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Old 01-12-2012, 10:03 AM   #20
phitruong
Dojo: Charlotte Aikikai Agatsu Dojo
Join Date: Aug 2007
Posts: 1,944
United_States
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Re: bokken suburi questions

instead of worry about suburi stuffs, here is another approach that personally i think would help your aikido better. i am borrowing a basic exercise from Mike Sigman; he used a water bottle but you can use your bokken.

hold your bokken straight up above your head. let the weight of the bokken pushes down to your feet by relax your body so that your feet feel the pressure of the bokken. stand there for awhile, like 10-20 min. if any part of your body feels pain, then you are tensing it. work on relax those places. once you are comfortable with that position, then drop the bokken down (arm almost straigh out) to about your eye brow level. repeat the above. then drop to your shoulder level, repeat above. drop to your solar plex level, repeat above. then belly button. then as far as you can lower your hands. the key thing you need to focus is to make sure your are pushing from underneath no matter what position your arms are at. this is the important thing, because if you cannot do that, then you miss the whole point of the exercise and might as well not doing it at all. when you are comfortable with the static standing stuffs, then move around slowly and do the same as above. one thing, don't try to hold a heavy bokken at the beginning, try something light. the lighter the better. when you are getting better at it, then you can increase the weight incrementally, but in small increment. if you can master that in a year time, then you are better than i (took me 2 years. actually, still working on it but with some additives).

this exercise looks simple and doesn't look like much, but eventually allows you to get under people without changing much of your physical position and to drop your weight on someone in the same manner.

"budo is putting on cold, wet, sweat stained gi with a smile and a snarl" - your truly
http://charlotteaikikai.org
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