Aikido Technique Videos and Self Defense Training

I just found a very interesting, Aikido Channel on Youtube and I thought I'd share this example of a shodan test randori. All in all I thought the movement looked good, especially in such a tight space. Do you have any thoughts? I'd like to know.

Thanks for taking the time to read this blog, and I hope it makes you want to find out more about Aikido. www.aikido4beginners.co.uk

[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Atemi Japanese name Kanji: 当て身 Hiragana: あてみ [show]Transliteratio - Revised Hepburn: atemi In Japanese martial arts, the term atemi (当て身, atemi?) designates blows to the body, [1]...

[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Someone asked me in the offline world whether I still keep writing this blog or quit blogging for good. Well, I only write messages like this here:

In case the link to the continued blog is not clearly visible in my previous post (which Szabi also mentioned) please follow the link below to get there:

http://onlineaikido.com/blog

In addition to my posts, you will find there posts by my friend Connor as well.

In case you simply want to subscribe to that blog, you can do it using our RSS feed or email subscription.

_uacct = "UA-2615571-1";
urchinTracker();

Taken from the book "Aikido - A beginner's Guide" The History of Morihei Ueshiba, Founder of Aikido 1883 Morihei Ueshiba born December 14 in Tanabe, Kishu (Wakayama Prefecture). Father,...

[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

So, as some of you may remember, my sensei Don Hebert and I went down to Baltimore last weekend for a weapons intensive. In preparation I purchased a sample suit of kendo armor since it was a full contact event and I thought it would be appropriate to test an item that I am considering selling on my website.

The armor held up just fine, though shots that came down directly on the top of my head had the potential to make me see stars. In fact, it happened quite a few times. This was ok, in my opinion, because it actually gave me some incentive for performing proper technique. I feel totally confident now in carrying and selling this kendo armor, if I was able to survive mostly intact.

I just opened an old aikido book by John Stevens and read through some of the great quotes at the end of the book. I think, for today at least, that this is my favorite quote by O-Sensei:

As soon as you concern yourself with the 'good' and 'bad' of your fellows, you create an opening in your heart for maliciousness to enter. Testing, competing with, and criticizing others weaken and defeat you.

This really speaks to me about the essence of aikido and what it is trying to accomplish in the world. It's almost a guide for how you walk in life, at least for me.

I've just read in AikidoJournal:

Letter of Doshu Moriteru Ueshiba to all aikikai affiliated organizations:

April 20, 2008

Dear Sir/Madam

I hope this letter finds you in the best of health.

I am very happy to inform you that my son, Mitsuteru Ueshiba, was married to Miss. Keiko Kusano on March 2nd of this year.

Your continued and good favor on the young couple would be much appreciated.

Sincerely Yours,

Moriteru Ueshiba
Aikido Doshu (original signed)

Congratulations! I guess they are happier now than in the picture below :).

I'm looking forward to hearing from the birth of the fifth doshu :).

By the way, Mitsuteru was born in the same year as me.




_uacct = "UA-2615571-1";
urchinTracker();

Sorry for the extremely long delay in my posting schedule everyone, I recently started studying kenjutsu as well as aikido and have been extremely busy. I do hope to get some images of the kenjutsu class up on the blog this week, so stay tuned for some great pictures soon.

Here's a quick teaser, we have been working on traditional iai kata as well as paired bokken kata as well. For anyone in the Brattleboro, Vermont area we are currently accepting new students if anyone is interested in joining our kenjutsu class.

You can visit sensei's site for more details.

Why is that when you go somewhere you haven't been before it seems to take much longer than to come back from there? Why is it that when you go somewhere for the first time it seems much longer than the second, third, etc. times?

Last week I went to a school to give away a Children's aikido poster. I didn't know the area and it seemed to take at least thirty minutes to get there (I wasn't watching my watch but I looked at my map frequently thinking "is it still so far"?). Today (at the time writing this post at home) I went to that school again because last week it was completely empty (it turned out that they had half term and noone was around). It took me 15 minutes only and I wasn't walking any faster than the previous time.

The same thing happened when we were looking for flats to move into (which happened several times over our four years in London). It's certainly not only me who finds the first walk longer. But why is that?

Are we more alert to make sure we don't miss the destination and, at next time(s), we know the way already so we can think about our own business which makes time pass quickly? Maybe it's the same relativity Einstein described once.

"A man sits with a pretty girl for an hour and it seems shorter than a minute. But tell that same man to sit on a hot stove for a minute, it is longer than any hour. That's relativity."

Relativity - Which one is hotter?

If the above logic is right and I try to apply it to my aikido studies then the idea is that I should never experience this slow-fast passing of time. I'm supposed to be alert at all times, "be present" as others call it. Indeed, I don't really experience time differences between doing a technique first and second but I guess it would be a pretty good exagaration ("lie" as others would call it :)) if I concluded that it's because I'm alert all the time :). That is the aim, to be alert, but sometimes I tend to sink to comfort and stop discovering new technical bits when we are practicing. This happened on Wednesday as well: we had a beginner and I tried to make fun of ryokatadori (grabbing the gi at both shoulders) because she had a t-shirt on and not a gi jacket (uwagi). It wasn't funny at all when Karesz immediately shouted to stop that and start showing the beginner how to do the technique and start focusing on connection with my partners (it was a technique done in groups). I was pretty ashamed of myself and came home disappointed (again, in myself) but I understood and learned the lesson. From time to time, it happens that I go to trainings and let time pass quickly but there's always something that awakes me sooner or later (a grading date, if nothing better) and I realise that I should use my (and others') time to study harder, improve more and don't let time fly away.

Next time if I notice that a training (even if it's only an hour long) is too short I will need to think about what changes I have to make. Even one hour should be enough to get tired of properly practicing, I guess it's not a coincidence that the Hombu classes last an hour, too.

So I still can't properly answer my initial questions but at least I gave a couple of thoughts to relativity theory at an aikido training :). Let me know though if you can answer the above questions.


_uacct = "UA-2615571-1";
urchinTracker();