way too many people on the mat.

We also used the same kind of little spirals for other techniques like shihonage, iriminage, kaitennage, and ushiro. In fact, the last two hours or so on Sunday, we must have gone through at least thirty variations on those throws; he would demonstrate for about two minutes, and then we'd (literally) have about twenty seconds of working with our partners before he demonstrated another technique. My knees are a lot "better" than most people's, but they were pretty sore last night.

I was disappointed we didn't do any weapons; I guess I'm going to have to wait until the Summer Intensive Camp in Washington DC...

I spoke to him for a minute in Japanese after the class and asked him what his plans were on his next video. He said that he was planning on making a video on iriminage that'll include practice drills to develop center. He hopes to have the video out later this year. (It was really neat talking to him in Japanese, really. Very humble man.)

All in all, it was quite a fun weekend.

Jun