This morning I made sure to leave in plenty of time so I wouldn't be late to class. When I arrived, I saw everyone with their bokken, so I was glad I brought my weapons to class. After warm-ups by Tres Hofiemester Sensei, Saotome Sensei started with a question holding up his bokken; what do we imagine this to be in our practice? A sword, and what is a sword? A simple tool. He then talked about in our modern society we have lost the connection between our daily activities (eating, sewing, hand-writing notes, etc.), supplemented by our technology of convenience. In warfare, the same trends continue, the complexity of the many, many, ways we can kill each other is contrasted with the simplicity of the sword.
Why aren't there contests or competition in budo? Because, as Saotome Sensei said, bad swordsman only last the first encounter. The trophy in budo is your opponents head! Practicing Aiki-kendo improves our open-handed techniques. Beside working on paired bokken techniques, we practiced a number of techniques with two uke attacking nage in the center. Weapon training improves the open-hand technique.
After the break, Saotome Sensei continued with the previous night kokyunages with the more direct irimi movement to disrupt and throw uke from tsuki attack. Saotome Sensei for a few different techniques, had us move multiple ukes, much like many of the techniques we practiced at summer camp this year.
Normally, I go out to lunch with fellow Aikidora, but today because of Casie, I drove back to Broomfield for lunch with my sister and my nieces. Coming back to class, we brought our jo. I was thinking we would repeat the morning's focus on paired weapon practice, but instead we focused on jo-tori techniques. Saotome Sensei demonstrated how by twisting either in or out, nage moves uke with a spiral movement. After we practiced a number of different jo-tori.
The final class of the day, Saotome Sensei continued with direct kokyunages from tsuki. A very good and full day of Aikido training.
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