Aikido for 04/03/2012

Ken taught class night and after warm-ups we worked on a couple of things from the Systema instructor at this past weekend's Aikido Summit.

Spring Seminar w/ Ikeda Sensei

Aikido Summit 2012

Cindy Hayashi Sensei from Aikido West started off with tenkan, moved to an ikkyo, nikyo, sankyo, yonkyo series, followed first with a jiwaza, moving to two person jiwaza, ending with a three perso jiwaza. Seiji Tanaka Sensei of Hyland Hill Tomiki Aikido, bokken variation of Tomiki Aikido started exercise, with a demo and explanation of their tanto-based competitive bouts Kei Izawa Sensei, Aikikai Tanshinjuku Kaizen Taki, Systema NW /I-90, started with different up-and-down movements varing each movement up, work up to three times while holding breath, relaxing muscles under threat, held down by two ukes, relax from the feet on up to get out of hold.. Toby Threadgill Sensei, Takamura ha Shindo Yoshin Ryu, Threadgill Sensei bokken takeaway, etc. Budo is about taking your opponents center without them find your own. Hiroshi Ikeda Sensei breaking balance, lines

Aikido for 03/29/2012

Tonight Tip taught and after warm-ups, we worked on yokomenuchi shihonage, yokomenuchi kotegashi, yokomenuchi iriminage, and then we did some tsuki jo-tori techniques to finish class. After class a group of us went over to OC for beer and food. A good Aikido practice.

Aikido for 03/22/2012

Tip emailed the dojo instructors late yesterday afternoon asking for someone to cover class, I volunteered and arrived a few minutes early to open the dojo. Five people eventually showed up for class, including Ken and Garry. Due to the last-minute nature of teaching this class, I didn't have an idea what I would be teaching but sometimes a lack of a plan enables a more spontaneous and free-flowing class. During warm-ups, instead of doing our usually slide and step tenkan exercises, I had us do a "Simon says" variation where I would call out either step or slide and everyone attempted to that tenkan variation. I liked this exercise when Knut first did many years ago in Illinois and it was fun do. When we got to the first technique in class, our katatetori tenkan kokyunage we usually do for every class, I decided the central focus of the night's class was thinking about the rotational nature of the hip joint. So, for the kokyunage I emphasized how the rotating the hip into uke as nage turn creates the movement instead of trying to muscle through the technique. We then worked on the following techniques:

• Yokomenuchi kotegashi omote
• Yokomenuchi shihonage omote
• Yokomenuchi

Aikido for 03/15/2012

Tip taught class last night and he decided to do an all weapons class. After warm-ups, we started off with basic jo tsuki strike, followed by an overhead block, and then moving towards the paired jo practice where uke and nage mirror each other with a combination of tsuki, overhead block, a yokomen strike to both sides, finish with a back tsuki strike. We then moved onto practicing jo katas one-five for the rest of the class.

Aikido for 03/03/2012

Nate taught the first class as Garry was out of town. I enjoyed the techniques we worked on including a variety of kokyunages, sankyo, and gokyu. Since Nate was covering for Gerry, I offered to teach the last Aikido class so Nate could go home. There was one new beginner, so we started off with an extended warm-up including an half-hour of ukemi introduction and practice before finishing off with a sumitoshi technique.