Aikido Summer Camp 2011 Day 2

This morning I dragged myself out of bed to make Laurie Nusbaum Sensei's 6:30am class. She started off by talking about self-relience and how practicing with others we can get distracted, so she said we were going to have a silence class. We worked on a varied of techniques, mostly kokyunage and hijinages. We ended class with a nice 5 minute sit.

The second class of the day was taught by Saotome Sensei. He had us get a bokken and between techniques, he lectured about why we don't have competition in Aikido is because of the different mindset between a competitive atmosphere vs. the Budo awareness of protecting oneself and destroying the enemy. He referenced a concept "bujho" (between my extremely poor Japanese and hearing, this is as close as I remember)

In Doran Sensei class we worked on katatetori tenkan, with Doran Sensei emphasizing that we shouldn't let our arms kosadori ikkyo, kosadori kokyunages, ryo-katatetori reverse kotegashi...During one of the practice sessions, I was working with a taller older women, and she started lecturing me and giving a too much resistance for the technique we practicing (katetori kokyu-ho) and some other crap so during my turn, I threw her with the force she was giving me and she flew to the ground. I could tell she was angry and she even tried to kick me in the face and the same time lecturing me that wasn't Aiki! Whatever, but I was upset with myself for letting my own frustration come through my technique.

For Tres Hofmeister Sensei class, we spent the first half of class on just tenkan with Hofmeister Sensei having us work on both uke and tori (nage) reactions and movement. I enjoyed the blending and working with a lot of other students. The second half of class was a continuation of movement, balance, and approach as our work with the tenkan but we added a number of kokyunages to the movement with a chance for randori practice near the end.

The final class of the night was taught by Kevin Choate Sensei. He spent the entire class having us work on reducing the tension and some of our natural instincts when being grabbed. He had uke start about six feet away, and a key part of the practice (at least for me, as Choate Sensei said a couple of times, what we relate second hand is just our perspective, not necessarily what the original person meant, probable a good description of my blog in general) was recognizing the small changes that occur before physical contact and after. When being touched, we tense, and learning to relax and not respond in some of these instinctive mannerisms prevents us from being truely present and not negatively responsive in our own movements.

Tonight is the Glenwood Springs Hot Tub night and I still debating if I'll go to the pool or not.