any suggestions?

Hi all,

I am planning a first year celebration with my aikido group. (12 people)
I want to give a sort of small seminar including the familymembers.
Every age can attent so there will be kids too.

Any suggestions for the contents? Games?
I allready have my ideas on paper but I wanted to ask you people for your ideas.

Thanks,

Arjan

There is a book published in 1994: "Ah, to be a Kid: 3 Dozen Aikido Games for Children" by Michael Friedl. The ISBN is 0963853015. If you can get hold of a copy, there are many aiki-relevant games/exercises for kids.

I'm a fan of Shikko Tag. It's like tag, but with shikko, as well as front and back rolls. You can't stand up, and you have to have a knee on the ground at all times, except when rolling.

Peace,
Tom Newhall

Tom Newhall wrote: I'm a fan of Shikko Tag. It's like tag, but with shikko, as well as front and back rolls. You can't stand up, and you have to have a knee on the ground at all times, except when rolling. Peace, Tom Newhall

Now that is cool. I imagine that you could even get grownups involved.

Congratulations for this first year Arjan.
Enjoy your Seminar.

Our Kids' class sometimes plays a variation of sumo. We set up a "ring" on the mat and the pairs enter the ring and then use aikido movement to move thier partner out of the ring or to the mat. The youngsters seem to love it. We do shikko tag and another game called "Bulldog", also based on shikko. In Bulldog one player is the bulldog and lines up on one end of the mat while all others line up at the other end. When the game is started, all try to shikko past the bulldog to the far end. If the bulldog stops a player and holds him to the mat, then he becomes a co-bulldog until all but one player is converted to being a bulldog. You see a lot of ikkyo and kokyunage in bulldog. Hope these might be of use for you. Congratulations on the anniversary.

Relay races are always fun, using shikko or not, e.g. running/knee walking to the other side, performing any technique on a nearby sensei , and running/knee walking back halfway then breakfall the rest.
Any variation on the above is what we sometimes do in the juniors at my dojo.

Thanks for all the replies so far.
Let me explain a bit more:

This is a small seminar for the family. I only have an adult class.
The kids don't do aikido and are the minority that day.
I think I will choose only things like ikkyo and tenchinage and so on because they are not really throws and pinning on joints.

Any further suggestions?

You should be on a good track without games. Tenkan ho and Irimi ho are excellent practices, using a visual imagery of water and rock. In one sense the rock stays where it is and the water turns around it. In another sense, the rock also stays where it is, and pulls the water around it. Either way you do it, there is no difference between the water and the rock. Tenchi nage and sumi otoshi are also easy and excellent techniques to play with. In gassho

Hi all,

The seminar was a great succes! I used balloons and that was the key!
Kids were having a great time and so was anyone else.


Greetings,

Arjan (the boldy one left of the pic of O Sensei)

Looks like a fun time... Glad it worked out well for you, Arjan.