Date: Mon, 8 Nov 1999 16:48:07 -0700
From: Neil McKellar
Subject: The First (Badly Done)
Seminar Review -- Long
Let me start by saying that I have no intention of doing a blow by
blow of any of the classes. That's boring and my memory's not up to
it. :-) Instead, I'll attempt to give my own impressions of the
classes and how much fun it is to get together with like minded
masochists -- erm, uh, enthusiasists. Yeah, that's it.
George Simcox started things out on Saturday morning. I found his
approach and the starting exercises we did to be really interesting.
I also found trying to do shihonage his way to be *very* challenging.
Not that he does it *that* differently, but it's amazing how many of
my habits from home are things I rely on. Give up even a little thing
like how I hold my hand at the beginning of the technique, and
suddenly my brain is cooked.
Of more interest to me was that the feeling he was trying to convey in
technique seemed just like the feeling my own instructors have been
trying to get me to have. So, some small bit of relief that it's not
that different; high frustration that my problems are universal and
not cured instantly. ;-)
I had the chance to be uke for him on one technique and I must say
that was an eye opener. The feeling I got from him when attacking was
not at all like other instructors I've been uke for. The best word I
can come up with for it is "slippery". I don't know if I want to get
into any more detail than that for fear of sounding like some kind of
nut case.
Philip Akin's class was also very interesting. We started off with
shihonage and the breakdown of this technique looks *exactly* like
the basic form we teach to beginners in my home dojo. Cool! Of
course, I'm still having problems being soft and relaxed with it.
This was like a mini-theme for the seminar, frankly. He also showed
some iriminage exercises and a tenchinage exercise that I liked a
whole lot (I'll definitely be talking to my instructors and sempai
about those).
I like the idea of the classification system they use a fair bit and
the breakdown of technique seems like a great way to teach a lot of
people. Once again, leaving behind my own habits was a struggle. At
this point I'm strongly suspecting that I don't get out enough. :-)
Alan Drysdale's class was closer to what I'm used to, but I shouldn't
be surprised because he's had some Aikikai experience. I really liked
the opening exercise we did for shihonage (this was another keeper --
we've got some similar exercises for other techniques). He also did a
really interesting mini-randori session. I would like to say that his
approach and control of the mat during this was great. You'd think it
would turn into a zoo with so many people working in excitable little
groups, but he always kept things together and focused.
I particularily liked some of the exercises he did leading us through
this. On my last exam, Kawahara Sensei told a group of us not to
focus so much on throwing during randori and the exercises we worked
on certainly emphasized this to me. I got caught several times on the
last exercise trying to throw one person while one or two others began
to attack. Now, if I can just convince my instructors to incorporate
something like this in our regular classes. :-)
Jim Baker's class the next morning was also very familiar in many
respects, being an Aikikai class. I really liked his first kokyunage
from shomenuchi. It had a lot of us scratching our heads, and I'll be
taking this one back with me, too. Jim also does some great Daffy
Duck noises while throwing (which one black belt in our club sometimes
does as well, so I felt right at home :-). I'm wondering if he ever
considers doing jet engine noises as well?
I feel sorry that this section appears shorter than the others when I
enjoyed it so much. It's just that this was a lot like practice at
home, so I'm not filled with revelatory insight. :-)
Chuck Gordon's class was of some interest to me and I'm really
grateful to George and his students for working out a way to get me to
the airport that still allowed me to attend this class. I get the
feeling that Chuck likes to throw and pin *everybody*, so a lot of
people got to be on the receiving end of his technique. Once again,
it was a real challenge to be as soft as I felt Chuck was being. But,
as I've said, this is nothing new in my practice right now and it's
somewhat encouraging to know that I'm at least working on an area of
my practice that suffers badly with everyone. :-)
Chuck also introduced me to one of the most painful pins I've ever
been in. I *like* that (yes, I'm sick). Several of his techniques
were reminiscent of things I've done at my home dojo, so they fit into
what I'm practicing now really smoothly. I'm not sure I'll be able to
remember exactly how he tied me up in a knot and sat on me, but it was
a lot of fun. I'm sorry I couldn't stay for all of the iai class he
had at the end, but even the little bit I saw was interesting and
seems fairly straight-forward. (Peter or Chuck can now come out and
correct me on that. :-)
The one thing I haven't covered yet are the mini-classes.
Jun's ukemi class was great and I saw some interesting exercises. I
can't *do* any of them, but they were very interesting. :-)
Definitely some things to think about and work on.
Wendy's talk on Aikido and Exquisite Pain was really good, and seeing
the glazed eyes and twitching limbs of her victims, er, volunteers was
a good compliment to the articles she's posted here in the past. I'm
wondering if we should have been taking some good instructional-type
photos for a web page here, but maybe next year. (Or maybe someone
out there is smarter than me and thought of this already. That's not
unlikely.) I'm thinking I need to take a course on basic massage at
some point now so I've got some clue how to do some of what she was
doing.
I'm really sorry I didn't get to do any tameshigiri with Peter
Boylan. He's a lot of fun to talk to and he's got some nice solid
chokes (speaking of his very interesting demonstration Saturday night
in the meeting room :-).
Anyway that's my rather long and screwed up view of the seminar. I'll
be going to class on Tuesday and seeing if I can glaze over the eyes
of any of my class mates. :-)
--
Neil McKellar (mckellar@cs.ualberta.ca)
Addendum:
mle wrote:
And it was actually a Donald Duck impersonation Jim
Baker #3 was doing. Just in case you were confused.
AAAARGH! Okay, I screwed that up. But I did say the review was badly
done, so I guess my butt is covered anyway. :-)
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