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	User Name: Kelly Allen
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<blogEntry id="426">
	<title><![CDATA[Our biannual seminar]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[We had our biannual seminar with our esteemed sensei from Seattle.  I always enjoy those seminars because I learn so much in such a short period of time from him.  He is very good at describing suttleties that make or break a Ki test, or greatly improve a technique.  

I got to spend a lot of time being uke for him as everyone else was injured in some way (not Aikido injuries).  That was great!   Sensei must have told him I have began brekfalls because he snuck in a few on me.

Some of the memorable pointers were the change I needed to make in my ushuro ukeme to standing position.  I failed a Ki test to stand.  I was then told to use my abs more to place my one point forward enough to stand rather than extending my arms to gain momentum to stand.  I made the change with some success, but I really need to practice that one more.  He had me make a suttle (and I mean suttle) elbow, shoulder drop to make me more stable when offering my hand to uke.  I was astounded at the difference such a suttle change made in my stability.  He showed us two other versions of happo waza.  One was a tenkan version, the other was a sword cut with knife hand version.  The tenkan version realy takes some getting used to.  We worked on the eight direction sword kata.

I only managed to get two days of four that he was teaching.  I wish I could have gone to the other two, but because Christmas dinner was at my place I was behind the eight ball to prepare the house for the 15 people that will be coming over.  I don't know when he's going back to Seattle.  If I'm lucky maybe he might run another class after Christmas before he goes.  I was hoping to cover some of the techniques I'll need to do for my 3rd kyu test.

Kelly  ]]></body>
	<date>12-24-2003</date>
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