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[ian]

Hi all,
wasn't sure whether to put it in this thread, but hoping later to show you some footage of scenario training we will be doing later this year. For now, I just thought you might want to see some video footage we used recently for advertising which shows the use of focus pads for 3 min intensive striking sessions as well as a bit of normal aikido. The sound is quite amusing. Comments (good and bad!) most welcome.

http://www.coleraineaikido.org.uk/aikido_web.wmv

Ian

[Kevin Wilbanks]

I applaud the athleticism, but I'm not sure about including those punching drills in an advertisement. It's obviously good general exercise, but people are going to wonder why you are training to punch people who are 7ft tall and don't hit back. Perplexingly, the initial jo drill appears to be practice for whacking midgets.

[Neal Earhart]

I agree with Kevin's comments.

Personally, I would eliminate the striking exercises from the video, or just use a brief clip.

I also think showing a broader selection of Aikido techniques from different attacks would make for a better demonstration video.

[Larry Cuvin]

IMHO Ian, you should create a video for your targeted future students that would accurately represent the kind of aikido you will be teaching. Picture the kind of students you want to have and project that on your video. Show them a glimpse of what your your dojo is about so there's no misconceptions.

Plus Ki

[deepsoup]

I don't think the striking was particularly ott. It made sense to me how you kept cutting back to it throughout, since the sound was running in realtime throughout the other scenes as well. I liked what you'd done there.

Nice to see an aikido clip where people are working up a bit of a sweat. Sure you wouldn't all be more comfortable without those silly black skirts on? :)

Off now to dig out some Davy Spillane CD's I haven't listened to in ages...

[ian]

We are a uni dojo, so we get a big influx of newbies at this start of October. We focus on self-defence and we use focus pad work to help with the striking also (many people with no martial experience just cannot punch). So to some extent it reflects what we teach at the start (indeed, we only teach ikkyo and irimi-nage for the 1st term - the rest is striking, simple bokken work and conditioning). The jo stuff is something we do during the summer. Therefore we do alot of striking practise in the first term (maybe the non-bokken stuff should have been left out).

We're also in the unfortnate position that the university are quite restrictive on outsiders training withput paying full years membership straight off (apparently for insuance purposes) which results in having students for 3 years and then dissappearing. In order to adapt to this we have to really cut down things to the essentials during term time (the summer really being for more advanced long termers).

Kev, not sure what you mean by the jo drills - I think you mean the bokken cutting; and the cutting is towards the wrist. (We do this drill alot since I've found it relates to ikkyo so well and I can see in begginers and enormous improvement).

Thanks for the comments; the scenario training is something we haven't done yet, but will show you some vid when its done. (Basically we need to do the striking practise for the scenario training as well, so people are more violent and continuous in their attacks).

[paw]

We are a uni dojo, so we get a big influx of newbies at this start of October. We focus on self-defence and we use focus pad work to help with the striking also (many people with no martial experience just cannot punch).

If the goal is to teach good striking technique, the person in the video's form deteriorates drastically, so I recommend you consider stopping the drill at that point and correcting their form. If the goal is for conditioning --- to keep striking for a certain length of time, that's another story.

FWIW....

Regards,

Paul

[Ben Joiner]

Guard up, guard up! I suggest practising with someone who'll gently bop you on the nose when arms are dropped. ;-{)