Aikido for 09/05/2009

Saturday morning started great, my niece Alexis made sure I had a bowl of cereal and I went out and got coffee for Jill and I.

The first beginner/basic beginner's started at 10:30 and was taught by Edgar Johansson Sensei of Denver Aikikai. Denver Aikikai is rank testing at the end of the month. After warming-up, ukemi practice, we practiced the following exercises and techniques from the 6th and 5th kyu tests:

tenkan exercise

shomenuchi ikkyo omote and ura

shomenuchi iriminage

yokomenuchi kotegaeshi omote and ura

katate dori shihonage. My partner was a taller, stronger, and older male beginner and the style of shihonage opening Edger demonstrated, nage slides the front foot forward, turn in nage's hip and then slide in front for omote and ura. My uke was providing a lot of resistance and throwing strong atemi especially with the ura variation. (For my 5th kyu test, Akira Tohei Sensei had nage step back to a safe position, decreasing the chance for uke to connect with any atemi counter-attacks) I was more aggressive than I needed in my response as nage, letting my ego increase my power to the point that Edger had to remind me to that I was working with a beginner. I felt suitably chastised and told my uki that when practicing, nage's response naturally increases with the uke's power of attack, just continuing the old violence escalation cycle.

yokomenuchi shihonage omote and ura, for this technique I worked with a real beginner and I had Edger show her the yokemnuchi strike. He said that uke should attack the neck with the blade of hand like there is a bug on nage neck. I really worked on having a soft but complete and connected movement through-out the yokemnuchi oval movement and the shihonage throw.

The final exercise was kokyu tanden ho. Edger clearly demostrated a different style of kokyu ho where nage visualizes an orange between his/her shoulder blades and sweezes the orange while bring the hands up with uke. I have never done kokyu ho this way and I didn't quite do it correctly.

Just learning the new style of kokyu ho made Edger's first beginner class memorable for me. This is one reason to seek out good Aikido instruction and practice because you increase your exposure to new ideas and concepts and grow as a martial artist.

Edger taught the second weapons class. We started off using the bokken. Edger went through the basic attacks with the bokken including many exercises that I was unfamilar with. The exercise I was most familiar and enjoyed were the happo undo (8-way) exercises with shomen and tsuki attacks. We then did an exercise where nage exaggerates drawing the sword to protect the head and upper body with the side of the bokken blade. Uke then did a full-strength shomen cut, glancing off the blade and off the body. The senior student I was working with really helped me and other beginner get the angle right although I wavered at one strike and got a glancing shomen strike on my cheek. The full attack requires calm in the face of damanging blow from the bokken. Good training. We then worked on #3 Kumitachi to finish with the bokken exercises.

Edger then moved on to the jo. We went through 20 of the Iwama-style Jo Suburi. Many of these I just had to watch and try mimic Edger as he explained them. This was my first remembered exposure to Iwama-style weapons work and there is a lot to learn. We then worked onKumijo number 5 where nage swings the end of jo around in sweeping arc towards uke's temple. Edger kept emphasizing that the you need to focus on the target of the strike, in the case of these exercises, that was usually the forehead or temple of uke.

Afterwards, I went with my friend Steve to a Japanese Ramen restaurant called Oshima Ramen in Denver. The noodle soup was delicious and the beer helped after getting lost on the way to the restaurant. Steve's iPhone saved the day although the mapping algorithm used had us on a clear detour that we ignored to get the restaurant.