I just came back from a weekend seminar with Saotome sensei held at Aikido of Tamalpais (Mill Valley, CA) and Aikido West (Redwood City, CA). I thought I'd try to share some of my experiences.

It's very, very difficult to really talk about what Saotome sensei showed us and talked to us about over the weekend since he just plainly talked so much!

I will write what I went through during the weekend, though.

In past years, I've gone to seminars and had a really good time. It's been full of laughter, surprises, and a lot of great training. In a way, I've been starting to get used to the process of going to a seminar.

One thing that I've done in the past is listened to the instructor talk about something and basically go, "Yup -- I sure understand what you're talking about! Great point!"

For example, Saotome sensei this weekend (as he has done in the past) exaggeratedly depicted how we do something as simple as tai-no-henkou; very often, we slouch down, flare out our arms like a gorilla, stick out our heads forward, and muscle our way through it. It's really funny to watch Saotome sensei do this, actually.

This time, instead of just laughing, nodding, and basically saying to myself, "Sheesh -- thank god _I_ don't do that any more," I started to take a more serious look at what I was actually doing.

When Saotome sensei started speaking about just keeping your posture upright while performing ikkyo, instead of performing ikkyo while keeping my posture upright, I went and kept my posture upright while performing ikkyo. (Does this make sense?) When Saotome sensei spoke about tai-no-henkou not being a competition to _do_ something to your partner but as a way to practice _unifying_ with uke, instead of just thinking "duh!", I went and practiced blending with uke through tai-no-henkou and not just practicing tai-no-henkou.

And so on.

These days, now that I'm not affiliated with nor training at any one dojo, I really have begun to take a look at my own training and what I _really_ know. I'm having to shed a whole lot of preconceived notions and ideas that, in reality, don't work. In a way, I'm starting over from scratch since I'm having to look for the principles that work regardless of uke, style, or school rather than the techniques themselves.

"Shoushinsha no kokoro" might be the term I might use, although I don't know if I'd want to apply such a lofty term to me.

Outside of my own little experiences I had there, there were a few other things about the weekend.

On Saturday, we did a whole lot of ways in which to deal with "difficult" uke during ikkyo. You know the type of uke I'm talking about -- those who turn their backs on us, those who become stiff, those who start resisting upwards, and so on. Although it was really, really difficult for me to be the "jerk" uke (since my body just doesn't like acting in a manner as uke that's obviously dangerous to me), these exercises were very revealing in how to continue movement even through difficult times as nage.

We practiced quite a bit of counters on Sunday as well as went into some of the details of some "attacks" we use in aikido. For example, Saotome sensei went into just how katate-dori, morote-dori, and ushiro grabs might actually be something an attacker would do after a failed attempt to punch someone. From this, we went through a whole range of counters from ikkyo, iriminage, and shihonage -- all a bunch of great stuff. (Saotome sensei did one amazing sutemi counter from kotegaeshi. Wow.)

One thing that really impressed me this weekend which resounded with what I remember Ikeda sensei speaking about last weekend about Ikeda sensei has come to notice that "higher ranking people" were not taking ukemi for their juniors is that Saotome sensei took a fair amount of falls for a lot of the counters.

Overall, it was a great seminar.

Oh, and I'd like to say one of my thoughts about going to seminars. Do it. Go. As an instructor I know once said, "Shihan level instructors regardless of style or affiliation are a valuable commodity, especially those who studied with the founder. They won't be around forever."

That is all.

Jun