Aunkai Seminar with Akuzawa Sensei, Los Angeles, Sept 21, 22

Aunkai founder Akuzawa Minoru will be teaching a seminar in Orange California, just south of Los Angeles, during the weekend of September 21-22
Location: Orange County Aikikai, 610 E Katella Ave. Orange, CA, 92867 (http://www.ocaikido.com)

Date: September 21, 22, 2013. Class times tentatively from 10:00am to 6:00pm,
with a break for lunch.

Costs: $180 for Saturday/Sunday if you preregister. $195 at the door

Friday class TBA. $20 for preregistered students, $40 at the door.

Paypal: arkinsocal@gmail.com to register

http://www.aunkai.net/eng/annai/130921.html

https://www.facebook.com/events/419384894835056/

For those that are interested, here is a rough outline of the seminar plan.

Since its inception roughly 10 years ago, the Aunkai has been focused on understanding what drives efficient body mechanics. The Aunkai is style independent and looks at what defines superior skills in the Asian Martial Arts - what made them so unique? How did the Masters achieve these skills, and more importantly - how do you go about creating those skills within yourself? Sagawa of Daitoryu-fame himself said that Aiki was based on physics and solid body mechanics - but what were those core, universal principles? This seminar will be new material (for those that have attended an Aunkai seminar before) geared to leave attendees with a solid mental and physical understanding that will allow them to delve into what makes these things possible. We can give you the roadmap... but you'll have to do the actual work! Aunkai Founder Akuzawa Minoru

Day 1^ - Precursor to "Aiki"
1. Understanding how the body is structured, and how to recognize correct body alignment
a. Deconstructing the Horse Stance - in depth analysis and unlocking the hidden potential of standing properly to connect feet to hands.
b. The body lies! Understanding how to properly interpret your own body's feedback.
c. Gravity is our friend - understanding its role in forming natural posture.
d. Getting rid of those two pesky bottlenecks, a tight back and bypassing the shoulders.
e. Creating a "neutral" body - the clever ingredient to Aiki.
f. Taking a look at dynamic correct alignment within the body through Shiko (a traditional sumo exercise).
g. Stretching - It’s not just for limbering up.
2. Solo training - Understanding its purpose and how to achieve a consistent, effective routine.
Horse stance, Shiko & Tenchijin - Deconstructing the role each exercise plays in creating true-balance and precise alignment - which set the bed rock to allow for Aiki to occur.
a. Horse Stance - as a vehicle for connecting feet to hands, managing simple forces and static alignment from the ground.
b. Tenchijin - as a means to understand the relationship between the front and back musculature of the body (yin and yang sides of the body for CMAists) - and how forces are managed within, going down to come up, going up to come down.
c. Shiko - Manipulating the alignment within Horse Stance to understand how crossbody connections work.
Day 2^ - We have the bedrock now let's put it together!
3. Martial training (conditioning exercises – Solo & Partnered).
a. Adding breath and understanding its role to Horse stance, Tenchijjn and Shiko.
b. Studying movement and intent through partnered horse stance walking and other exercises.
(Or in other words how to not screw up all the fancy alignment you learned in the previous exercises when confronted with an incoming force or obstacle).
c. Taking a deeper look at connecting the body into one unit.
- How to access the dantien
- moving from the core and legs
- moving from the furthest point to create the greatest effect
- creating a stable yet relaxed and powerful pelvic platform
- spiraling/winding/torque and how it plays into each exercise
4. Aiki (Saibunka) - to understand the great enchilada first you need to understand how a taco is made (simple management of forces within the body)
5. Using the body (Applications - Tying everything together using a host of well known applications.
a. Ikkyo, Nikkyo, Sankkyo, Kotegaesgi, Shihonage and Irimi will be looked at as well as some familiar applications from Taiji, Hsing-I, Bagua and other arts. Applications and demos will be tailored to allow people from different backgrounds to understand the concepts being presented.

Friday Night Location is set. Please email arkinsocal@gmail.com for details!

Did an Aunkai seminar a few years ago here in the ATL. Great instruction.

Have attended many seminars at OC Aikikai, Great people.

Don't miss this opportunity.

Hi All... Last week or so to sign up at discounted pricing. You are welcome to join for a single day or at the door. Please contact us at Arkingsocal@gmail.com if you need any more information!

Great Time had by ALL at Thursday evening pre-seminar event. There is still a chance to met Ark and experience his method. Please visit our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/events/419384894835056/ (Aunkai Seminar) for more information or send an email to arkinsocal@gmail.com. Friday night is at Ikazuchi Dojo (Irvine) and All Day Saturday and Sunday at Orange County Aikikai. Come join the fun or just stop by to say hello to Ark!

If you're on the fence, just get there. You will have absolutely no regrets. Great instruction. Great corrections.

So how was it? Anyone writing up a seminar report? Compare and contrast with other seminars? Anything you found that distinguishes this method over others?

The seminar seemed to follow a highly organized rhythm of concept, exercise and application. In other words, everything was connected to something else. The idea or concept was brought into physical awareness by the exercise and then the application (no techniques, just application of principle) would show how that newly discovered awareness or method of movement could be used to accomplish the desired result.

I found this to be infinitely more helpful than a large number of techniques or a collection of abstract principles.

What Ark seemed to present was an extremely well-defined roadmap of how to get to a more "internal" approach to whatever art you might be practicing.

Add to this almost constant hands-on corrections and illustrations from both Ark and Rob John and you have a weekend where pretty much everyone in the room was moving differently by the time they left.

There was a lot of emphasis on structure and alignment, natural rhythms of the body and getting the "most" from the least amount of effort. I have almost a dozen pages of notes to sift through; I should have a little more detail in a few days if anybody's interested.

One more comment - what distinguishes his method from others?

Quite a bit actually, but the short answer might be a sort of "elegant simplicity." Not a lot of overly complicated patterns and principles to ingrain into your body before you can do anything, but a structure that you could probably overlay anything you wanted to on top of..

Tom Buchanan wrote: There was a lot of emphasis on structure and alignment, natural rhythms of the body and getting the "most" from the least amount of effort. I have almost a dozen pages of notes to sift through; I should have a little more detail in a few days if anybody's interested.

I'd be interested in more details when you're ready. I did a seminar some years ago but am always interested to hear more since the teaching methodology and structure has probably changed a lot since then.