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Old 05-13-2002, 10:16 AM   #25
akiy
 
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Join Date: Jun 2000
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Re: high-tailing it

Quote:
Originally posted by nyaikido
Brace this against this fact: for anyone the Aiki Expo Friendship Demonstration is a 'life or death" situation because of the amount of attention the demo would receive, the scrutiny, the inevitable criticism, it's wide dissemination via videotape. Especially for the demonstrator but also the ukes.
Eek! How come no one told me that!? I should have put on my fancy hakama! And had my dogi dry cleaned and pressed! And had my hair done!
Quote:
I remarked to Jun (before Ikeda Shihan's demo) that it seemed (from my perspective) that in general uke were more nervous than nage, and uke tripped up the demos more than anything else.
Frankly, I was somewhat nervous beforehand. My teacher said not to worry that it would "just be like keiko" (meaning he'd be throwing me the same way he usually throws me any way), and it turned out to be pretty much just that. Of course, after the first technique (a relatively soft ikkyo), it did just turn into pretty much what I experience when I take ukemi from him so it wasn't all that different. Our whole demo seemed really short, though -- probably just a couple of minutes in length.

I'll say, though, it was quite a rush to walk onto the mat with a few hundred people applauding with flash bulbs going off. Quite a difference, say, from going up for my last dan test just a week before the Expo (albeit with less than half a day's notice!).

But, hey -- I was only one uke out of four for my teacher (two of whom were sixth dan). I have to put it to the instructors here on these Forums like Georde Ledyard and Chuck Clark who actually put on the demonstrations themselves -- not to mention Peter Goldsbury who was one of the headlining instructors of the entire Expo! Hats off to them!

As far as moving backwards in randori (the topic of this thread...) goes, does anyone else have thoughts on this matter?

-- Jun

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