I got a Bokken (wooden practice sword) from the Internet and there were two lengths available and I got the one that I thought was most similar to the cheap ones we have at the dojo.
BUT, once I pulled the Bokken out of the box I saw it was smaller that the others, just by an inch or so. But it feels great and the finish is beautiful.
I just hope I'm not jealous of the bigger Bokkens that the other guys have at the dojo. Hey, I'm comfortable in my own skin AND my smaller Bokken, I mean it gets the job done doesn't it?
Next to the Bokken is a very cheap Jo I found at a Martial Arts supply store locally.
The only thing of note was while we practice shomenuchi with the “Jo” Sensei had us exaggerate our body movement so we really sensed our center driving the motion. It was fascinating when you “accidentally” felt you were doing it right and you hear the “whoosh” of the Jo cutting through air. Plus he had us practice the shomenuchi strike in batches of 100, if you tried to use your muscles too much you actually become winded.
Shiba Sensei said he wanted to at least regularly practice with weapons once a month an perhaps twice a month and that we should bring our own weapons on those days.
I suppose getting your own Bokken, Jo and Tanto is one of the things that designate a commitment to the practice. It also brings to mind one of those things that crosses my consciousness from time to tim, “what is my level of commitment?”. I missed a full week because of home and work duties again, and in general my efforts are minuscule compared to a really dedicated Aikido student, but I keep on gong. Oh well...
Tonight Charlie emphasized unbalancing the attacker's center and basically letting uke throw himself. I think we started with yokomenuchi for each attack and in one instance we entered early to catch uke well before the strike gets any momentum and then bring the other arm up like iriminage and then step through in the most unbalanced direction.
Charlie kept pointing out he was trying to have us realize that we were addressing uke's area of power and neutralizing it by either catching the attack before it got going or flowing with it and simply directing it. Often it was by simply stepping slightly aside and lightly guiding uke through the direction were you (nage) are not.
A good class.
Then video shows the founder in 1935 and aroun the 30 to 40 second area he does some of the stuff we did tonight, although we were much slower.
As an aside I read in more than one place the ukes for the founder were shocked because they would attack as usual but "suddenly" find them self on the floor and not really know what happened. One guy deliberately tried to be more aggressive because he thought everybody was just playing nice with O Sensei, be he too was shocked to discover himself tossed like all the rest. So if it looks a little to staged in the video at least consider there may be more going on than mets the eye.
KOKYUNAGE 呼吸投げ Breath throw. A cover-all term used to refer to a series of blending techniques with no common mechanical similarities
Saturday: Sensei worked us through some ushiro techniques starting with ushiro tekubitori (wrist grab from behind) and kokyunage and toward the end we worked on responding to kubishime (choke hold from behind) where I think we responded with Sankyo but stopped the kubishime after that.
After class I mentioned to Sensei that I thought he was leading us up to koshi nage. He admitted he thought about it as it is logical progression, but he decided to emphasize something else. He went on to say that you would use koshinage only if kokyonage was not an option. Then he dispensed this gem (to paraphrase)
“In the end it is always kokyunage”
He said you really only go (this is very much a paraphrase) with koshi nage when you must align yourself with uke to apply a technique but in a more pure approach kokyu nage would happen naturally and no such drastic maneuvers are needed. Then he pointed out that while strength is not a major part of koshinage it still takes more out of you than kokynage. He amended his cool aphorism allowing what you really want is the most appropriate technique for the specifics of the moment, but I think he meant that if you are aware you could generally position yourself so some kokyunage would be the easiest.
I don't think he meant this to be a special comment to me (the oldest person in the class) but he explained that when young you can use your strength with many techniques but as you age you are forced into wisdom since strength is not the option it once was, and that the goal is wisdom.
The second technique in the video above has an example of a the kokyunage we practice on Saturday, although when Sidney does it it is way smoother and way cooler.
It was Wednesday night and Charlie taught and Sensei was just a regular Joe like the rest of us. Except of course that he was not perplexed like the rest of us.
I've missed a lot of Wednesday classes over the past months so I have not worked with Sensei as a partner in a long while so tonight I made a point of working with him. And I really think it is one the really cool things about the dojo, that the Sensei wants to (I think) work with everybody at an individual level.
He doesn't instruct or even correct (much) but he does take his time and tries to figure out what you are doing and how to make it better. It really is like a 10 minute private session with an Aikido Master. Charlie brought his Tomiki style background to the mat but so we did some things slightly differently but Sensei focused on the responsiveness of what I was doing and not whether the techniques were slightly different that had practiced in the past.
We were starting from a static katate-tori stance and went to shiho-nage. At one point Sensei struggled to get me to recognize the timing I felt as he grabbed my wrist (somehow we went to a more dynamic start), and helped me work on responding to his movements as I grabbed his wrist. He used the analogy of a metronome where the musician must pace themselves the beat that is give. But then he switch to saying that once you are in sync with uke then nage takes control of the speed, direction and pace.
At one point I think we spent 5 minutes of him grabbing my wrist, I tenkan and “feel” when I need to shift back and go to shiho-nage. We didn't complete the throw but just focused on me getting a sense of his timing and using that to move the technique along.
Anyway, it was a great experience. I hate to “beat a dead horse” but I can't help but wonder what a master of something must be thinking when all this wisdom comes out but can only go to a perpetually clumsy pupil. But he is never acts as if it is an imposition to explain and help us even though we seem to forget it the moment after he tells us something
We did some other cool stuff but the above video (around 1:09) show what Sidney and I worked on, although I didn't do the neat break fall in the omote version although he told me how I should position myself to did it if I needed.
Tonight we spent a lot of time on ukemi with much of it pure practice where we were not working on a particular technique and sometimes we just worked on falling and sliding while not working with a partner.
The goal Sensei was trying to impart is somewhat shown in some of the ukemi in the video (Please to note timestamps 1:04 & 2:52), but Shiba Sensei REALLY emphasizes the sliding or rather your center moving as you compensate as uke to nage's irminage. This is one of the cool things about practicing this art, in that there is the obvious beauty of the art but it is when you find a teacher who makes it special that really confirms why you spend the time to practice.
It looks like Sidney is simply sliding across the floor more than the rest of us, but by working on it tonight I saw that he is really moving his center and it is just that he lowers his center and goes with the flow. It is so freaking cool to see it in action and the thing is that tonight I may have actually gotten a little bit of the technique down. It felt so great to sense what I was supposed to do, even if I never actually got it exactly right. But I was at least on the right path.
For me ukemi with iriminage is difficult, although if the nage is really good they compensate for my weaknesses. The less sensitive the nage the worse my ukemi is with Iriminage. But tonight I think I got a little bit closer to knowing what to do. I can't emphasize this enough, it is like magic when you find yourself actually practicing magic while practicing Aikido it is...well, magical.
Of course I'm scared it will all be gone by the next class.
