Dan Harden workshop in Hawaii November 20-21

from Dan Harden:

" Internal training, Aiki, and empowering the Martial Arts"
Date: November 20th & 21st
Location: Honolulu, Hawaii

This work shop is a continuation of the workshops already taking place at Dan's Dojo with advance level aikido students and teachers from all over the United States. Dan is making his research into the Japanese arts and the resultant training practices of his private dojo available on a national level. The goal is to offer a workshop in a neutral environment, with an emphasis on learning and understanding internal power and aiki as a basis for martial movement in a global sense, while undertaking the difficult task of taking that first step into personal training and integration of the concepts into your own art.

The work shop will cover introductory basics of the system Dan has developed and taught successfully to hundreds of students and teachers from a wide range of martial arts. Dan will outline Internal training in such a way as to make the relevancy to martial movement immediate, clear and accessible. Included will be:

• A presentation of how the martial arts take advantage of natural and common postural failures and methods for building a martial body that moves antithetical to the principles most martial arts use as their foundation for defeating the common body frame.

• How the trained body can begin to take care of itself automatically in a live environment.

• An emphasis on specific training tools (solo and paired) to develop internal power, and specifically how it relates to aiki connections in a martial context.

• Creating and maintaining a structure supported on all sides and how to strengthen it with breath training exercises.

The material covered; while benefiting aikido greatly will not be "specific" to just the aiki arts like Aikido and Daito ryu, but any grappling or striking art, so teachers from other disciplines are welcome.

Dress will be sweats or shorts and T-shirts. No Gis, No budo affiliated T-shirts please. This will be very informal, and casual, but I strongly urge you to bring a notebook.

This will be a closed workshop with no pictures, video, or visitors allowed. Participants are required to fill out an application (available by e-mailing Dan @ homeoffice@charter.net ) for further details and to be considered for a spot. People may or may not be accepted by Dan's sole discretion.

Workshop fees are $175.00 for both days, $100.00 for one day on Saturday with no Sunday only training. Fees must be paid in full with your registration.

The schedule:
Saturday 9 AM to 6 PM with a 2 hour break for lunch
Sunday 9 AM, Lunch, until 6PM.....with consideration for flights, travel, and condition of the participants.

Thanks..see you there.

The above post was actually copied from another site, I've attached the "official" announcement below. You can contact Dan directly for an application, but you are also welcome to contact me for further information. Hope to see everyone there!

Best,

Chris

-------------------------------------

"Internal training, Aiki, and empowering Aikido"
Date: Saturday and Sunday, November 20th and 21st
Location: Shobukan Judo Dojo at 525E Kunawai Lane, Honolulu HI

This work shop is a continuation of the workshops already taking place at Dan's Dojo with advanced level aikido students and teachers from all over the United States. Dan is making his research into the Japanese arts and the resultant training practices of his private dojo available on a national level. The goal is to offer a workshop in a neutral environment, with an emphasis on learning and understanding internal power and aiki as a basis for martial movement in a global sense, while undertaking the difficult task of taking that first step into personal training and integration of the concepts into your own art.

The work shop will cover introductory basics of the system Dan has developed and taught successfully to hundreds of students and teachers from a wide range of martial arts. Dan will outline the training in such a way as to make the relevancy to martial movement immediate, clear and accessible. Included will be:

-> A presentation of how the martial arts take advantage of natural and common postural failures and methods for building a martial body that moves antithetical to the principles most martial arts use as their foundation for defeating the common body frame.

-> How the trained body can begin to take care of itself automatically in a live environment.

-> An emphasis on specific training tools (solo and paired) to develop internal power, and specifically how it relates to aiki connections in a martial context.

-> Creating and maintaining a structure supported on all sides and how to strengthen it with breath training exercises.

The material covered; while benefiting aikido greatly will not be "specific" to just the aiki arts like Aikido and Daito ryu, but any grappling or striking art, so teachers from other disciplines are welcome.

Dress will be sweats or shorts and T-shirts. No Gis, No budo affiliated T-shirts please. This will be very informal, and casual, but I strongly urge you to bring a notebook.

This will be a closed workshop with no pictures, video, or visitors allowed. Participants are required to fill out an application (available by e-mailing Dan at homeoffice@charter.net ) for further details and to be considered for a spot. People may or may not be accepted by Dan's sole discretion. You may also contact Chris Li at chrisli@aikidohawaii.org for further information.

Workshop fees are $175.00 for both days, $100.00 for one day on Saturday with no Sunday only training. Fees must be paid in full with your registration.

The schedule:

Saturday 9 AM to 6 PM with a 2 hour break for lunch
Sunday 9 AM, Lunch, until 6PM.....with consideration for flights, travel, and condition of the participants.

Thanks..see you there.

Correction:

Seminar fee is $175.00 for both days (no partial attendance or single days) and will include fresh fruit and beverages during training.

Payment in full is required and due on or before Nov. 1st to register and reserve a place for the event. There is no registration at the door.

Best,

Chris

Good luck with the seminar, Chris. I hope it's well-attended. Dan really lays his training ideas and exercises clearly, and everyone gets a lot of hands-on attention.

Thomas Campbell wrote: Good luck with the seminar, Chris. I hope it's well-attended. Dan really lays his training ideas and exercises clearly, and everyone gets a lot of hands-on attention.

I've been hearing interest from a good group of folks, I'm looking forward to it!

Best,

Chris

Just a quick reminder - the registration deadline for the Hawaii workshop with Dan Harden is November 1st.

Space is limited, so I recommend that you get your registration in as soon as possible if you want to take advantage of this opportunity.

Best,

Chris

Here are some of my after-workshop thoughts and impressions.

Dan and I have spoken back and forth over the internet for some 15 years, when he first started ruffling feathers with his appearance on the old Aikido-L mailing list, but this is the first time that we've actually met in person, so he's sort of an old friend who has become (I hope) a new friend.

Hawaii is the furthest he's ever gone to teach one of these workshops, and this was actually the smallest group he's ever done a workshop with. What I'm getting at is that, between air, hotel, food and miscellaneous expenses he had to go out of his own pocket in order to come here and get put to work. I'd like to thank him publicly for his time and efforts to come out here and share his training with us.

In the internet or in person, he's a plain-spoken meat and potatoes type, and that directness has made him a controversial figure over the years. In person, however, his passion and sincerity come through clearly - so much so that nobody seems to mind being told (justifiably so) that they "suck".

Dan is very much a "show me" kind of guy, without much patience for claims that aren't backed up with actual performance. On the other hand, he is willing and able to demonstrate, clearly and compellingly, the strength and effectiveness of his theories and approach at all times. Throughout the weekend he showed his stuff on small guys, big guys, even on random guys that he struck up conversations with on the street. Believe me when I say that the demonstrations leave little room for doubt or confusion - once hands touch all arguments become moot.

The next step is explaining what has been shown. The Founder never gave technical instruction in a systematic and detailed fashion. He would demonstrate and his students were left to "steal" the techniques if they could, and to develop systems of instruction on their own. When he did speak, his language was filled with such obscure religious terminology that his students (by their own admission) could barely understand what he was talking about. This, combined with the "rinse and repeat" method of traditional Japanese kata training, led to students who either could not replicate what their teacher had done, or could replicate parts of it without a clear understanding of how they were doing it and where therefore unable to pass along those skills to the next generations.

Dan presented a consistent core theory that expanded rationally from standing and walking to martial applications and weapons. Perhaps the most surprising thing, to some people, might be the fact that it was all (from my viewpoint) pure Aikido. Rather than contradicting anything done by the Founder, Dan's theories explicate in a refreshingly clean and coherent manner.

None of Dan's students were able to accompany him this time, so we had no way of seeing how his teaching plays out over the long term, but I think that everyone there was able a replicate, in some small way, the theories presented. Compare that to most standard seminars, where people may leave with some new technical tricks, but are rarely able to duplicate the core functionality demonstrated by the instructing shihan. Clear hands-on demonstrations and understandable logical explanations make the difference.

He left us with a large repertoire of solo exercises and the hope that he'll be coming back soon - we're already working on planning the next workshop!

Best,

Chris

Chris:

Great review. Better than anything I could have written about his seminar here in So Cal just recently. Nail on the head as they say.

Very impressive.

It was a pleasure meeting Chris, other members of Hawaii's aikido community, and Dan for the first time this past weekend.

Here are a couple things, expounding on the fine recap Chris provided above, that stuck out for me regarding the workshop:

Dan characterized himself as a coach, vs.a budo sensei, and the contrast in teaching methodologies described above underscores just how apropos this is.

• As Chris pointed out, Dan rationally expanded from the core theory as the workshop progressed. Yet as Dan introduced each new lesson and exercise, regardless of the degree of complexity, he repeatedly highlighted the presence and applications of the core theory. By Dan teaching in this manner, not only did we come away with a set of profound physical tools with which to train our bodies and transform our martial abilities, but we'd also spent two days inherently learning and honing the mental approach needed to fully realize the benefits of these tools -- as individuals.
  
• Also, despite the relatively small number of participants, the lack of experienced assistants meant that Dan had to coach each of us one on one throughout the workshop, which he enthusiastically set out to do. Furthermore, he was adept at leveraging observations made while working with one of us into teaching points for the benefit of the entire group. By doing so, we learned how to distribute feedback to improve understanding of a given exercise as well as general applications of the core theory and its related principles -- as a team.

Yes, the man sure can coach. Mahalo Dan!

Dan Harden has tentatively agreed to schedule a second workshop in Hawaii from Friday March 4th through Sunday March 6th 2011. If you missed him the first time I strongly recommend you that you take this chance to grab him while he's here.

Those who were at the first workshop will have a chance to explore Dan's training methods in greater depth.

I'll be sending out more details in the near future, see the Aikido Hawaii website for news and updates:

http://aikidohawaii.org/whats_new.html

Best,

Chris