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Spring 2008 Henry Seminar 2008-04-20 14:43:36 I'm back from the Spring
2008 Henry
seminar. It was a blast as usual. Well attended - I got to see some of the Tennessee aikidoka that I don't get to see much. Everyone learned a lot. Here are some short highlight clips from the weekend.
Read more:Seminar
A lecture by Henry Kono Sensei 2008-04-22 23:17:45 I just got back from seeing our great friend and teacher, Henry
Copeland. I posted a video of Henry a few days back and a couple of the videos that YouTube suggested as similar was a pair of videos by Henry Kono. The first one is a very fine lesson and the second is a very lovely aiki demonstration. Much the sort of aiki I'm talking about in much of my blog. Enjoy...I enjoyed his discussion of the eidetic teaching style of OSensei. I've talked about that elsewhere. I think (I'm guessing) that what Ueshiba and Kono were calling the "Yin and Yang" solution to the aiki problem is the same thing that we're talking about when we refer to the Kito principle - the idea that energy waxes and wanes. You can read more of my ideas on the Kito principle here and here. I also find it interesting that Read more:lecture
What you put out comes back to you thrice 2008-04-22 20:27:27 Aiki with KelTegatana playing with the idea of grouping 2-3 movements as one thing in your mind. The kata changes in meaningful ways when you change the groupings. We also played with the idea of otoshi-guruma and back hand as the do-er instead of the front hand.Hanasu #1-8Aiki evasion and brushoff working into release-synch-ping-brushoff and release-synch-ping-tenkan The tenkan was remarkable. We were getting some of that feel of the wind of uke's passing blowing tori out of the way. That real kokyu feeling.The first two standing techniques of Ichikata as the cool ninja techniques of the night. release #1 to oshitaoshi and release #1 to tenkai oshitaoshi.All of this stuff tonight provided good practice in the idea that if tori puts out energy and uke doesn't eat it then tori has to Read more:comes
, comes back
Persistence 2008-04-22 16:26:54 "This is the lesson: never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy." -- Winston Churchill
Read more:Persistence
Kote hineri practice tonight 2008-04-24 22:08:09 Aiki with Patrick M. and RickROM & ukemiTegatana emphasizing synching arms with rise-fall of body and movig the center and building a stance underneath it.hanasu #1-4 with emphasis on releasing as brush-off. The idea was to make #1 feel like #3 and the strong side to feel like the weak side.Nijusan kote hineriIchikata tachiwaza #3-4 (Release 5 into tenkai kote hineri and release 3 into mawashi oshitaoshi)
Pick your nose 2008-04-24 05:44:20 Straighten your shirtWipe your handsScratch your buttSlap a mosquitoShuffle your feetHow many of us have noticed that we have some unconscious or barely-conscious habits that occasionally take over during a practice. Do you find yourself starting to take a step during a kata and suddenly your nose itches maddeningly. How easy is it in solo practice to give in to the itch and call a do-over for that particular move? This happened to me this morning during the beginning of a jo kata. I'm sure it happens all the time but this morning at least I noticed it..I know my instructor in college was always complaining that I wiped my face with my sleeve or wiped my hands on my thighs during kata. not only does this spoil the kata aesthetically but it changes the place where your mind resides. You hav
You get just as wet no matter where you jump in 2008-04-27 21:12:06 One of the cool things about aikido is that there are no prerequisites. There is no ‘most advanced skill.’ You can work the skills in any order and call that a ‘system’. A beginner may jump in with the whole class profitably practicing whatever happens to be on the lesson plan for that day. Sure there are safety considerations - you don't make newbies take big falls - but they can still practice the same techniques and principles as everyone else. I've heard it said that there are no advanced techniques or concepts in aikido - just skilled students practicing the fundamentals in a very advanced way..Many Aikikai schools (if I understand rightly) start with ikkyo (oshitaoshi) as the first teaching, while most Tomiki schools start with shomenate as the first teaching and only get to Read more:matter
How to tie your martial arts belt 2008-04-26 21:39:00 Alright, some of my Kids' Judo parents have asked me how they can help their kids learn to tie their own belts. Here is a very good video demonstration of the simplest method for learning to tie your belt. Some judo instructors make this a pre-requisite to starting judo - you have to be old enough to tie your own belt. I'm not a stickler for this, but I would really like the yellow belts to all be able to tie their own belts by the beginning of next judo season (this coming September).
Martial arts – They’re not just for kids anymore 2008-04-26 19:02:22 Demographers have been telling us for years about the baby boom generation. This is the group of people born between about 1946 and 1964. This is a worldwide phenomenon, but in the U.S. it represents a group of about 80 million people beginning to move into retirement age..Three trends that concern many older adults are health care (in 2004, boomers averaged $2700 per year in healthcare spending), finances (fixed incomes and rising cost of living), and personal safety (Things seem to move faster and violence seems harder to deal with). The perfect solution for these problems is my aikido class..If you are an older adult living in Southwest Mississippi and want an affordable way to get a little reasonable, moderate exercise and learn to protect yourself in an increasingly chaotic and violen Read more:Martial
More clinic clips 2008-04-28 21:19:16 Here are some more short clips of some of the participants at the latest Henry clinic.
A helpful handful – shihonage 2008-04-30 01:00:01 Shihonage (lit. ‘four-directions throw’ or more loosely, ‘all-directions throw’) is the first of the ‘Six Pillars of Aikido' (shihonage, iriminage, kaitennage, kokyunage, osaekomi, ushirowaza). This technique is very common across most martial arts. Here are a handful of hints I’ve found helpful
in working on shihonage.Work your way through the name of the thing. Work on finding ways you can throw this thing in every direction.Do it part of the time with only one hand and part of the time with only the other hand – like #6 and #8 in Hanasu no Kata. Practicing this with only one hand makes you move your body thru the right arc or you lose it. Don’t cheat by learning shihonage with the illusion of control afforded by using both hands.If it goes bad toward the beginning, try
Koryu Dai Ichi 2008-04-29 21:09:42 Aiki with Patrick M. and KelROM and ukemi (including reps of 2 buddy falls)Hanasu with emphasis on moving forward on #3Chain #2 including R2→R1→oshitaoshi 2 variations of Ichikata ushirowaza kotegaeshi (ducking under the arm) and R1→R2→kotegaeshi.Nijusan kotegaeshi and oshitaoshi (step aside at the end of the line)
Y'all will be proud of me! 2008-04-29 20:37:38 I've finally mastered the secret to a beautiful, effortless deashibarai! All you have to do is find an uke that is 1/8 your size and all of a sudden you are a shoe-in for perfect form!
AM training 2008-05-01 20:53:36 AM aiki with RobKoryu Dai Ichi - Sections B (variations on release #1 and oshitaoshi) and C (variations on YK#1 and shihonage). We talked a little about the positive influence that jodo has had on my aikido - particularly in the last year or so.PM aiki with RickWe spent a lot of time working on ukemi paying attention to muscle coordination - relax/contact and the appropriate times for each.Same lesson plan as the AM session - Ichikata sections B&C - worked great. Wonderful flow.
No education for me, thank you. 2008-05-01 01:00:01 After writing the previous post on gun safety, I got to looking for vids on YouTube on the subject, and found this travesty. This is one of those rare instances where everyone involved would have probably been better off not being educated. This was one of the scariest things I've seen in a long, long time.And what's more, the agent had the balls to sue the DEA (his own agency) for releasing the video and thus tarnishing his reputation.
Teaching gun safety 2008-04-30 17:08:35 I have to admit, I have an aversion to handguns that borders on phobia. In college, my roommate, a black belt in multiple arts and a wartime veteran, made me handle an unloaded pistol to make a point in a discussion we were having. I couldn’t tell you what the point was because I was so freaked out at just having to touch the thing. So far as I know this attitude was not a taught thing – just an innate and extreme distaste for that particular weapon. .Lately I have been considering buying one of the realistic simulation air pistols that fires BBs – so that I can face that phobia to some degree. But then this happened…Walthall County sheriff’s deputies are investigating the reported shooting death of a 2-year-old girl in the Darbun community. The shooting occurred about 11:20 a.m.
How to learn jodo without an uke 2008-05-03 15:40:03 Jodo has grown on me like a fungus. When I first tried it out I found it quite esoteric and unpleasant and non-fun. In college I played with it off and on - more off than on. I think most of the folks that were in the college club with me were of the same opinion, so my instructor, Usher-san, wound up without a consistent, reliable set of training partners for jodo..Usher-san kept up his own solo kihon and kata practice though, and practiced with real live people when he could. Some years later I had the pleasure of watching Usher-san demonstrate in Houston for his Sandan and he wowed the examiners and the observers. I overheard one very highly-ranked examiner say that Usher was one of the few jodo or aikido folks he'd ever seen who actually looked comfortable and competent holding a swor Read more:learn
Ironman 2008-05-02 23:06:35 Dave at Formosa Neijia posted an Ironman
trailer that had some scenes I hadnt' seen. We're also super-excited about this movie. We're going to see it tomorrow afternoon. Can't wait. Here's a cool Ironman video to whet our collective appetites...
The meaning of your communication is the response you get 2008-05-04 10:16:36 It doesn’t do anyone any good for an instructor to assume that their students are knuckleheads who can’t follow instructions. A better way is to assume good faith on their part – that is, assume that the students are really trying to do what they think you are telling them. So, if you don’t get the response you want from your students, you can assume that you are not communicating what you think you are communicating. Change how you are saying it to them.Be careful how you say what you say because different people have different connotations for any given word. Colin Wee gave a good example in a comment a few days ago. If you tell the student, “step over here,” then they might understand step any old way. They might step as in normal walking (ayumiashi) when what you intended w Read more:communication
Great rolling exercise 2008-05-06 10:17:35 When we begin training beginners to roll, we put them kneeling and have them roll forward into a proper landing position. Then we reverse that and have them roll backward from either a landing position or a seated position into a kneeling position. It usually doesn’t take too long to get to feeling fairly proficient with these two exercises, and here’s why: momentum covers mistakes..Take a bicycle wheel as an example. Stand it up on its edge and it falls over. Stand it up and start it rolling and it takes much longer to fall over. Because of conservation of angular momentum, a rotating object resists a change in its axis. So the wheel does not fall over and it is fairly easy to roll forward and backward with momentum..But what if as you gain proficiency you begin to slow down your knee Read more:Great
Boxing and aikido 2008-05-05 21:48:10 Nathan at TDA Training has a lot of good info on boxing, including articles on boxing for self-defense, boxing combinations, and such… One of his more popular articles describes 3 C’s of boxing defense and 3 C’s of boxing offense – good rules of thumb that make things a lot better better during sparring. In this article, Nathan says that for defense, you should Circle, Cover, and Counter and that for offense, you should Close, Cover, and Clear. Read his article for details.I’d say this is all mighty good advice but just as a thought exercise what if we change a thing or two ….The line between offense and defense is blurry at best most times, so, what if we combined the two groups into one?Cover appears twice. Maybe it is twice as important, but what if we replaced one Cover wit
Nariyama embu 2008-05-05 12:09:39 Nice video of Nariyama Sensei demonstrating at a recent event.
Musashi and Canadian Brass on speed 2008-05-07 12:21:31 Last night, as we practiced aigamaeate, Kel and Rick commented on the difference between what I was doing and what they were doing. They were pulling uke around in a circle and it was making tori have to go faster to compensate for lack of offbalance and for the centrifugal effect. I was floating uke into offbalance, slipping aside at the proper time, doing less, moving slower, and getting greater effect.This brings me back to Musashi’s Wind book, which I was quoting the other day: Speed in Other SchoolsSpeed is not part of the true Way of strategy. Speed implies that things seem fast or slow, according to whether or not they are in rhythm. Whatever the Way, the master of strategy does not appear fast. Some people can walk as fast as a hundred or a hundred and twenty miles in a day, but Read more:Canadian
, Brass
L.O.C.K.U.P. police combatives method 2008-05-07 01:13:01 Here's a really interesting police combatives system that appears to have a lot in common with the aikido and judo that we do. Notice the things I found most ingteresting included:The adjectives and descriptors that Lt. Col. Grossman (the first guy on the film) used to describe the system: "more than just combatives, the spirit, the soul of the warrior. Teachable in a lecture framework to executives... powerful...funny...dynamic...style and substance..." How many instructors can claim that kind of teaching skill?Reality based training, or as they refer to it, environmental training. Recreating the physiological responses and environment that occur in combat. I would really like to implement this. Anyone out there in Southwest Mississippi want to practice aikido or judo at night under a spr Read more:method
We're famous! 2008-05-08 15:09:32 Our recent crop of yellow belts made the Enterprise Journal today, so I figure we might get some hits for folks interested in kids' judo, so here's the scoop: I teach kids' judo classes..Judo is a Japanese martial art that emphasizes throwing and grappling. Kids love judo because most all kids love to roll around on the ground and wrestle. Look here for some great video of some kids having a blast in our class. Judo is also a competitive sport and you will be seeing some great Olympic judo this summer. As both a traditional martial art and sport, judo offers a great opportunity for fun, fitness, discipline, and defense..At our training hall, we're running it as a seasonal sport in which we take the hottest months of the summer off, so the season lasts from September to April. We have clas
Working the envelope 2008-05-08 06:26:25 AM judo with Robwarmup with the ground mobility cyclekosotogari→(kesa↔mune)→(wakigatame↔udegarame)near leg (bent) armbar, far leg (straight) armbar, and elbow crank from kesagatametop shoulder choke and step-over choke from kesagatamestraitjacket holds from kamishiho, tateshiho, and munegatame
Ukemi is a kind of intelligent blending 2008-05-09 19:11:32 Cool aikido, iaido, and jodo demo, including the multiple opponents aikido randori that I was talking about with Rick last night. Notice in the randori that the tori does not engage in a fight with every single opponnent. In fact, he doesn't really engage any of them. He evades and brushes them off, moving on the the next attacker. Most of the attackers blend well with tori's redirection and brushoffs, ending up in simple forward rolls, but a time or two you can see an uke that hangs on an instant too long, applies force the wrong way at the wrong time, or is slightly out-of-synch with tori, and that uke eats a lot more energy in a bigger fall.In situations like this you can see that skillful blending is a part of uke's role too - and I don't mean jumping for tori. I mean really attac
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