UAS Stage Magglingen

Last weekend we had our yearly aikido stage of the aikido union switzerland in magglingen.

The stage started friday evening but unfortunately I could join at saturday afternoon only because I had school this week and there was an exam on saturday morning.

I attended two training sessions on saturday afternoon led by two different teachers from within the aikido union.

The first was very interesting. It was dedicated to hirokazu kobayashi (whom I never met as he died in 1998 - 6 year before my aikido trainings started). The teacher showed and let us train some of his personal interpretations of the techniques which made kobayashi so unique. You might get an idea of what I mean when you watch the following video on youtube (at around 1:10 you'll see the nikkyo):

We extensively trained the different styles (or should I call it possibilites) of nikkyo as shown by this great teacher. My wrists were pretty hurt after this session as you can imagine :-)

The second training on saturday was then mainly focused on short movements (instead of the big ones often seen in aikido). Quite interesting to do some direct entering irmi nage in a dynamic way.

Saturday morning training session was pretty hard for me. I was a bit hung-over due to an extensive beer tasting the evening before ;-) so I had to rest from time to time. :-)

The following last session was then led by my teacher and he focused mainly on techniques with a Jo.

All in all once again a very interesting stage as the trainings are led by different teachers all brining in their own personal understanding o techniques and aikido in general. A very good way for a beginner like me to get a feeling of what the essence aikido might be.

You can check out pictures from this stage on my flickr account under the following link:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lemy/sets/72157616299711785/

Yours,

Lemy

City Aikido San Francisco

I still owe you an entry for my last visit of an aikido training in San Francisco.

It was one of our last days in San Francisco when I took the opportunity to join a training at City Aikido in San Francisco.

I was really hoping to see Robert Nadeau Sensei (even more since I missed Frank Doran Sensei at Aikido West in Redwood) but unfortunately again, it was a training not led by him, so he didn't show up. Also his wife didn't show up so I didn't had the opportunity to tell her the greeting from back in Berne Switzerland (as it happens she used to train in the same dojo as I do - although I've never met her as she moved to San Francisco before I started with my Aikido Trainings).

Here again, there were two training sessions. The first was for beginners followed by a more advanced training.

The beginners training was quite nice for me to repeat several basic things like backwards fall, tai-sabaki and hanmi (the standing position as called by aikidoists). I couldn't find relevant differences to what we learn back at my home dojo so it was quite good to do a warmup with basic things.

The advanced training was very interesting as well. More or less it just continued with what we had in the beginners training but going into more details. Upon a wish of one of their students we also looked at conter-techniques which was quite interesting (kokyunage contered with kokynage as an example). However, these are still things a bit too advanced for me, especiall if it comes to kokyu-nage, so I just tried to do my best and to get a good sweat at least :-)

After the training I was approached of one of their more advanced students (1st kyu), asking me what my favourite technique was and on which attack. He was keen enough to show me some details to work on with tsuki-kotegasehi. We mainly focused on extending the attckers force at the right moment and in more detail how to actually throw when applying kotegasehi. Very interesting but it led to an additional half hour of training where my sister had to wait for me :-)

She took some pictures of the training while I was participating. Check some of them below: