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It's good to see Fukakusa Sensei again. It's time for our annual seminar by him and by now it's the middle of the seminar and we've learned a great deal in the last two days.
He's teaching us a great deal of how to move. Nothing like basically moving offline. As always, what impresses me is how a small, subtle shift in angle can change the dynamics so much. We're revising a bit of what we learned the last time he was here and it's good to be reminded.
Note to myself:
- the third way of moving offline.
We've had a visiting sensei come back to train with us these past couple of weeks which has been nice to see. He was one of our Chief Sensei's star pupils and has gone on to found his own dojo with our Sensei's blessings in Canada where he migrated to. It's great to see he has as much style and speed and efficiency of movement as he had years before when I joined and saw him. His daughter apparently has inherited some of her father's ability but I haven't had the chance to watch her train yet.
For my own improvement, I've been learning to correct some of the more basic mistakes i've been making and note them here so I don't forget.
1. for kotegaeshi: while turning the person around, don't forget to change the grip just before turning the uke over so that the pressure can be exerted on the uke. Now I know why one of the other guys I partnered a while back had put such pressure on my arm while practicing that movement on me...he was trying to show me how to do it.
2. I somehow forgot how to do shihonage with a shomen jo attack and had to be shown that the upper arm grip is face up while the lower hand grip is face down. I'm still trying to figure out though how far back I can let the jo go as i turn. I tend to hold it firmly in front of my forehead so that my balance remains grounded and I can't be pulled off balance. But I notice that my uke then tends to let go of his top hand which means I will end up changing the technique halfway through. I suspect t
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Grading yesterday was fun to watch as the one first kyu grading for his shodan did a good showing. He was visibly exhausted though and I was wondering if he could last the grading. His first uke was changed halfway through and he got an even abler uke the second half. I was impressed by how grounded he was and how good his balance was. It's always nice to watch someone take their shodan and show good spirit despite being pushed to their physical endurance limits.
I've started volunteering at the children's aikido class on Saturday afternoon. It's the small kiddies class where the youngest is probably just about 4 years old so very young. It's turning out to be fun although I have to confess to being mildly bored the first couple of lessons but after that I began to get into it a bit more and it's now more interesting and there's more camaraderie too with the other volunteers.
I kinda like this bunch of volunteers as it's a small and dedicated bunch as this is the smaller sister dojo of the main dojo. They're a highly organised who are generally very disciplined and impart that to their students. Today I arrived 25 minutes before class to help out with the mats and they were already all in place. Now admittedly that's not the usual story but the usual story is that the mats are usually ready some 10-15 mins before class so it's great.
And the instructor tells me that the last class, the older advanced kids need no prompted to help keep the mats. They just all pitch in. It's simply understood. No fuss, no bother. It's what they see their seniors all do so they fall in line automatically. And we're talking teenagers here.
I'm definitely missing aikido and wishing I'd brought my dogi while on vacation. I thought I wouldn't really have the chance to train but as it turned out I did have the time to pay a visit to a nearby dojo to watch a class and it was a good class. I learned a lot just by watching and would have learned even more had I troubled myself to lug my dogi and got permission to train!
We have seven new shodans in our dojo. Five men and two women. It's nice to see their progress. They all had a lesson in hakama tying and of course we teased the guys after about their skirts.
We also had two new nidans and the usual bunch of kyu promotions. Was pleased to see the two new blackbelt girls.
I'm increasingly struck by how much people's personalities are extended onto the mat. It's the quiet ones that in the end impress me the most as they go about their aikido with an ease that belies their skill.
I'm also struck by the people who don't bother to blend or fit in, or who simply lack the subtlety to tell that it is the sheer effortlessness of the movement that really marks skill. It's the correlation between their real life personalities and their ability or inability on the mat that I find the most striking.
I had always separated mental skill from physical skill ie some people may not be good at things physically and so may be quite different off the mat. One could for instance be an adroit lawyer or skilled mathematician but be physically clumsy and so I had initially assumed the two would be separate. But it is to my surprise that while physical talent is separate, the personalities often extend. The people who are subtle off the mat in other fields and areas of their lives "get" the whole subtlety of aikido considerably faster than those who barge their way through life and their practice of the art therefore differs in essence and this is reflected consequently in their ability to practice the physical form.
With people who have natural physical talent, this point is reached much sooner, but it is still evident in people who have a lower level of natural skill though that takes slightly longer to emerge. Either that or i notice it only la
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We've had a sudden influx of 5 new girls. One who joined a short while ago and then another four came along last week. One is an old student who's already 2nd kyu and she brought 2 friends and the last walked in on her own.
Nice to see all these new faces and they're not faring too badly on the mat. Think there are a couple of new boys too but as I don't have as much contact with them I don't really keep track.
The fine white cloud of dust has deterred a few but all the die hards are still showing up and sticking it out. We've also got better at coping with it and now mopping the mats before hand has taken on a heightened importance.
Our dojo has turned into a construction site. So our mat space has shrunk and become dusty with a fine white powderly dust from all the renovation work that's going on. They've cancelled Friday classes but otherwise we're more or less soldiering on. However I think it'll get worse before it gets better over this month and there's a grading on 1 March so all those grading will have to put up with the dust and lack of air circulating since they've papered over the windows so we can't open them. I'm not entirely sure what improvements they're making but well, since it's only for a month, we'll live.
10-22-2009 07:26 PM 
