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Old 08-07-2012, 08:08 PM   #34
Byron Foster
Dojo: Aikikai
Location: Los Angeles
Join Date: Feb 2011
Posts: 20
United_States
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Re: Dan Harden Returning to Orange County Aug 4-5th

This was a great seminar with a great bunch of guys! Everyone had fun and learned a lot.
Since the last time I was at one of these workshops, it seems that Dan’s teaching strategy has evolved. To me it seems that he has put a lot of thought into developing a teaching syllabus that progresses in a logical way. He steadily built up the techniques from simple and kept adding layers to it. It was very good.

On Sunday we had a two hour question and answer period. No matter what we threw at Dan, he managed to explain everything in a detailed way. He would explain the anatomy, the theory, then how to and how not to practice something, and then a practical example. I was very impressed with his detailed understanding of each movement in his body and how it worked. I did not realize that I needed to study anatomy to be a martial artist.

Dan went out of his way to make sure the new students had hands on experience feeling what was happening. Everyone walked away from this seminar with better understanding of his training principles and theory. Plus plenty of homework. I plan to last more than two seconds during the push test next time….

Dan encourages for everyone to bring a notebook and takes notes during class. He even brought out a whiteboard to assist with some of his anatomy explanations with visual aids.

I am not an artist. On one page I have something that looks like a gingerbread man with a bunch of vector arrows radiating out from it with “This is Important” written underneath. On another page I have what looks like a corkscrew with more vector lines and “This is More Important” written underneath.

My wife now thinks I went to a cooking class.
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