I just got back from a weekend seminar with Toyoda sensei in New York, and I thought I'd share some of my impressions.

The first thing that I noticed when I stepped our of LaGuardia airport was that New York is a pretty hot and muggy place in late June. The second thing that I noticed was that I'd forgotten just how much people honk in this city.

Maria and Margo picked me up a bit late at the airport -- late enough that I started to think, "Hmm. I wonder whom I could contact should I be left here for the wolves? Do I really _know_ anyone in New York these days?" By the time I started to think about it, Maria pulled up in her roommate's car, and off we were to her place.

We walked from her place to Maria's dojo, Jikishinkan, located conveniently right around the corner. It's a pretty dojo with nice furnishings and a very bouncy mat. There, I met Ted Maclin who was one a sometimes delurker on this List. We packed some weapons from the weapons rack, as Maria said that we would be using them during the weekend, and indeed, we did.

We got picked up by one of her dojomate named Stewart, a friendly, talkative, entertaining man who jokingly refers to AikiWeb as the World's Greatest Website. The drive from Brooklyn to Pearl River took quite a long time -- over an hour and a half -- as the traffic on FDR parkway (I believe it's called) was jam-packed. I think we sat in view of Yankee Stadium for at least a good ten minutes or so.

The seminar itself was held at the Pearl River High School in the school gymnasium. On the basketball courts were a few wrestling mats laid down and held into place with wide strips of surgical tape. I tend to not like wrestling mats due to their "stickiness" so I took it very lightly on ukemi during this entire seminar -- moreso due to my recovering knee injury.

By the time we arrived on Friday, Toyoda sensei was already teaching the class. Toyoda sensei is a big man -- quite a lot of "hara." Maria introduced me to him, and I introduced myself in Japanese and conveyed regards from my teacher to him (as they had known each other a couple of decades ago). He seemed happy to know that I spoke Japanese and we chatted with each other throughout the seminar both on and off the mat in that language which I thought was very nice.

Toyoda sensei's techniques are very precise, crisp, and dynamic. He places a lot of emphasis on tai sabaki (body movement and placement) during techniques, and we went through quite a lot of exercises in empty handed techniques, bokken dori techniques, and paired bokken exercises as well. He also went through some "leading" techniques which were a good contrast for me as my current dojo does not emphasize much in terms of this kind of "leading" but rather goes straight into taking uke's center and applying kuzushi principles. It's been a while since I've practiced in this kind of big, circular manner, so I had fun trying to get back into that kind of practice.

Another difference which I saw was that there was more emphasis on hand and foot placement/movement than I've become used to these days. This last year or so, I've been focusing pretty much primarily in empty-handed techniques on moving from my hips to derive power, so it was a good "change of pace" in what I normally do at our dojo; frankly, I can use a lot more emphatic and precise hand and footwork in my aikido. It was nice to see some detailed explanations, for instance, on Toyoda sensei's method of switching feet at the end of iriminage to provide for a better entry into uke's rear balance point; I'll have to try this on folks at the dojo sometime.

Another thing that was neat to see was that Toyoda sensei broke apart jiyuwaza into a few components including utilizing tenkan, stepping back, irimi, and going under uke's attack. The style of jiyuwaza that I went through was a heck of a lot more "loose" than this and hardly had any form; it was nice to see such an important part of aikido such as jiyuwaza being practiced in a methodical fashion.

We also did some weapons practice through the weekend. Here, once again, was Toyoda sensei's precision and dynamic motion demonstrated as he went through some suburi with tai sabaki, partnership exercises incorporating these suburi, and a couple of bokken kata which I've never done before. Contrasted to the weapons work which I normally do, there was more of an emphasis on precision and intent than flow and fluidity with which I am more accustomed -- closer to the Iwama style weapons which I've done in the past. If I saw correctly in the few times I've seen them, the kumijo and kumitachi that Toyoda sensei teaches were either the same as those taught by Saito sensei or were slight variations thereof.

Toyoda sensei has a relaxed, joking manner while he teaches and has a friendly demeanor as he walks around the mat.

In addition to Toyoda sensei's teaching, we were presented with an hour each from two other teachers: Joseph Jarman sensei of Jikishinkan Dojo (Brooklyn) and Glen Matsuda sensei of Shishinkan Dojo (Rockland County). Jarman sensei is Maria's teacher in Brooklyn and quite a lively teacher at that. He is very animated, spirited, and lively in his movements while retaining technical grace throughout his teaching. He demonstrated many techniques with a horizontal spiral element which was fun to try out. Matsuda sensei continued Jarman sensei's teachings with a few other techniques including kotegaeshi by "expanding your mind" past your physical limits; he even threw "big" Richard from Maria's dojo (not to be confused with "bigger" Richard who wasn't at the seminar) who was about a good foot taller and nearly twice the size of Matsuda sensei into some beautiful kotegaeshi.

On Sunday, there were five tests -- three for shodan and two for nidan. This was to be my first set of tests conducted in the Aikido Association of America organization, and I thought all of the candidates did very well (and they all passed), including the aforementioned Stewart who passed his nidan exam despite a shoulder injury just seven weeks prior.

Maria? I thought she had a beautiful test. She kept her composure, kept moving, and stayed seemingly relaxed throughout the entire test. Her techniques were crisply executed while her movements stayed fluid and flowing. Although she did give out a sort of a yelp/scream during her randori (with four uke), I thought her demonstration went well all throughout. Congratulations on your shodan, Maria!

I wish I were less gimpy than I am right now, as I pretty much had to sit out probably close to a third of the time due to my injuries. I sat out most of Sunday's classes (jiyuwaza and randori) as I was already pretty tired from not having trained for about six months prior to this seminar and I nearly got injured once from a strong shihonage on my bad elbow. I only wish at the next seminar I attend I'll be a bit more mobile and able to train a lot harder...

All in all, I had a good time at Toyoda sensei's seminar. Maria was a gracious host, Margo's enthusiasm for new and interesting aikido techniques was evident (I remember when I used to be like that), and all of the students and teachers at the seminar were very welcoming of this random yahoo (me) from another oranization showing up.

Jun