Stage Yoshimitsu Yamada Zürich

Hi there,

Last wednesday, october 21st 2009, I went with my teacher Daniel to Michi in Zürich for an overnight sleep before leaving towards italy to visit the international stage of Kimura Sensei (details will follow). By luck there was Yoshimitsu Yamada from Aikikai New York visiting Zürich at the same evening. So we directly headed to the dojo to visit this interesting training.

I was really thrilled to see Yamada Sensei in real for the first time as I've seen plenty of videos of him before (search youtube - you'll find a lot of him! For example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gI_V7yRaIJg) and liked what I've seen so far.

Training started with a very short warmup. It seems not to be usual to have extensive warmup all together - one has to be there early to warmup himself it seems.

The whole training consisted of Shomen-uchi attack on different techniques.
We started with irmi-nage. Yamada Sensei pointed out the importance of bringing uke out of balance and to have a proper stand and position (using irmi-tenkan).
We continued with ikkyo, nikkyo, Kote-gaeshi, Shiho-nage, kaiten-nage (in groups as space was limited) and finished as usual with kokyu-ho. Very interesting to see that the entrance for e.g. nikkyo is the same as for kaiten-nage.

From what I took out of this training, the essence in the style of yamada sensei is to have a very low position when performing the technique. Although he pointed out that one has to know what is best for him (yamada sensei is not a huge person, therefore his techniques are performed in a rather low position), I tried to bring down uke as low as possible as well (which didn't work well all the time of course :-).

The teaching stlye of Yamada Sensei is very nice. He likes to show and point out common mistakes before letting people try the technique. He's also a very funny person, making quite a lot of jokes during the training, resulting in lots of laughters during the training and a relaxed atmosphere - well, at least for an aikido training.

After the training I had the chance to have a quick chat with him outside the dojo. It turned out that he was travelling through europe, mostly all alone. He didn't bring his ukes as most of his students are locals and joining the trainings where he stays.

I found him to be a very nice and keen person and his aikido is really of high quality. Unfortunately, I somehow suddenly had pain in my back in the middle of the training so I had to pause for some minutes. I think this came from the fact that we didn't arrive early enough to warmup ourselfs extensively before the training. It just shows how important it is, to do a proper warmup at the beginning. Unfortunately, the pain didn't actually disappear the next few days. Not the best thing to have when travelling long distance with the car to join an international aikido stage in italy.

Yours,

Stefan

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:

Aikido West - Redwood C.A.

Hi

After an exhausting sightseeing throughout San Francisco, I went today to the Trainings at Aikido West in Redwood C.A.

Due to high traffic around S.F., I returned a little late and the basics training was already ongoing. They were doing some basic Jo movements. Meanawhile, I was warmly welcomed by Paul who let me fill out the needed information letters and showed me around the Dojo.

The dojo itself is within some kind of a hall but very nice built up (see some pictures below). A nice Kamiza, some mirrors and paintings.

Paul told me that it's not a problem to join the training at any time and so i did. Jane, who led the basics training welcomed me too and I could grab one of their Jo's and directly participate.
The basics training was very fundamental and it was very good for me to repeat all these movements (Shomen-Uchi, Block, Tsuki). After that, some of the more advanced students threw us with their Jo's and it was a good warmup rolling exercise for me. We finished this training with Kokyu-ho which I gladly could do with a 2nd kyu student and made me already some sweaty.

The following General Training was led by Paul. The warmup session was a long endurance of basic movements (mainly tenkan). After that, we did the basic pins of ikkyo, nikkyo and sankyo all on kata-tori. I struggled a little bit with the initial movements as we rarely perform these pins on this attack.

All in all, these trainings were very good and it was very interesting to see some slight differences in the technics-details to our trainings.

The people of Aikido West are very friendly and I had some good chats afterwards (they even invited me for a beer or two which I had to refuse due to my sister waiting back at the motel to get some dinner).

If I get back to California (which I definitively will at some point), I will definitively visit them again.

Following some pictures:




Yours,

Lemy

ACLA

Hello,

I'm currently travelling through california and planned to train aikido in some dojos during that time.

My first stop was at Venice Beach, so I googled around upfront for a nearby dojo and found the Aikido Center LA as the nearest place to join a training session.

I arrived in L.A. on Saturday, March 7. On Sunday we visited the 6 Flags Fun park, so there was no time to join a training session. On monday then, I went for the fundamentals training there.

The trip to the dojo was longer than expected. I directly hit the rush hour traffic on the highways of L.A. during that time. Luckily I planned enough travel time so I arrived on time for the training. When I entered the dojo, I was quite amazed. It's a very nice and neat dojo they have there. It turned out they just moved in recently - so no showers for the time beeing. See the picture below indicating the dojo as it is today:


When I entered, there was a Black Belt in discussion with a white belt on the tatamis. Besides them, the dojo was empty. I introduced myself as a visitor from europe and that I would like to join a training. They warmly welcomed me and asked me to fill out a questionnaire (name, initials, aikido background, insurance details etc.) and to pay the mat fee of $20. Because of that, I was about 2 minutes late to start the training. There were only 3 other students on the mat and the training was unfortunately not led by their current main sensei (it turned out that he changed recently due to the passing of Kenshu Furuya, 6th Dan Hombu) but by one of their insturctors (unfortunately don't remember his name). During the training, another black belt joined us and introduced him as "Ken". After the training I had a quick chat with him and it turned out that he was actually the new sensei of this dojo - Ken Watanabe, 5th Dan Hombu).
I had the pleasure to train with him ikkyo on shomen-uchi and it felt just great (he was very relaxing and flexible as both, uke and nage).

Overall, the trainig was very exhaustive. We started with some sokumen-irimi stretching exercises, sokumen-irmi, irmi-nage, kote-gasehi and kokyu-ho at the end. One of their main students (white belt - always uke when showing the techniques) was very advanced and I had quite powerful sessions with him. Funny story, when performing kotegaeshi with him, he once threw me quite dynamically (had to do a high fall), the instructor asked him to be more friendly with the visitor (me) - but this was not a problem, as I did exactly the same with him afterwards, heh! Interesting: He was doing the high fall very very smoothly, something I'm still working on myself (kind of falling leave falling).

I initially planned to go to the training the day afterwards (tuesday) but due to an extensive trip to the universal studios, which took longer than expected, I had to skip this one.

Next, I plan to visit Frank Doran at Aikido West in Redwood CA. I'll post another one in case I can attend a training there.

Keep you updated!

Lemy

Pictures Stage Kimura Farra di Soligo

As promised I've uploaded some pictures from the stage with Kimura Sensei in Farra di Soligo. You find them on my flickr account by following the link of the title or by clicking on the pic.

Hope you enjoy.

Lemy

Stage Kimura Shihan - Farra di Soligo (it)

Hey there.

This will be a long post, so lie back an enjoy, i think I owe you ;-)

I'm back from the Aikido Stage with Kimura Sensei in Farra di Soligo (Italy). Here some impressions in written first. Pictures will follow as soon as I find time to organize the hundreds of pictures taken during the stage. Stay tuned (^^)

The outward trip:
We were 4 people from the german part of switzerland (Me, my personal Sempai Michi, Amanda and Dina), travelling together to this special stage in italy. We started our journey early friday morning (again a big thanks to my parents who have offered their car for this long trip - we would have had even longer without it!). Unfortunately, we had a huge traffic jam around milano, resulting in a trip time of 10 hours (instead of the proposed 6.5h by google map!). We arrived at around 7pm in our Hotel in Farra di Soligo (Ai Archi - very neat!) - tired like nothing else. First thing was receiving a message from one of the companions of kimura sensei telling us to call him upon our arrival. Of course we did so and were short after warmly welcomed by our friends from japan. It was so great to see them again after such a long time! They directly invited us to the (unplanned) training session on friday evening. I was not too excited due to the long trip and not having eaten something. But I was convinced by the other 3 to do it anyway. Quickly eating some antipasti to have at least something in the stomach we went up to our rooms to get dressed (Gi, hakama etc.) as we were told that there's not enough space to get dressed and that it's only a 5 minutes walk to the little dojo.

The first training:
It turned out that this was not an official trainig of the stage and that kimura sensei just gave a training to the local dojo and its aikidoka. It was a nice training and we had a good sweat in this little training hall. Kimura showed a lot of his well-known tai-sabaki movements and center work. I had the pleasure to receive a nice special nikkyo from sensei kimura - the one where you hold the whole forearm of uke in front of your abdomen with hands up - like in the following picture:

Tapping did not help and Kimura sensei showed me clearly that my personal pain barrier can easily be exceeded without beeing harmed - I never felt such a nikkyo-pain before... hehe. After the training, he handed over diplomas to some local aikido students who (as it seems) just passed their kyu exams (from 5th up to 1st kyu). Nice to get an official osaka buikukai diploma for each kyu you do (^^). After the "official part" finished, we handed over our presents to master kimura and his companions. Then back to the hotel, having a shower and detecting that our hotel acutally is the only restaurant in the whole town and already was closed. We headed for a pizzeria 3 km away and had a good original italian pizza and a few beers. After that there was nothing holding us back from our beds...

Saturday morning - the first official training:
We decided to continue to dress up directly at the hotel. Even though we had to take the car to the training hall (3km away). We were quite on time and it turned out that it was actually very good to have attended the training the evening before. The techniques trained were more or less the same (^^). Kimura Sensei started the stage with one of his nice demonstrations with Yamada (3rd dan), his uke. I was quite surprised how his aikido style adapted over the time I've seen this the last time (in berne - 1 year ago). He seemed to be less forceful but even though more effective - how can that be? I fear that I will never really know... There were quite a bunch of people on the tatami but happily there was lots of space (around 1.5 mats per person I would guess...). I trained with some italian white belts and with my other 3 companions. It was very nice. In the middle of the training, master kimura ordered for 3 ukes and let a couple of aikidokas he knew perform katatetori shiho-nage in randori style (it was counted up to 6 for each of them). I was quite excited and would have loved to do it as well. But a white belt should keep patience and so I just shut up and watched :-) In order for us to relax a bit, kimura let tomomi have a little demonstration. I was really impressed how much she improved since the last time! Exciting! After the training back to the hotel, shower and eating something in our hotel (together with our friends from belgium - a sensei and his wife - sorry already forgot the names again - I'm just too bad with names). Then a siesta to relax until the next training session (4pm - 6pm).

Saturday afternoon training - and the party after:
It turned out that the siesta was too deep and we forgot about the time (I know I know, this only counts for me and Michael, Amanda and Dina were ready on time). We had to stress up like hell in order to be on time. Michael was not even able to dress up his hakama before the whole starting ceremony started (Seiza, Bows, Shin-Kokyu etc.). However, training started and it was again very nice. I was able to train with an elder women from italy. Unfortnately my italian is not that good and she did not really speek another language (a bit a mix of french, english and italian was the way to communicate). I quickly talked a bit with her and it turned out that she also knew and trained under master kobayashi. She was full of excitement when I mentioned his name (^^). In the middle of the training, master kimura again asked for 3 ukes and this time let some people do sumi-otoshi in randori style (again counting up to six) but this time with high falls. Great to watch! After the training it was agreed to have dinner alltogether at our hotel. So we went back for a shower and short after the party began. I had the pleasure to sit between tomomi and yamada. Lots of very good local italian food and drinks (prosecco, red wine and so on). Quite impressive how loud and exciting this party became the longer it went. It was really fun! Master kimura made personal kaligraphies for some of the people and even I had the pleasure to receive one! A big "ki" sourrounded by "Aikido Buikukai", "Shihan Kimura" and "Train Aikido". Great! The party went on until around 1am and everybody was quite drunk and funny (^^).

Sunday morning training and the way back:
Kimura sensei started the training easily - he warned all of us to take it easy (even mentioning the good alcohol the evening before - with a big grin on his face). After half of the training, kimura sensei divided the aikidokas into two groups. The black belts were doing some sorts of kokyu-nages whereas we white belts did different things (suwari-waza ikkyo, some sorts of sankyo). The stage finished with kokyu-ho for everybody. After that long and warm good-byes and the promise to visit japan again soon. After that back to the hotel again, shower, packing and eat something together with our friends from belgium and geneva. At around 3pm we started our trip back home. There was again lots of traffic between venecia and milano and we came back home pretty late (for me it even turned 1am in the morning).

I still have the tireness in my bones and need to stop here. If I will still remind, I might post some more aikido-specific post regarding this great stage (what techniques performed and so on) but surely will post some nice pictures (I had the pleasure to use a DSLR cam for this trip - BIG thanks to remo for using it, we will see if the pictures turn out good enough ;-).

Following the link of the title, you'll find the page of the aikido club treviso. They have put a single page about this stage online, where I actually already found a picture of the stage. I cannot post it in here as it's just too big, but you can find it by followin this link. Here some explanation to it:
It shows the whole group at the beginning of the sunday morning training doing shinkokyu. The second person from the right side wearing a hakama is Kimura Shihan. The white belted guy in the background is actually me (^^). And the japanese lady in the front of the group (with the long black hair and hands backward) is Tomomi. Yamada cannot be seen as he was actually leading the shinkokyu in front of everybody.

The only negative thing about this trip (beside the bad traffic around milano) was that we did not really have time to sightsee the beautiful area around soligo with its famous prosecco wineries. A next time, we will surely plan some additional days in order to see more of the area and maybe even visit venecia for a day or so.
One of the best things is, that this was actually one of my first stages without any kind of injury (not even rubbed off my toes or knees). So I can keep on preparations for 3rd kyu test upcoming soon.

But maybe that's also a bit because I was taking pictures from time to time instead of participating in the training (which acutally led kimura sensei to call me "Photo-Uke" ^^).

Yours,

Lemy

Break is over

Hey there

I know. Once more: Long long long time since the last post. I would like to say sorry to all my readers (the few I know at least). I just did not have the feeling to write anymore because I feared it would be annoying and repeating but from the few feedback I got, it seems that people are still interested in getting an insight of a beginners view on aikido.

Yes, you read correctly. I still feel as a beginner within aikido. Even when it's already 3 years ago since my first steps. I even think I will feel the same for a long long time, maybe even forever. This means, the title of this blog seems to be adequate enough to keep on posting for a long time :-)

A lot of things happened in the past. A few stages I've visited (the last one being at Kerenzerberg, Switzerland, lead by Roland Spitzbart, a 5th Dan following the aikido of Saito Sensei - there's a picture and a link to more pics at the bottom of this post).

Furthermore, there's the 3rd kyu exam upfront. I'm trying to train as hard as possible for it. Might be at the beginning of december this year. The exact date has not been defined yet however. I'll keep you updated on this...

This weekend, I'll go to my first stage outside switzerland. Kimura Sensei (see previous post about aikido in japan) is visiting Italy and I'll spend the next weekend with some friends in the area of venecia (good wine and grappa :-).

I'm currently looking to start with DSLR cams so you can be prepared for some good Aikido Pics to come here ;-)

Stay tuned!

Regards,

Stefan

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Here two action shots (me @ Kerenzerberg):
Kokyu-nage (As Uke):


Kokyu-nage (as Tori):


More pictures from this stage can be found on the UAS page at:
http://www.uas.ch/album/Kerenzer-08-10/album.html