I like this book...

I recently came across an Internet based aikido book: "Aikido from the Inside Out".

The title says it all. Rather than going for the traditional, "here is a technique (lots of pictures), here is another technique (more pictures), blah blah," which is all very good as a general reference when you are trying to remember techniques that you are working on in class - one can describe this as "from the outside in" - this book forgoes discussion of technique and tries to get to the heart of what makes aikido tick.

For me this is exactly what I want to try and achieve in my classes. I am not so interested in people learning techniques by rote but that they understand what the techniques are trying to tell us about how we should use our bodies in conflict situations; what are the principles that lead us in all techniques.

O Sensei, himself, coined the phrase takemusu aikido for his martial art toward the end of his life. Here takemusu means "spontaneous creation" and implies that aikido is not defined by techniques (or form) but by spontaneous creation of movement that fits the current situation, harmonizes with it, takes control and leads in the direction that ends in peace.

I see the practice of technique and to a lesser extent kata as a training aid to learn more about the principles of aikido. It is not acceptable to just think about the technique and whether you are copying the teacher accurately when training. You must be thinking deeply about the movement, you posture and positioning, the energy and direction of the both attacker and defender so that you can come to appreciate the principles on which the technique is based. Only then will you be able to deal effectively with unexpected attacks. Equally when teaching, although superficially you must demonstrate the technique correctly, in the back of you mind you must be thinking about what principles you are trying to convey.

Read this book and let me know what you think. I don't necessarily agree with all of it but I commend the attempt to break from the normal format of aikido books.

Injuries

It goes without saying that we should be aiming to minimise the risk of injury while training, whether that is a broken kneck or a scratch on the foot.

Please take all precautions for training and this includes: trimming finger and toe nails, removing jewellery, not training while under the influence of anything, controlling your throws and breakfalls and maintaining an awareness at all times of where you are and who is around you. This last point is particularly important if you are using weapons.

On the toe nail front, it is also beneficial to the owner of the toes to keep them short - I remember Joga having most of a big toe nail removed one night when he caught it on someone's foot. Not a pleasant experience I am sure.

Thus endeth the first lesson

And so we have finished the first Tuesday night beginners' course. I hope that everyone who completed it enjoyed it. Those who didn't complete it have probably voted with their feet. Sorry if it wasn't for you.

Tonight we begin a new set of lessons. This is not a course where you pay up front. You now have to pay each session, or monthly if you are keen. What we will be doing is consolidating what was taught in the beginners' course and pushing out into the further realms of the aikido universe.

There are so many options available in terms of techniques to practice, principles to study and people to train with. To keep it simple and also to focus on those people who have been regularly attending the classes on Tuesdays we will be looking at the rest of the randori no kata. I recommend this to all club members as it is never a bad thing to go over these techniques regularly. Even if you are focusing on the koryu katas for higher grades you still need to have these techniques perfect.

The randori no kata was developed as a set of techniques that could be used in the tomiki style randori or competition aspect of aikido. All the techniques are executed from a straight forward shomen attack, although with a little variation pretty much any attack can be accommodated. The kata is broken into four sections. Each section contains techniques that have some similarity.

The first section is the ate (striking) techniques: shomen ate (frontal strike), aigamae ate (natural posture strike), gyakugamae (opposite posture strike), gedan ate (low strike) and ushiro ate (rear strike). Of course the strikes are actually projections or throws and could be described as nage rather than ate, like in irimi nage, which is very similar to aigamae ate. That being said these techniques require a certain martial spirit to be executed effectively, requiring timing and a good understanding of entering (irimi). This is the section that we focused on for the beginner course.

The next section is the ude (elbow) techniques: oshi taoshi (push down), ude gaeshi (elbow fold), hiki taoshi (pull down), ude garame (arm rotation) and wake gatame (arm bar). The absolute classic is oshi taoshi. This is often the first technique to be taught and O Sensei described it as such, "ikkyo" (first technique). We are going to spend a few weeks looking at these techniques in some detail.

But there are some lovely techniques later on and I will definitely be touching upon shiho nage (four direction throw) and tenkai kote hineri (turning wrist rotation) as they are great fun and have lots of "aikido" in them. I would also like to take a look at tenshi nage (heaven and earth throw) as it is also quintessentially aikido.

Look forward to seeing as many of you as possible tonight.

Made it... just!

Congratulations to Simon, Ian, Smart and Brian who all successfully graded to 6th Kyu (white belt) on Tuesday. And thanks to Andrew for coming along and helping out. It was a great to have his support and hopefully he got something out of it too (all this will be remembered during his black belt grading next week).

This was the first grading that I had run without Tony presiding over me and so I wanted to make sure that the guys were put through their paces and demonstrated a reasonable level of competence - I don't want Tony worrying about me running more gradings without him.

Of course, this grading was only for the first belt in the syllabus and so as I have stated before, the idea is to give everyone every opportunity to perform at their best and not to try and knock them about, physically, psychologically or emotionally. I hope to do that later. Despite this I didn't want to start my grading history by letting everyone pass just because they turned up, which, by the way, is a minimum requirement!

Things started off quite well. We went through the basic foot and hand movements (unsoku and tandoku undo) and breakfalls. The majority of the class were fine. This is interesting as I only introduced the movement kata at week seven. It shows that with a bit of homework there is no reason why you can't master at least the foot movements in a few weeks. There are club members who are still struggling with this after months of training - what is going on there?

Unfortunately when we got down to the five techniques of the randori no kata that are required for this grading things went a bit to pot. I even tried to make things easy by demonstrating each technique one at a time and having the class follow. Most of the class went to pieces and some didn't seem to remember the techniques at all! I decided that there was a combination of nerves and a general lack of memory having not practiced the techniques for a week (or more if they missed last week).

We took a break and had some free play and Andrew and I demonstrated some of the kata required for black belt; this was also a cheeky opportunity for Andrew to have a bit of a practice under the pressure of an audience and a chance for me to get more of a look at his technique.

After the commercial break we went back to the kata and I got each of the students to get up and demonstrate their five techniques in front of everyone else. Now they seemed to be settling down and pretty much all the guys performed adequately with only a few minor mistakes that we will iron out as time goes by. Phew, I can honestly say that I was thinking that I may have to fail some of them up to that point.

I gave Andrew another opportunity to show off by asking him to teach a technique of his choice for fifteen minutes. This gave him a chance to practice his teaching skills - something I think any aspiring blackbelt should be thinking about - and also another chance for me to see how he stood up to the pressure of the audience. He sensibly chose oshi taoshi, the basic pushdown technique, often known as ikyo. This was sensible because it has a simple breakfall that he knew all the guys would be able to do and it has plenty of variations for him to play with so he could show off some of his depth of knowledge. He did well, spoke well, kept control of the pace of the class and demonstrated well, although he could probably think more about what beginners would struggle with in the technique rather than just thinking about demonstrating the technique well. The technique was also helpful to the students going forward as it is the next technique in the randori no kata after this grading.

We finished up with a bit of fun, avoidance of multiple attackers and a bit of a painful pressure point lock on the wrist. I was happy to say that all the guys pulled it out the bag and although there was considerable variation in the ability they were all acceptable for this first grading.

I hope they now continue to train as the world of aikido is only now about to open up to them.

Practice makes perfect

After last week's blip on the attendance horizon, this week we had almost the full complement of beginners from the course as well as a few extras from other nights and a new guy looking to get back into aikido. In total there were nine people on the mat.

This lesson was week number nine out of the ten week course. That means that next week will be the last session and the course attendees will be taking part in an optional grading. I say it is optional but of course the only way of getting out of it is not to turn up. Perhaps that is a bad thing to say as it may discourage anyone reading this from coming along next week. Suffice to say the grading is the first of many in the long line of tests that anyone looking to continue with aikido is likely to undertake and at this level we really aren't looking to trip people up but rather allow them an opportunity to assess what they have learnt over the course.

What I have noticed over the last few weeks is how some people seem to have picked things up much faster than others. Taking into account prior levels of coordination or experience I can only say that the differences in ability at this stage are driven by the differences in attendance. Those who have missed up to half of the classes are still struggling with a lot of what is being shown whereas those who have managed to come more regularly seem to be more comfortable with the movements. Those who have been training more than once a week really look a lot better in their shape, posture and confidence.

This is not an attack on people not turning up. I am just making an observation. Aikido is always going to be a pastime for most people and it is important that family, friends and work are given due respect. Without a strong basis in these things it is unlikely that you will be able to sustain a happy and prosperous practice in aikido anyway. I have seen a number of people who have thrown everything into their practice for a few years but something happened and they end up stopping altogether. I have also seen a lot of people who have tried to dip in and out of practice but ultimately become frustrated at their lack of progress and also disappear.

Until you are completely hooked and willing to make serious life decisions about aikido, a healthy training schedule is two sessions per week. This allows you to have a life outside of aikido but also keeps the mind and body focused to allow a reasonable improvement. Far more important is that you set aside what time you decide upon as non-negotiable. This means that you commit to going to aikido at that time, every time. No excuses. It is easy to say, "Well, it is so-and-so's leaving drinks so may be I'll just skip training just this week." But there is always something that can get in the way and before you know it you have not been for weeks and then it is really hard to motivate yourself to restart training. Bye bye aikido.

So be conservative and realistic about your training but also try to be rigorous and disciplined and before long you will be getting better and hopefully enjoying it too.

Private Training

This week only two people turned up, both were beginners on the course. This meant that we could spend the whole session focusing on their needs and working through the techniques in some detail.

Small classes are often difficult to run as you don't seem to spend much time demonstrating and things move along too quickly. The feedback from the guys was that they got a lot out of the session. Certainly they were progressing well in their techniques and will have no problem with the grading.

Hopefully some of the others may reappear next week. Tony says that it is week 8 blues and I am inclined to believe him, especially after last week, which was apparently well attended.

Thanks to Tony for taking the class last week and also turning up last night where he helped put a lot of the redundant mats away.