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AIKIDO-L 1999 KANSAI SEMINAR REPORT
SATURDAY FEB. 6TH
The 1999 Aikido-L Kansai Seminar was, I hope, considered a great success
by all who attended.
Mike Kimeda and Susan Amen arrived on Friday night, just as my last
class was getting over, so we were able to head out to a local
nightspot, "501" which has a menu that must be seen to be believed
(I'll send a copy to Jun to post with the seminar pictures). It was
great fun to sit around talking and drinking with them, especially since
I live in the middle of nowhere, and rarely get to talk budo in
English. We also had a mini-contest to see if anyone could "yonk" me.
We concluded that if you take my balance it works, but the pain is
no-where near enough to bother me.
Saturday morning, we all gathered at my in-laws bakery (and my home)
before heading out to the dojo. I head rented a local public dojo for
the day. After we warmed up, which is very necessary in Japan since
dojos are not heated, Mike Kimeda lead us in some Yoshinkai basic
exercises, and then developed them into into a number of techniques, the
only one of which I can recall now being Tenchinage, which became a
recurring theme for the day.
Mike is a very good instructor, and gave us very clear, easy to follow
and understand instructions (this was important for me, since I haven't
been able to practice aikido is a couple of years because of my location
in the middle of nowhere). What few aikido skills I ever had, have
pretty much evaporated, but Mike's explanations were very clear. In
addition, since this seminar was rather small compared to the San
Antonio seminar, we all had the opportunity to take ukemi from everyone
who was there. I enjoyed taking ukemi, since I remembered how to do
that!
We had lunch delivered by a local udon and donburi shop. Since the dojo
isn't heated (and there was still several inches of snow on the ground
outside) we huddled around the space heater in the lobby for warmth.
Mike Kimeda noted that even though I was less than five feet from the
heater, he could still see my breath! Were we cold? Of course not.
Our hearts were warm with the joy and love of aikido (though the
rest of our bodies were numb.)
After this, I attempted to teach techniques which would be part of
Sunday morning's instruction in the Judo Kime No Kata. I taught Osoto
Gari, Seioi Nage, and chokes, since these techniques are not seen in
most Aikido styles. Osoto Gari was great fun, and very interesting to
me, since I had noticed during both Mike's and Peter Rehse's sessions
that Tenchinage and Osoto Gari are really variations on the same
technique. The main difference to me is that while the Aikido versions
of Tenchinage allow uke to role smoothly out of the throw, the Judo
versions require uke to take a breakfall, because his legs are swept out
from under him during the completion of the throw. Hopefully others
will be able to comment more on this from an Aikido perspective.
I also taught Seioi Nage, which is a garden variety koshi nage that is
very popular in Judo, and occurs twice in the Kime No Kata.
The sections on chokes seemed to have been very well received (though I
could be wrong about this, since no one wants to complain during a
choke). The chokes I focused on were the blood shime waza. These
constrict the flow of blood to the brain, causing unconsciousness in 3-5
seconds when done properly. We covered applying chokes using the gi and
without the gi. Mike Kimeda has VERY thick neck. Then he admitted to
being a high school wrestler. Guys with thick necks are difficult to
choke, but eventually his partners managed to give him that glassy eyed
"I'm going out now" look and he would tap too. Peter Rehse has a
beautiful, long thin neck, which just begs to be choked, so I used him a
few times for demonstrations. Unfortunately, I accidentally caught his
windpipe a couple of times. This is really painful, and I want to
apologize for that Peter. Sorry about that :(
After we all recovered from being choked, Peter Rehse introduced us to
the Tomiki Junanahon. A friend of his from the Shodokan Hombu Dojo in
Osaka, who was introduced as Fujimoto-san (and I learned to think of as
Uke-man because he is such a wonderful uke) assisted Peter. They first
demonstrated the entire Junanhon no Kata, which was quite fun to watch.
Then he lead us through several of the individual techniques, including
the Tomiki version of tenchinage, which gave us the opportunity to
compare how the Yoshinkai and Tomiki styles approach the same
technique. The differences were interesting, but I'll let those who
have a better grasp of these things explain that more fully. One nice
thing in this section was that Fujimoto-san, who is Peter's sempai, was
able to help as well, so that the amount of personal instruction was
very
high here.
Just as Peter was finishing up, Kawahara-san arrived in the dojo.
Kawahara-san is the Japanese wordsmith we were supposed to go and visit
Saturday night. He had come to tell me that the road to his forge was
covered with snow, making it rather dangerous to drive on. We agreed to
meet at a convenience store nearby at 7:15 and he would lead us in by an
alternated route.
Since I had been planning on teaching the basics of proper sword
handling in preparation for visiting Kawahara-san just then, he sat and
watched. The basics of holding a sword to appreciate it are very
simple. Don't touch the steel, and don't test the edge with your
finger. When you hand it to someone, always hand it to them with the
edge facing yourself, so that if you drop it, you don't cut them. I had
brought 3 shinken with me so everyone would have a chance to handle some
blades before we went to Kawahara-san's.
After this, I unveiled my surprise. I have a katana that another friend
of mine, who is also a sword smith, had loaned me to use for tameshigiri
(cutting) practice. Outside the dojo, I had two tameshigiri stands, and
about 20 makiwara all set for cutting. I started out to so everyone
could see what I was doing. I was happily surprised to learn that
Fujimoto-san does batto-do in Osaka. Batto-do practitioners spends
quite a bit of time doing cutting practice, so Fujimoto-san, besides
making some beautiful kiri-age cuts, also helped to show people how to
handle a sword with some iaito that I had brought for that purpose.
Everyone had done some bokken suburi, and adjusted quickly to the
slightly different form needed to actually cut something. Although it
was quite cold outside, I think everyone enjoyed my little surprise.
Unfortunately, we took so long making confetti out the makiwara and
cleaning up, that we had no time for anything else afterward.
We were actually running a bit late so we drove over to a nearby gyoza
and ramen shop for dinner. I dropped everyone off there, and asked them
to order me some ramen and gyoza, and went to try and find a case of
Bass Ale as a visiting gift for Kawahara-san. Unfortunately, nobody had
any, but I found some Fuyumonogatari to give him instead.
When I got back to the ramen shop, there was no one there! I looked in
the ramen shop, and the restaurants on both sides of it. I HAD LOST THE
ENTIRE SEMINAR! After a couple of frantic moments, I heard this
piercing whistle. I finally located it in the second story window of
the McDonald's across the street. Everyone had decided that they would
rather eat fast and get out to Kawahara-san's forge, so they went across
the street to Mac's. After a quick burger and fries, we headed out to
Kawahara-san's.
He met us at a convenience store and then lead us up back roads to reach
his forge. It was quite a drive, with the last part being narrow,
steep, winding, and all ice. After we got there, we got out of the
cars, and the folks from Tokyo asked about the funny lights in the night
sky. We explained that those are called "stars."
Inside his forge, Kawahara-san showed us some tamahagane and mizubeshi,
and explained a little of the process of making a sword. Then he got
the fire in his forge going very hot, and put in a some metal that he
was in the process of folding. Then he asked me if I would swing the
large striker hammer, while he controlled the steel. I hammered the
steel, and then he got out a chisel. He held the chisel and directed me
to strike it. In this way we cut most of the way through the steel, so
he could fold it back. After this everyone got a chance to hammer
the steel, and eventually we got it done enough that he folded it again.
After all of this, we went into the (very) little loft connected to his
forge to drink beer and chat. Then Kawahara-san brought out some blades
he was working on, as well as some finished blades, some he had made,
and some that were quite old, including a very nice Nanbokucho era tanto
(about 600 years old). We had planned to stay for just an hour or so,
but we didn't leave until after 10:30.
It was about 11:30 when we got back to the hotel, and most people were
quite exhausted, and went to bed. A few of us went out for drinks at
"501" again. We didn't follow the menu's directions, and tried to
order the Mexican Tacos anyway.
--
Mugendo Budogu, LLC.
The Finest Martial Arts Equipment From Japan To You
Peter Boylan
527-0011 Shiga-ken
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USA
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