Aikido Bridge Friendship Seminar Day One

Last night was the first class of the 2012 San Diego Aikido Bride Seminar with Ikeda Sensei, Tissier Sensei, and Doran Sensei.

Ikeda Sensei started off the night with katatetori tenkan and katetori irimi exercise. He then had us work on variations of these techniques with the emphasis on irimi with irimi being understood as nage's center connecting through a line through uke's center and then achieving unity and moving uke. I worked with a number of different ukes, some I recognized from years past, and it helped that I have been attending Ikeda Sensei's classes over the past few years and I am start to understand some of what he is explaining in his classes.

Doran Sensei taught the second class and his main point of focus for the class was finishing the conflict with the first point of contact between uke and nage. We worked on a couple of different techniques that were similar to the ones he demonstrated at summer camp where nage switches feet position and brings the hand in front of the center prevent uke from a follow-up strike or kick. He then showed us and a couple of more irimi variations I haven't seen before that the first involved nage getting underneath uke are for the irimi. I always like how Doran Sensei always brings out the relationship between the sword and our open-hand techniques and he ended class with the point from a 16th century Japanesse samuri sword master, that there are two ways to master the sword; study through technique and study through principles, and Doran Sensei wants us to think about both during this seminar.

Tissier Sensei taught the final class for the evening and although we only worked on a few techniques (katatetori kokyunage tenkan, katatetori shihonage, katatetori kotegashi) his main point was that as we advanced uke learns to anticipate where the attack is coming and can prevent nage but nage needs to move not just faster but be able to adjust the position in a slightly different manner that prevents that anticipation, in doing so also prevents this stoppage by uke.