Re: Using your centre during training
 

There's a video, and if you google Saito, suburi, and maybe kumitachi, you might come up with a website or two which lists and describes them, but the description won't do much good without having a basis in it already. Really, you should get someone to show you. Ask around at your local dojo, or maybe check out a Saito-lineage seminar, where they might be covered.

Re: Using your centre during training
 

Justin you can find info at www.budovideos.com The seven suburi are in Volume 1 of Traditional Aikido by M. Saito. And are also shown on a dvd . Good luck

Re: Using your centre during training
 

cheers mark been searching all nite for these they dont come cheap there is one guy selling a double boxset on amazon for £400 gulp !

i will just have to train harder in class to remember them !!

Re: Using your centre during training
 

You could try this source: http://www.budovideos.com/shop/custo...39&cat=&page=1
At 57 euro and change, it's not exactly cheap, but it's no 400 sterling, either. Yikes!

That said, it's probably better for your martial training to just pay attention in class, and work harder there. In class, you can practice "stealing the technique" instead of getting lazy and hitting rewind on the video. ;)

Re: Using your centre during training
 

I´ve heard lots of good stuff about Hoa Newens dvds :http://www.budovideos.com/shop/custo...50&cat=&page=1

And there is always the Aikiken/Aikijo-dvd by Saito sensei himself:
http://www.aikidojournal.com/catalog...php?code=dvd02

Re: Using your centre during training
 

I've been doing Aikido for barely eight months, so please anyone correct me if I'm wrong.

When sensei tells you to "use your center" or "move with your center", a common thing I feel my partners do is move their center as an isolated part of their body. This is why your footwork suffers and your arms flop around, since thinking of and moving the center by itself results in merely dragging the rest of your body along with it.

The better thing to do is to use your center as the focal point of the body -- the hub that connects and powers every other part of the body. Energy comes from the center, but when performing a technique, it is merely raw energy unless a connection from the center to the arms and hands is established.

You've been training for two months, so I guess you've done a number of Tai no Henko (basic blend) from a mirror-image hand grab. At the very start of the technique, nice and slow, as your fingertips point downward and your arm begins to descend, imagine a wave of energy flowing out from your center to your arms and out your fingertips. Maintain this feeling until the end of the technique. You might get a distinctly different, more comfortable feeling of the technique. This is how it feels to have moved with "ki".

Like several other people have mentioned, do this and every other technique very slowly at the start because it's much easier to feel your center and your ki when you're focusing on those and not the speed of your movement. Also, don't suck up the stomach and tense at all -- that makes your ki get very angry :D. It likes to live in relaxed parts of the body.

Re: Using your centre during training
 

I agree, you can learn to use your center after everything else has run its course.