The early morning class was taught by Marc Reeder Sensei. In his class, he had us practice some basic katatetori kokyunages first with a hand and then we tried with just a finger connection to uke. Reeder Sensei spoke about three principles he has been training on: 1. Compression -- like Choate Sensei's instruction of collapsing the internal structure of nage that helps ground nage and if uke is connected, breaking uke's balance. 2. Ground path -- after contact with uke, nage grounds the energy connection with uke and transferring energy to the nages feet and unbalancing uke. 3. Connection to uke -- after compression and ground path, nage needs to keep that connection in order not to lose the ground path for the technique.
The second class of the day was taught by Doran Sensei. Continuing from his previous classes at camp, Doran Sensei had us start with nage footwork being a step with back foot that meets the forward and then stepping back at an angle and extending into uke. Following that opening, nage steps around and thrusts the grabbed hand palm up towards uke's face that then raises uke's elbow. From that same opening we practiced ikkyo, nikkyo, and sankyo. Then with the just first part of opening, we did an a couple of kokyunages and an iriminage.
For Saotome Sensei's class, he had everyone bring bokkens. He then explained that he was going through a number of katas for "sendo-tachi" or battlefield techniques. Nage is the middle with an uke in the front and an uke in the back. For the first kata, the first uke strikes shomen, nage -- starting in gaidan--, brings the sword up and in the same movement cuts down over the top of uke's bokken for a throat to groin straight cut. Nage then turns tenkan and performs the same technique to the attacking second uke's shomen cut. We through a number of variations including nage doing a belly cut initially and then coming over the top for a shomen cut on the second uke. A couple of the katas involved nage turning tenkan and attacking the uke that is behind first and then doing another cut on the first uke.
The forth class of the day was taught by Hofmeister Sensei. We started off from where we left off yesterday with surawaza shomenuchi ikkyo with active engagement by uke who follows nage's lead but nage doesn't force uke into any position but lets the technique flow from uke's force and energy. We worked on this technique for a while with different points of emphasis until we switched to standing technique. The type of exercises we were doing was not application (meaning it is not intended to be used in violent situation) but more for developing the sensitivity of nage towards uke. Again, Hofmeister Sensei said that uke is not a sack of meat, but a real human and our practice should reflect that human connection. At the the end of class, Hofmeister Sensei reiterated the two statements he made earlier in the week: 1. You don't do Aikido to someone. 2. Aikido is not done to you.
The last class of the day was taught by Saotome Sensei and was all jo katas and techniques. As he joked at the start of class this was "old-man" Aikido. Interesting, Saotome Sensei did not use a regular jo but his own walking stick in demonstrating the techniques. Most of what we did today was various paired jo katas with nage performing a number of different chokes or throws after nage's atemi to midsection, knee, or groin or alternatively, blocking uke's jo and then doing the technique. He had us also practice some jo exercises with swinging the jo around, alternating between hands -- it was a little bit nerve wracking being in the middle of the mat with people practicing with their jo all around. A good class and the a fitting end to a great week of training. Tomorrow is just the morning two classes by Doran and Saotome Sensei.
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