“Listen to what Uke is saying to you and not what you are saying to yourself”

Tonight we worked on many ushiro attacks of which toward the end we practiced koshinage that was a transformed ikkyo, in that we could have easily ended the technique with ikkyo rather than koshinage.

But I want to make note of Sidney emphasizing that we needed to “Listen to what Uke is saying to you and not what you are saying to yourself”.When Sidney speaks with his so soft voice you really pay attention. It is hard to integrate into your practice but you really feel you are getting a sense of the whole Aikido “enchilada”. He talked about this after class and a few of us hung around to listen. You really get the sense he is trying to honestly pass along what he has learned.

After a year and a half I'm still excited about practicing Aikido, and I enjoy practicing at other dojos when the opportunity arises. I don't know of any reason to suspect this might happen, but if Sidney left and I had to practice at another dojo, I don't know if I would keep with it. Probably, but thank goodness I don't have to worry about that.

I tried but failed to find that particular type of koshinage we practiced, so the above is a clip of Kisshomaru Ueshiba demonstrating ushiro tekubitori ikkyo.