Aikido Fall Bridge Seminar - Day 3

The day started off with the 7am Chi Gong class taught by Sharon from Prescott Aikido.

The first morning class was Chen style Tai Chi chuan taught by guest instructor Sifu Fennemen. Master Fennemen didn't really have us work on the form but more of the internal stances and balance points in Tai Chi. The box stance was very interesting because you had to keep the feet parallel to each other and about a shoulder-width apart. His focus on the stances and how they relate in very similar ways to Aikido in keeping posture. Some differences from Aikido became more apparent when we started practicing the Wang-style push-hands exercises. Letting your partner push into required moving the hips and shoulders to keep the focus on your partner's center so that it would be easier to then respond and push into the partner in response.

Heiny Sensei taught the second class and talked again about her reading of a O'Sensei's book, her time seeing O'Sensei when she was in Japan, and the philosophy and purposes behind Aikido. Her first great point was that he should have benevolent intentions when we throw and engage our partners in Aikido class. If we focus on dominating or over-powering our partner, even if the actual practice is the same, the outcome of uke outlook and presence will respond to the negative intention on our parts. Our goal should be to neutralize violence in both us and our ukes, we should do a technique that creates a violent response from uke, but the technique should shift uke's perspective to a less-violent one. The techniques we practiced included yokomenuchi shihonage where nage steps back and just does a shomen cut to bring uke's hand to nage's center for the shihonage. In the second variation, nage steps around and cuts up uke's center-line in a reverse shomen cut.

Ikeda Sensei taught the first afternoon class. He continued with the internal Aikido of his other classes. he emphaised that we needed to achive unity between nage's and uke's centers before nage can enter uke to disrupt uke's balance. We worked on these variations and I was helped by George Ledyard Sensei in the irimi aspect of entering and disrupting uke's balance by disrupting uke's center-line.

Suzuki Sensei finished the day with the final class. We started off with a sacarice kokyunage where uke grabs with ryokatatori grab and then nage shifts left or right, grabs the outside wrist and drops flat one's back throwing uke over one's body. This was the first time I have practiced this type of kokyunage and it then lead to an entire series of kokyunages Suzuki Sensei had us practice by nage lying flat on his or her back, uke bends down to grab uke, and nage shifts to either side for a kokyunage throw. A different variation involves nage extending into uke, extending into uke by forcing uke's arm to lock up at the elbows.

The evening finished with a a nice dinner and a cash bar at St. Michael's Hotel in Prescott. I had a good time with a great meal. I talked to Ikeda Sensei and he is sponsoring an Aikido Bridge Seminar in Southern Japan a year from October. I expressed interested so I am starting to plan for my first Japan trip. Good stuff.