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First aikido class after being away for more than 6 month and having had knee surgery.
I agreed with myself that I would do weapons class and solo excercises only. It went marvelous.
Funny thing is that when you focus all your attention on how to move with your knee that at that point you dont pay attention to what the rest of your body is doing showing you natural movements in their true form.
I didnt expect to go to class and actualy learn something. I went to class expecting to be limping about like a silly clown.
Sometimes you suddenly understand something so clearly that you cant understand why you didnt understand that before. You know it has been explained to you a milion times and it didnt make sense then.
After having been away from classes since Shochu Geiko due to several different, non-aikido related, health issues I will go back to the dojo today. Now is the time to practise what I always tell others: Start slowly, dont expect to restart at old lvl and be ready for frustration. I guess it will be tough.
Henry Kono sensei stayed at our club for a few more days and was kind enough to also teach at our regular monday and tuesday lessons. So more lessons on being out, being soft, on how yin balances yang and how to preserve your own space.
Saturday the third day of the Henry Kono sensei, Alan Ruddock sensei and Tom Verhoeven took place. Due to childrens class there was no morning session. The first afternoon session was by Alan Ruddock and focussed on the impossibility to rearrange uke. The second afternoon session was by Henry Kono sensei and focussed on the balance between uke and nage. The exercises showed how nage preserves his own space without shoving uke around. There simply is no me, just the interaction.
Sunday the last day of the Henry Kono sensei, Alan Ruddock sensei, Tom Verhoeven sensei came. Henry Kono started in the morning and showed how to move your feet. He told is O sensei used to see that "what men concives is expressed through the hands, but the way of the univers is expressed through the feet.
Tom Verhoeven sensei gave the first afternoon lesson. Lots of variety. Kokyu nage, kote gaeshi, jo dori, irimi nage and some jo suburi. Together with temperatures of 28 degree centegrade enough to make you sweat.
Alan Ruddock sensei gave the last session and continued on the themes from before. The official seminar was closed by Henry Kono sensei.
Henry Kono sensei wil stay near our club until thursday so maybe sensei and he will agree to have him take over some of the usual classes, hence giving our club members another 2 or 3 days to train with Henry Kono sensei. Alan Ruddock sensei will fly home on monday.
Friday was the second day of the Henry Kono sensei, Alan Ruddock sensei and Tom Verhoeven sensei seminar. Henry Kono sensei opened the day with the morning session showing us different exercises to show the balance between uke and nage, and how to work with this balance without disrupting the attention, focus and movement of uke violently.
The first afternoon session was by Tom Verhoeven sensei. After several shiho nages we did some combinations (from ikkyo to kote gaeshi to sankyo to shiho nage) and we finnished this session with some jo suburi.
The second afternoon session was by Alan Ruddock sensei. He focused on the throwing direction in Aikido. He explained that from a movement point of view it is quite strange to do a technique in such a manner that uke is forced into a full stop to eventually fall (backwards or not) into the direction that he came from in the first place when it is also possible to do the technique in such a manner that uke would fall in the direction that he was originally going (and thus wasnot disrupted that much).
In the evening our regular class, not part of our seminar took part. We practised severl forms of koshi nage. (I personnaly dont like the shiho nage like form of koshi nage, but then again aikido is not about me liking the techniques anyway). We concluded with some Aiki kempo.
On thursday the first day of the Henry Kono sensei, Alan Ruddock sensei and Tom Verhoeven sensei seminar at our club started. Having to pick up Henry Kono sensei from the Airport I missed the first morning sesion by Alan Ruddock sensei. The first afternoon sesion was by Tom Verhoeven sensei and emphasised on a lot of technical skill. Hard work and lots of sweat. The second afternoon sesion was by Henry Kono sensei. First we had a focus on dropping your weight when being uke and after that we examined the movements that arise from the interaction of nage and uke. Henry Kono sensei's lessons focus on (very advanced) principles. It was a nice first day with lots of people.
Being a good ok means riding the fine line between attacking to strongly and being to nice.
Somehow attacking strongly for a lot of people seems to mean that they have to attack full force and speed (and thus are no longer able to handle the breakfalling part of ukemi). How to learn people that a good attack is one that follows through. Most bad attacks you get are from people that hold back, change the speed midway or change the direction of the atack to a deliberate miss. In unarmed practise it sucks and is quite enoying, they dont offer anything to work with. But with weapons I fear these partners. Quite often the safety within the exercises lies within the certainty about what your partner is doing. I have been hit more often by people that tried to miss me than I have been hit by people that (within the context of the exercise) realy tried to wack me.
It seems that lately there is more focus on training shiho nage in our dojo. Of course different techniques are practised but it definitly feels like shiho nage season. It is vey nice to do even though it seems like a v difficult technique for a lot of the beginners.
10-19-2005 12:56 PM 