Date: Tue, 9 Nov 1999 16:02:38 -0400
From: Margo Ballou
Subject: seminar report (real long)
Wendy:
Peter Boylan is thinner, smaller, blonder, and more obsessed than he comes
across on the Net.
MORE obsessed?
Yes, more obsessed
Thank you, Wendy.
Peter is very sweet, btw. I introduced myself, and he said "Margo!"
and gave me a big hug. I said "Who are you?"
Nobody looked like the preconceived notions I'd tried not to form of
them. I will look at Philip Akin's posts completely differently now
that I've seen how sly, mischievous, gregarious, and thoughtful he
is. Jim Baker is much smaller than I'd expected given his _presence_
in his emails. Dave Liebreich as a person is much like I expected:
funny, considerate, easy to talk with. He presented me with an award
for trying to cut the mat with my tegatana; I didn't understand
because I didn't know what a tegatana was. I learned.
Greg Jennings is a lot more of a string bean than I'd anticipated; he
always describes himself in a way that makes him sound broader.
Here's a sight to see: Greg's neck instantly flushing bright red
when he's thrown suddenly! Wendy is a damn fine baker--her
cheesecake must be tasted to be believed. She's highly expressive,
which I fully expected. :) I want to go shopping with Wendy. Alan
Drysdale is very slender and pale; somehow I'd expected him to be
slightly less thin!
Paul Gowder told me he'd expected me to be big and Nordic-looking: I
said "You're saying I'm _not_?!?" With his usual giggle, he said
he'd expected even more so. Paul, btw, decided during the seminar
that he's moving to Japan because gaijins get laid a lot. ;)
Emily brought her snakeskin belt--it's a masterpiece! On my next
trip to Austin I'll spend more time with this well-dressed Texan who
can kick my pansy ass. I'll be sure to dress appropriately.
I barely slept the whole weekend--too busy being a junior martial
arts geek, comparing weapons and grips, swapping stories. Some day
like Scott Crawford perhaps I will be made an "honorary nidan" for
being thrown in a hotel room and not even spilling my scotch. Scotch
waza is apparently important in the higher ranks.
Chuck Gordon demonstrated his new iron toy on me over breakfast. It
was very cool, and it hurt a lot. I want one. I know someone I want
to give one too: the perfect gift for the sempai who has everything.
Maybe I'll give him a nikyo with it before I hand it over, if he
doesn't take it away and hit me with it first!
People at the seminar were very kind--driving each other around,
being my uke when I was too sore to continue ukeing for shihonage,
baking things for each other, providing each other with scotch, :>
basically taking care of one another.
I arrived in Merrifield Friday in time to socialize and grab supper
before ki development class with George Simcox at Virginia Ki
Society. However, I was fried. I had no discernable center, no
control of my space; and I felt like I was a detached retina floating
around aimlessly and unable to focus. Then I started to shake
uncontrollably, turned pale, and walked back to the hotel to get some
rest.
What I got out of the class was that I learned a good way to
redistribute my weight in seiza: raise the trunk of my body all the
way, then lower straight down into seiza. I also gradually brought
myself into a more aikido-oriented mindset. When I finally got a
partner who didn't say much, I figured out what I need to do to relax
and extend ki, which I couldn't do before because I was constantly
distracted by people telling me to relax. :) I needed to drop my
shoulders and extend my arms. As Emily correctly pointed out, I'm a
fighter. I have to will myself into the right frame of mind. I'm
back in a _lot_ of bad habits because I've had a long training
hiatus. I mean a _lot_ of bad habits.
Saturday and Sunday I attended all the main classes. I practiced
slowly so as not to re-injure my arms, and I enjoyed the chance to
puzzle slowly through the techniques. The one technique that
everybody taught was the one that injured my elbow tendons this
summer: shihonage. (I got an award for that, too.) The worst part
is that I was the one who inadvertently started the shihonage
discussions on the list, so it was my fault that everybody taught it,
and Alan Drysdale spent half his class on it. I repent! :)
However, I learned and re-learned a lot about shihonage. In George's
class I worked on bringing uke straight down without using muscle
power, even if uke's balance wasn't taken. I did the same thing with
Kjartan during Jim Baker's class. Jim talked about sensing all the
parts of uke's body that you are affecting: fingers, wrists, elbows,
shoulders, center. Kjartan also told me I was over-rotating the arm
(which is the way it's done among Kanai Sensei's students--often
people turn my arm so much that it's all I can do to keep it from
locking), and we worked on cranking the arm less. A highlight of the
seminar for me was watching George demonstrate shihonage with Craig
Hocker, George's hands behind his back to show that he didn't need
his hands in front of his center: if Craig pulled him backwards,
Craig put himself right where George wanted him.
I found out that my elbows are now well enough to tolerate shihonage
without the throw, and sometimes with, if there's no torque and I'm
thrown straight down. Alan prefers to do shihonage with uke's hand a
few inches behind the shoulder so even if he's a strong person, he
can't regain his balance. This application doesn't hurt me as long
as I'm thrown straight down, not off to the side.
Philip Akin's Yoshinkan class was wonderful. Philip is at home in
front of an audience. He's extremely funny and charming, also very
much into precise application of technique. He would be popular in
my dojo. He stressed kihon waza, basic techniques of which there are
some 150 in Yoshinkan. When you make 4th dan, they let you
experiment. The most important technique in Yoshinkan is not ikkyo
as it is in most systems, but... shihonage!
Alan taught 45 minutes of shihonage in 4 directions, which was
interesting and elegant. Then he taught ikkyo omote, but only one
time. He slides out to take ikkyo, rather than stepping in front of
uke like we do. He does, however, knee uke in the ribs like we do.
:) Alan has an eclectic style and has trained in several different
styles, although he currently is an ASU member.
A vivid memory from Philip's or Alan's class (I think the former,
because I seem to remember putting my feet in funny places ) is
practicing tenchinage while being held by one finger. There was a
strong sense of estrangement, as if I had never done this technique
before. You had to be careful both as uke and as nage, so that no
fingers would be broken.
Alan held slow randori, but of course people get excited and there's
no such thing as a slow randori, so I quit after a couple people
manhandled me. (I manhandled everybody too, of course.) Peter
Boylan used chokeholds on me, but despite a choking phobia so severe
that I rarely wear necklaces, the chokes didn't bother me because I
could feel that they were play-chokes. I bet Peter wrassles with his
children in the living room.
Because I was practicing slowly and carefully, I barely broke a sweat
the first day. The second day was a little more vigorous, although
iriminage didn't wipe me out like usual because my first partner
didn't know the style, and my second partner didn't know the style
_and_ had to leave the mat because his previous partner had scratched
his nose and he was bleeding profusely. (We practiced one round
because at first I thought it was old blood; but then I realized that
it kept growing in quantity.) This was Jim Baker's class, and I
began to feel more comfortable because even though I may suck, this
was _familiar_ sucking. Iriminage was feeling really good. At least
I _felt_ like I was using no muscle at all to chuck my uke, although
Scott has such smooth ukemi that he makes everyone look good. He was
uke of choice for a lot of people! I'd like to know whether I
usually get mauled in iriminage because of my ukemi or because of my
nages.
Jim had us try a couple very interesting shomenuchi kokyunage. In
one, we would just irimi, put a hand on uke's arm, and shift our
weight so uke fell over. He demonstrated this one with Wendy:
"She's really going to try to hurt me, because she's my wife." The
second was almost a no-touch throw, which didn't prevent one person
from grabbing both my arms and hyperextending the sorest one. I
couldn't do this one well, but Aiki-Tony sure could--that was the
best air time I've had in months! Whoo hoo! I want to build up the
strongest elbow muscles anybody's ever seen so that I can get more
air time.
The last teacher was Chuck Gordon, and he was very soft and gentle
with us, although he did pull Scott up at the end to demonstrate a
couple of his famous aikijujutsu high koshinages. Chuck has the
soft, cuddly bear-ness of a person you just know can be a big scary
bear if he wants to, but he'd rather be warm and kind.
Nikyo and sankyo practice massaged the soreness out of my right hand
from somebody's kotegaeshi yank in randori the day before. In
Chuck's sankyo, nage holds uke's hand to nage's _sternum_, spins uke
around, and uses uke's backward momentum combined with a tap to the
elbow to send uke over backward. Uke is then pinned face up, bodies
in a charmingly stable circle-triangle-square pattern. My teacher
Stuart would love this technique; it possesses just the right balance
of elegance and wickedness.
The last thing Chuck did was teach us some "simple" bokken exercises,
basically drawing and cutting and sheathing. Chuck moves extremely
economically.
After the seminar my elbows hurt, but my ankle stopped hurting
altogether because my leg muscles loosened up. Thus, there was
conservation of pain. :-)
I was struck by how passionately each of us loved and was devoted to
our own version of the art, and how our interest in all the other
branches complemented rather than supplanted our own study.
- Margo
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