The Aiki brush off.

Pat recently did a "What If.." article where he asked, amongst other things, "What part of your art is most rapidly teachable and imminently functional?"

In the post apocalyptic future of the damned that Pat set forth in his scenario i chose to teach the survivors the aiki brush off. I like it as a intro to aikido because it basically covers (in my mind) may of the things that make aikido aikido:

1) it's a decent intro to the concepts of ma'ai
2) it helps learners pick up on the lines of attack
3) (i think) it's an easy way to show people just how little force you need to deflect almost any attack
4) anything else i may not have mentioned

The time's we used it in class, during the seminars about knife defense, and at at Sensei Charles' dojo against various forms of faster forward attacks i've gotten to be something of a fan of it.

I agree with Pat that it won't really stop any conflicts but versus most types of the slow moving undead and those radioactive mutants with a low movement rate it WILL allow a holocaust survivor to wade throw small to moderate sized groups of them without much trouble. Throw the brush off in with almost any ones basic tools of punching and kicking and it's a good place to start. Another thing that might help would be the ideas behind "rolling the ball" and i'd be satisfied for group forays into the shattered wastelands to forage until they could train more.

Tai Chi Masters Battle

Time to read!

As luck would have it.. i happened to be traveling in Waynesboro at work today and the local library was selling books extremely cheap. I loaded up on just about everything Mark Twain wrote and a few odds and ends about Stalingrad and government files on first contact knowledge.

Of interest to this blog though are two books i decided to be worthy to pick up. The first one is by Bruce K. Siddle called Sharpening The Warrior's Edge : The Psychology & Science of Training.

The second is The Spirit of Shaolin by none other than David Carradine himself. Naturally i'm reading the Spirit of Shaolin cause Kung Fu the series rocked. My copy is hard backed and has a less fruity/new age cover than the one pictured at amazon.

Once i get these read i may say yea or nay on how worthwhile they are.

1,000 step journeys are much longer than advertised.

Yesterday we worked on 6 through 9 of nijusan. Pat started us off with some jodo like exercises that helped to emphasize bringing both hands down to our center using uke's weight/force. It was a great class but there are so many things to improve on it's sometimes hard to remember a time when i was not as adequate as i am now. And i do mean simply adequate.

Right now i want to become more comfortable with the motions and having better flow. I also need to work on better memorization of the techniques and the principles behind them so i can better describe/explain them to others. I'm glad im in no hurry to get anywhere but better.