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AIKDIO-L 1999 KANSAI SEMINAR
Sunday morning dawned bright, clear, and COLD. Everyone who had spent
the night met at the bakery for breakfast. We had lost a couple of
people to other business; Kimura-san, a friend of Mark Gorsuch's who
had driven down from Ishikawa Prefecture had decided to drive back
instead of spending the night, and a friend of mine from Kyoto who had
a meeting in the afternoon.
Most everyone took the local train 2 stops to Eichigawa, and I drove
over in my car. The dojo was cold when we arrived. Peter R. played
around doing a little Tomiki tanto taisabaki with some of the others
to get the blood flowing while we waited for Sakashita Sensei and his
wife to arrive to teach the Judo Kime No Kata.
Sakashita Sensei is godan and his wife is a yondan, but they didn't
feel qualified to teach us the kata themselves, so they had brought a
video/tv set-up and showed us each technique of the kata on the tape,
and then helped us through it. It didn't take very long though before
they relaxed and started demonstrating the techniques themselves (at
which point I got my video camera rolling again).
We were about half-way through the kata's 20 techniques when Peter
Rehse's friend and sensei, Michael McCavish (Yondan), from the
Shodokan dojo in Osaka arrived. He quickly warmed up and joined us.
The Kime No Kata combines a variety a techniques, including atemi,
throws, arm locks, and chokes. Everyone seemed to enjoy this,
particularly the choking other people part.
After this we had about 35 minutes before Lunch in which to do some
Tomiki Aikido. Michael McCavish got us warmed up with a bunch of
rolls after which Peter Rehse demonstrated the first 16 of the Koryu
Goshin no Kata with Fujimoto-san as his Uke. The techniques of this
kata were interesting because they developed more fully the
applications of the fundamentals Peter R. had taught the day before
in the Junanhon. Michael then took us through several of the
techniques from the kata. I have to say that Michael is a very good
teacher. He paced his sessions well, and made sure that everyone
worked with everyone else. Peter R. pointed out that I have a strong
tendency to twist my body going through techniques, which is fine for
the judo waza that I get the habit from, but lousy for the aikido we
were practicing. (Ah the dangers of cross training). The session was
finished off with Fujimoto-san demonstrating Kaishiwaza with Peter
R. as Uke.
For lunch we walked over to an udon shop run by some friends of mine
(Tanigawa-san is an iaido godan) and invaded their restaurant. A
crowd of gaijin like this is still very unusual for the Japanese
countryside, and people looked at us when we came in. But the food
was good, and most importantly, hot, and we all got warmed up in
preparation for Michael's afternoon session.
In the afternoon session Michael McCavish taught the Nanahon Kuzushi
which are a series of balance breaking exercises which developed into
Nage (throwing) no Kata Omote and Ura. These ended up with two
ushiroate applications that were practiced by all and a demonstration
where Michael showed off his skill and Fujimoto-san flew like a bird.
The session was interesting to me, since I could clearly see how the
warm-ups moved straight into techniques (but I'll let Peter R. explain
them, since he can do a much better job of it than I).
After this, Kristiina Kokinen from the Ki Society lead us through some
basic ki tests. Many of us had been looking forward to this, not
least because there were some very strong ki skeptics at the seminar.
Kristiina did a marvelous job of explaining the ki tests, and
connecting them back to things other teachers had showed us throughout
the weekend, particularly the importance of maintaining one's center,
and how the unliftable body was test of one's ability to remain
relaxed and centered. Everyone, including the ki skeptics among us,
gained a new appreciation for the Ki Society. Interestingly, as we
were doing a version of the unliftable body, where the testee drags
the testers down, Fujimoto-san took one look, and told Peter
R. "That's just like Tomiki." and then showed a fundamental movement
from Tomiki Aikido that uses the same motion as the ki test.
After we had fun testing each other, Kistiina lead us in practicing a
Ki Society version of iriminage, so that we could contrast it with the
Tomiki version Michael had taught earlier. They were both definitely
iriminage, but the flavors were different. I'll let some of the
others try to explain that.
Promptly at 4:00 we bowed the dojo closed, and Susan Amen said, "If we
hurry, we can catch the 4:06 train." So everyone who had to catch a
train, except Mark Gorsuch, jumped into their street clothes and ran
for the door. Mark told me that he wasn't in that much of a hurry,
and he'd just catch the next one, and helped me get the few things
that were left in my car. Then I drove him over to the station.
There we found everyone waiting for the next train. They hadn't
hurried quite enough. So we got to have a pleasant chat in the
afternoon sunshine, since it was much warmer outside than inside.
Someone found some snacks in their bag that we had bought yesterday
and hadn't eaten, and those got passed around. When the train finally
arrived, everyone got on the northbound train to Maibara and Tokyo,
even the folks who were going south to Osaka. They decided they
wanted to chat some more with their new friends, so they were going to
ride the local train up to Maibara and then take the main JR back to
Osaka, while everyone else headed north.
I was left standing on the platform with memories of a wonderful bunch
of people.
--
Mugendo Budogu, LLC.
The Finest Martial Arts Equipment From Japan To You
Peter Boylan
527-0011 Shiga-ken
Youkaichi-shi
Hamano-cho 2-16 Japan PHONE/FAX 81-748-23-8208
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Mugendo Budogu, LLC.
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USA
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