I just got back from a five-day Shochugeiko with the Jiyushinkai people and I thought I'd share some of my experiences with it.

I arrived in Phoenix after a short one hour layover in Salt Lake City, knowing what to expect. The weather forecast had said that the temperature would be in the range of 105 to 110 degrees (Fahrenheit) or so throughout the week, so I was expecting it to be pretty hot. When I stepped off the plane onto the gangway thing, I realized that it was, indeed, pretty darned hot.

Wiley found me at baggage claim and took me over to Mike Hacker who gave me a big hug. In his new Pathfinder was Phil "Sumsi" Herndon, also from the List. We drove on out to Chandler while admiring the small molehills in the distance which the Arizona people called "mountains" and ate some really good ramen there. We stopped by the dojo, a beautiful space, where I met up with Chuck Clark sensei and Yoko and David from Oklahoma. We then went back to the airport and picked up David Bedard who is also on the List and was at last year's Seminar. With Mike's Pathfinder full of Aikido-L people, we went back to Mike's place where we watched a whole plethora of "bad budo videos" ranging from "Sensei Bob" to "Professor Duncan." We, of course, washed our mouths out with some good budo tapes like the one with Mifune sensei (10th dan, judo). What do you mean it's not aikido he's doing? Same, same.

The seminar ran for five days and drew people from within Jiyushinkai from all across the United States from places like Oklahoma City, San Diego, Indianapolis, Dallas, and Orlando. There were a lot of "locals" present, of course, including those whom I had briefly met at the San Antonio Aikido-L Seminar like Aaron Clark (Chuck sensei's son), Steve, Keith, and Mimi. Also present were some of the judo folks including Stan Conner sensei who holds an 8th dan in judo, his son Aaron, and the aforementioned Wiley.

The schedule for the seminar had about eight hours of training every day including a couple of 6-8am weapons classes by Aaron sensei (which were terrific), but Chuck sensei went and gave us a break and let us off early for a couple of classes and started some of the other classes a bit late. It's a great way to immerse yourself into budo this way, folks, if you can live with only a bit of sleep.

Throughout the seminar, I found all of the Jiyushinkai people to be very patient of my "barbaric" ways as I only had a brush with their approach to aikido. I had to take care to watch carefully what both nage and uke were doing during the demonstrations and not just fall back into my "usual" aikido mode.

The Jiyushinkai approach to aikido is, as far as I could tell, based primarily on kuzushi or balance-breaking. In order to effectively apply kuzushi, however, we really had to concentrate on taking sente or the initiative. What we do at my dojo here at home is also very much focused on kuzushi but in a different way; we tend to use a very direct, "crushing" kind of kuzushi while the Jiyushinkai folks look for a softer, more subtle application.

Chuck sensei went and broke down their approach to what they call randori. Unlike the "typical" definition of randori being a multiple-person attack (also known as "taninzugake") in which uke rushes forward to grab nage's shoulders and nage does some kind of kokyunage, his style of randori consists of one uke and one nage. Uke provides a good, committed attack (usually done at about 1/4 speed) and nage tries to off-balance and/or throw uke. If nage presents an opening in his or her technique, uke is then free to "counter" nage, thereby taking the initiative. This "switching" of roles may occur multiple times during each randori encounter which, of course, means that both uke and nage must keep a lot of awareness and zanshin in their movements and techniques.

Although one may think that this sort of training may lead to flailing arms and a lot of struggle, the Jiyushinkai system places a lot of emphasis on both uke and nage being open to feeling exactly what happens when one does something. As Aaron Clark sensei explained during one session, both uke and nage should learn to allow their movements as a committed action and not back out of a movement halfway through. This kind of training really was gratifying as it seemed to allow both nage and uke to undergo an honest, egoless training that got rid of any such notion of "falling down is losing" during training. In fact, many times during randori with the more experienced people there, I felt that when I thought I "had them," they were in fact keeping their own integrity, blending, and putting me off-balance into their own techniques. Very, very neat.

We also practiced a lot of kuzushi drills involving affecting uke's balance just enough so that they "thrust" themselves a bit up and over as they stepped to regain their balance. Chuck sensei told us that there were usually three such balance breaks in any aikido technique and we did quite a lot of drills involving many different directions and combinations of balance breaks. I've been having a lot of fun these past couple of days working slowly in our "shallow end" of our mat here at my home dojo trying to apply this concept to the techniques that we're doing.

As if this weren't enough, Dennis Hooker sensei came down and joined us for the weekend starting on Friday. Unfortunately for me, I strained my neck during some back ukemi and had to sit out most of Friday and all of Saturday. The last time I had seen Dennis sensei was also at the San Antonio Aikido-L Seminar so it was really great to see him. Most of the folks at Jiyushinkai had never met him before, but I really think that people enjoyed his teaching.

Dennis sensei showed the principle of establishing a center-to-center connection between nage and uke by taking out the "slack" during one's technique. He also showed that this connection needs to happen in front of nage's center at all times. From techniques like ushiro ryotekubudori sankyo, iriminage, morotedori kokyunage, and suwariwaza kokyunage, Dennis sensei went over these principles. He also presented the "Aikikai" version of randori which is the aforementioned multiple-person attack to let people have fun with this approach as well. We also went over his approach at tantodori which pretty much precluded that nage _will_ get cut no matter what and to deal with the attack in such a manner. Dennis sensei also went over what he called "aiki-candy" and did a whole bunch of great stuff involving jo versus various attacks like a punch or a kick and shoto against bokken. Great stuff.

As a special treat, Dennis sensei went over an important aspect of aikido which is often overlooked -- that of breathing. In the past, Dennis sensei has had to really take a close look at how he breathed due to health problems and has put in a lot of energy into the principles of breathing. Leading us through a very, very interesting mini-workshop in the matter, Dennis sensei shed a lot of light upon the way we should all be breathing during our everyday practice and lives. Truly a gift.

Saturday afternoon was the Jiyushinkai demonstrations which was a treat to watch. Jim from the Jiyushinkan dojo demonstrated for shodan and it was great (including his throwing Aaron Clark sensei once during randori -- awesome throw). There were other demonstrations of iaido, Shinto Muso Ryu jodo, a "new" ashiwaza kata that a couple of folks developed, a koshiwaza kata which was really fun to watch, and a tai chi demonstration from a local teacher which was fascinating.

I was able to get back on the mat on Sunday and had the pleasure of getting my butt thrown left, right, forward, back, up, and down by Stan Conner sensei. My experience with judo is pretty much nothing, and I hope I wasn't doing anything stupid nor dangerous as uke. In any case, Stan sensei took care of me and my ignorance as he proceeded to somehow let my body go where it wanted to go without it knowing it wanted to go there. I took about a dozen breakfalls with nary a hint of what was going on. The most I felt from that man was a slight tap at my shin with his foot and I went flying into a breakfall. Really. I also got to grab Stan sensei's son, Aaron, after the Sunday afternoon class for about an hour's worth of his coaching me through a couple of judo techniques which was a lot of fun.

All throughout this whole week of budo was interspersed a lot of fun with people, old and new. There were a bunch of List people in attendance including Mike, Wiley, Phil, David, and Will (as well as Chuck sensei and Dennis sensei), but it was just as great meeting and playing with all of the other people like Jennifer, Aaron, Keith and Mimi, Steve, Brad and Jen, Jim, J.D., Jamie, Paul, Russell, Takashi, Yoko, David, Tom, Brian, Ginny, Miguel, Chris, and the countless others with whom I trained over the days. Also, special thanks goes out to the teachers who were there -- Chuck sensei, Dennis sensei, Aaron sensei, and Stan sensei; I hope I retain even a fraction of the wisdom you all imparted throughout the seminar.

If any of you ever pass through the Tempe area, do yourself a favor and stop by the Jiyushinkan dojo. It's one of the highest concentration of experienced budoka in the US that I've ran into as well as a lot of great, open-hearted people. I hope I'll be back there sometime soon -- when it's cooler...

There was a lot of laughter both on and off the mat over the days, something that I believe should be a necessary part of everyone's training and lives. There was way too much going on that I would be hard-pressed to write all of it down, so I will leave it up to everyone's imaginations by just saying that I had a great time. Thanks to the people who let me laugh like I haven't laughed in quite a long time. You know who you are, and I hope to see you all again soon.

I especially wanted to make sure that I ended this seminar review with special thanks to Swan and Mike for hosting me and all of the rest of the weird folks that stayed at their place. The hospitality that they exhibited is, I believe, one of the main principles of budo. I also wanted to make sure that the last words in this seminar were of Swan's cooking which is enough to make me want to go down there for a weekend or something. If you can't make it for the budo in Tempe, Arizona, go there for Swan's warmth and cooking.

Jun