"Is this post leading anywhere?!"

Some philosophize that martial art training is supposed to chip away at the junk surrounding our core selves, or remodeling us into someone who is "better". The mental training aspect of aikido has been attributed to emphasize relaxation of mind and body even under stressful situations, as i understand it to better handle being attacked but to also make daily life simpler and more enjoyable .

Ueshiba is quoted as saying that one "must be willing to receive 99% of an opponent's attack and stare death in the face". Staring death in the face is one thing, all bravery and calmness focused on one extreme idea, but i think it's a lot harder for those ideas to challenge the everyday things we face. Everyone can tell a story about how something has made them lose their cool, it's just human nature. Sooner or later something will come along that will bother the hell out of even the most stoic person.

I am by no means one of those stoic people. Insecurity is one of the things that reoccurs in my mind as i train. I am my own worst critic and i often berate myself over a misplaced step, a technique done wrong or "poorly", or as in the case of seeing video with me in it: the way i look while moving around and especially falling. There are several things i could list off as to why i beat myself up but the fact remains that it's really not a good thing to do whether necessary or not. As i sit around and sorta meditate on aikido i often try to tackle what i can do to improve my ability. Practice and patience seem to be the top two keys and not necessarily in that order. Something that has seemed to be more important lately is how i perceive myself in aikido, what am i bringing with me into the dojo and what am i trying to sorta leave behind me on the way out. More important than both of those is what i'm carrying around day to day?

Something i think helps, and i think a lot of people have trouble with this, is what kind of goal you've place in front of yourself. Is it realistic? Are you expecting it to occur much faster than it should? Are you trying to be good for your level or someone else's? There's nothing wrong with wanting to improve, but sometimes things just "are as they are". Looking at where i am in relation to others that i see as better could make anyone in the same shoes feel discouraged. I have to remind myself that sure, someone else at my rank may be way ahead of the curve but what's important is am i refining "me"? "Am i moving from my center instead of trying to reach out to something that will throw me off balance," so to speak.

Just some thoughts. Next lesson, practicing what i preach. Haha

Anyone have any thoughts?

"With the blast shield down, i can't see a thing..."

I was able to make it to class yesterday...and as usual, it was great. The walking kata tegatana still has some bumps and kinks i need to work out (as many reps as i do i would thing i'd have the thing perfect).
Pat threw in some blind ninja training into hanasu and we repped through it with our eyes closed. I liked the way it worked out. Later on in class we went through the two versions of kotegaeshi and koteheneri (tenkai) and added some blackout to those too at one point. I like the way it feels to give uke total control of the attack and move around that (lol, that's the whole point isn't it?). I wish i could develop that level of relaxed sensitivity while my eyes are open. Im going to have to talk gary into doing some of these before he leaves so i can get some extra practice.
We did some "aiki brush off" drills. I still had some highs and lows with these.. either they felt like they worked or they felt way to forced. They seemed like a finesse element i don't have the ability to make work all the time, like the bumps and the ends of certain otoshi or garuma movements.

Starkville Aiki weekend

This weekend i had the opportunity to travel to Starkville, MS (home of MSU and tha Bulldogs) and go to a clinic headed by Henry Copeland (9th dan). The focus of the clinic was go kata (sp?) which starts off with several two handed grabs (i.e. two wrists grabbed) and goes into some...well..other throws.

I really enjoyed the clinic. It was cool getting to see the Starkville bunch again and getting to do aikido with Henry. I got thrown by him and slamed pretty hard once and i got to do randori with him and didn't notice anything but me falling. I was amazed at just how simple and relaxed his aikido was. I was wowed by it, but some might not be.

Some of the things i came away with this weekend?

1) My ukemi is "functional" but definatley needs improvment.
2) This weekend was brought by the letter L. (As in straightent the hands straight out with thumbs out to the side - thanks Porkchop).
3) Attach yourself to uke with the ring and pinky fingers, NOT the index and middle (this one seems the most daunting to adapt to).

Those are the ones that have been at the front of my mind. Hopefully the pics of this weekend will be up sometime this week, maybe video too. If so i'll try and link it.

I'll be thinking on this weekend for a while. I may post again on it later.

I really enjoy aikido.

Catching up on "The Walk"

I really enjoyed last night's class. We practiced tegatana, both the regular version and Pat's new "tooth brushing" version where all the turns are done in one spot instead off all over the mat (easier to do in the bathroom while brushing Pat says). The single spot turns helped in hanasu, especially in turn 5-8 because it exemplifies the "under a barb wire fence" motion of the techniques. That's, in numerical order; Hon Uchi Hanasu, Hon Uchi Ude Heneri, Gyaku Uchi Hanasu and Gyaku Uchi Ude Heneri for those keeping track.

Ukemi was a big part of lcass last night and i did really well. I felt confident about my aikido last night which was an awesome feeling. Ukemi was this major hurdle that just seemed insurmountable at times and it finnaly feels like i'm "there". Appropriately enough there's a seminar this weekend that should get rid of all that. Haha

Also.... Pat had an acident.

It may not be art, but....

Aikido + food = enjoyment

Last night was my first class back in quite some time. I feel sore again and it's awesome. The focuses put into tegatana last night were gripping forward with our toes (kinda like cat walking from Pat's post on the msg board) and making sure we end up on the balls of our feet. A new one that was throw into the mix was snapping our center under us and the end of the movement. I noticed all three cause an accentuation of the up and down motion generated by our walking. I still think it's neat that by having your toes lead you to where you're going there's very little chance of ending up off balanced at the end.

I think i did a lot better at rolling last night, much less flat tire flapping. I think having less clutter in my head when doing it helps. I still need to work on rolling out of hiki taoishi.

We worked on chain number 7. I think that hand switches go along with the changes in garumas and otoshis as we move from gyaku uchi hanasu to ude heneri (?) to hiki taoishi. If i got the names right.

One of Pat's old students is coming to class now. Seems like an alright guy. The crawfish we had after class was fantastic, haven't had any in a while so i got double the goodness out of the return trip to class.

Bits and pieces.

I haven't been to class in a WHILE, life has gotten in the way lately. I've still been "practicing" if you could call it that. I do tegatana frequently, posture (i.e. balance) and the drop vs step idea my two main concerns. My ideal place would be getting it so hardwired in my brain that i won't even STEP out of the way or whatnot but fall. (there's got to be a better thing to call that.) I'm playing with the unbendable arm too. One armed wall pushing, two armed wall pushing. We have a swinging double door at work and i check the different strengths of the one armed or two armed unbenadable arm push. A few other things here and there. I haven't given up!

Just some thoughts.

Life gets complicated. Things change, problems arise, people come in and out of your life. Sometimes, and i know this is true in my case, some of that complication is aggrivated by you. You dont take the time to think things through maybe, or past experiences already determine how you view some things. From my standpoint the most complicated thing i face is the future; what will i do, is what i picked the right thing, will i be able to support myself with what makes me happy. I don't really have anything figured out just yet, but every now and then something will pop up that sorta helps put things in perspective. Pat recently made a post on aiki and there's something i'll quote from it here

"Often aiki is translated as something like “coordinated energy” but lately I have preferred to translate aikido as the art of making peace with the energy in the world. People who are able to do the magical aiki effects are able to make peace with the things going on in the world. They have reduced their desire to impose their will on a situation so they are able to move around with uke and live with the results. They are at peace with the energy around them.And that’s real, magical aiki – being able to move so that you can live with uke’s actions. "

It's pretty easy to replace uke as what might be troubling you i suppose. I sorta like the implications that makes.

Something else i stumbled across just a few minutes ago i would like to share. I'll post the whole things so i can come back to it.. it may be long, but i think it's worth the read.

So You Chose the Martial Arts as Your Career Path: What Were You Thinking?
By Tom Callos

As I write this I’m preparing for the graduation ceremony for participants in my first Ultimate Black Belt Test (www.ultimateblackbelttest.com). I’ve been searching for the right words to put the 13 months each of the candidates has invested in their test into perspective –and that lead me to writing the following piece, A “Career” Black Belt’s Graduation Address.

The piece, as it is here, is for an imaginary group of black belts, a graduating class at a “Black Belt University,” who have chosen to pursue the martial arts as a career. If the martial arts are your chosen career, maybe you’ll find some value in reading it? In my mind, every day is a graduation of sorts, so the truth is that maybe I wrote this for myself –and for you too?

A “Career” Black Belt’s Graduation Address

When planning this address, I realized that I don’t have a single answer to give you, only questions. However, the questions, mine and your own, are what I think contain the real power in life. At least that is what I have learned, but continually need to practice to remember.

Up to this time in your martial arts journey, there have been any number of people who have cared for your education, nurtured you along, and cared about how you performed –your teachers, your seniors, your fellow students, some friends. But beginning next week, you will, more or less, be on your own (like you have always been) and back with that one person who got you into this thing in the first place –your inspiration, your truest critic, your most faithful supporter, and your some-time-enemy … yourself.

Yes, this is the same person who (might have?) chose the martial arts over, oh, say a law degree, medicine, architecture, and all the other noble careers you could have had --had you not been on the mat so often.

What were you thinking?

You weren’t, were you? At least not in the sense of considering the ins-and-outs and calculating your choices. Being a martial artist --or pursuing art of any kind--is a path that doesn’t make a lot of sense at all when you think about it logically. But the internal call of the martial arts is compelling and powerful. And there are lots of other kinds of thinking other than analysis.

Did Baryshnikov think when he danced? Did he analyze and calculate? Did Michael Jordan think when he ran down the court, stopped, took three steps back, faked, turned the other way, turned again then jumped and sent the ball through the hoop that he hadn’t looked at since mid-court? Is that thinking? One important thinker, Educator Howard Gardener, calls it intelligence in his book Multiple Intelligences. He calls it kinetic intelligence. Athletes use it. So do neurosurgeons. This isn’t a surprise to you, is it?

And he cites other intelligences –musical intelligence, interpersonal intelligence –and adds them to mathematical and verbal intelligence, which were, for years, the only ones most educators acknowledged. Technology isn’t set up to measure all of these intelligences, but everyone can recognize the truth in the idea. And here’s the thing: They all come into play when one pursues the lifestyle of a black belt –and then the path of the professional martial arts teacher. We may not understand it all, but we use them, just as we didn’t have to understand grammar when we started talking.

So, through some invisible process, you choose to pursue this path. Maybe you saw something in a movie or on TV, maybe you met a black belt who inspired you, perhaps it was simply an idea you found in your head? But when you put on that uniform and you felt your power on the mat, you were changed.

It isn’t always easy, this martial arts thing. There’s pain, there’s push, there’s humiliation and defeat. But like the oyster that turns a grain of sand into a pearl, you take all the experiences and find transformation. As a result of training you are different than you were before. You are expanded by it all.

I’m not speaking figuratively here. Thanks to brain imaging, we have started to see something of how we are changed by our experiences. When the brain encounters something new, something it has never seen before, its neural pathways shift, and some synapses become more active while others become less so. Properly wired up and monitored by a scientist or doctor, the image of your brain lights up like a pinball machine. When the stimulus is removed the brain reverts back to its prior state –but not all the way back. It retains some of the new patterning. You create neurons every time you learn something new as a record of sorts of how to do the thing. The first years of your life were completely taken up by this patterning and stretching as you encountered the bright light of birth, then Mama, then water, and on and on.

This is all exhilarating, but after 20, 30 or 40 years of it, it can be a bit too intense for some people. Maybe that’s why some people tend to get careful and conservative as they get older. They want things to stay the way they are, so they can get a handle on life.

But not martial artists; we go looking for the change. The fear of the unknown, a quick triumph over fear, something new, the crafty new opponent --then a rush of dopamine to the brain. Of course there are other things that change us. New arguments change us, new concepts, new people, and new places. But martial artists make most of their change from the inside. They use it to grow themselves. It is exalting –and exaltation is pretty hard to find in the everyday.

So there’s a succinct definition of a good training day for you: You come home and you’re not the same person as when you left in the morning. Your daily efforts may not always create a huge change, but it’s there and it adds up.

Will you ever wonder why you chose the martial arts over everything else you could have done? Probably. Will you ever “hit the wall?” I think you will. Will you ever doubt yourself and your decisions? Most certainly. The famous artist Richard Serra said, “The place where you are dumfounded by your own lack of understanding is the place to start working. Once you stop doubting you might as well stop working.”
Now, graduating to a new level, your real work begins. It’s not about being a great martial artist, this journey. It’s about being a great human being. That’s your graduation thought.

My last bit of advice: Stay awake, stay out of your comfort zone. Keep searching. Keep working. Don’t get stuck for too long. Practice evolving physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. That is The Way.

You’ve chosen the right career. Make it a great one. Make the martial arts industry, no, make the world better --because you were involved.

About the AuthorTom Callos is a veteran consultant to the martial arts industry. His latest project, The Ultimate Black Belt Test can be seen at www.ultimateblackbelt.com. His personal website is www.tomcallos.com. He resides with his wife and three children in Placerville, CA.

Aiki weekend

So John came down this week and Pat Sensei let us do some judo and aikido friday and saturday. It was a pretty productive weekend in my book. Sparring with John made me notice for the first time just how much judo and aikido are related. It's one thing being told they are and another actually feeling the similarities. I was able to keep up with him standing but more or less lost it on the ground. The different arm bars and that kinda strategy isn't really firm in my head.

Still, doing judo again was fun. It's been many moons since the last time i got to practice it at all and to me it's kinda neat to look back and see just how much the aikido i've learned has helped. I used to be deathly afraid of being foot swept and now it's no big deal at all. Although i still think Vincent would put the fear of God in me were he to show up again.

As well as some sparring, John and i also did the basic throws of judo and played around with those some. Pat Sensei came in and we sorta moved back and forth from judo to aikido, and at some point Kary showed up and we did....something (here's where posting when i get back to town would be helpful). At some point that night Pat nailed me rather well with ALL of nijusan. Ouch!

Saturday we did a couple of reps of tegatana and hanasu. I helped refresh kary on them since he's only been to a few clases and has been absent a while. We did some ki bump exercises with oshitaoshi and the broke out the crash pad for some owaza. After class John had Pat and i demonstrate nijusan and all of the different technique chains so he'd have a video to compare things to while he's learning from Bryce. I was practically exhausted, which won't be hard to tell once the video John took makes it to the internet, so i'm sure it'll be an interesting thing for me to see from an outside perspective.

John and i got a chance to catch up on things, compare notes and whatnot. More on that in a different post. An interesting thing occurred to me on the way back home though. The way i've been absorbing aikido is a lot like tetris, the blocks fall down and every once in a while make a line that actually becomes something learned. That's why after the umpteenth time i'm told something i'll finally grasp it. I think i did pretty good this weekend. I definitely had fun.

Dedication.

This one's a tad short. I've just sorta been thinking about my training and how dedicated i seem to be. I live 85 or so miles from the dojo, so it's sorta a long haul from home to class and back. I've missed a lot of class nights lately and though most of them have been due to random events from school to car work and things in between, there have been a couple where i just didn't want to make the trip. I love aikido and enjoy going to class, but sometimes the will to go just isn't there. On the nights i don't go i know i'm not going to be getting any practice in elsewhere to compensate for what i've missed as a matter of fact class is the only time i get any reall practice at all other than doing tegatana and pondering on things in my noggin. Dave Lowry once wrote to the effect that one who is serious should go to class no matter what because you never know if it will be there tomorrow. I happen to know how true this actually is through various experiences in the past but if a student misses class on purpose is he slacking off? I feel guilty (and more to follow as soon as i hit publish) because i'm not giving it a hundred percent. Anyhoo, those are my thoughts at the moment.

Morihei Ueshiba - The Founder of Aikido (complete) 1 of 5

Another cool thing i came across on YouTube. I posted this in reverse so it can be watched in order (atleast that's the plan, i dont know how it came out on my blog yet) i hope someone enjoys!

Morihei Ueshiba - The Founder of Aikido (complete) 2 of 5

Morihei Ueshiba - The Founder of Aikido (complete) 3 of 5

Morihei Ueshiba - The Founder of Aikido (complete) 4 of 5

Morihei Ueshiba - The Founder of Aikido 5 of 5

O-Sensei Morihei Ueshiba Interview

I came across this video a while back and now that i can actually get it to post i wanted to share it. Really shows some insight into the man he was.

Everybody has a story.

John recently started a blog and posted his "how i got into aikido" story. Then Pat laid out his epic over on his blog.

Guess i could try to follow suit.

A long, long time ago in a galaxy far far away.... (who didn't see that coming?)

I was but a mere 4 years old when i first got into martial arts. I was in a private daycare/kindergarten and Mrs. Elaine the owner and teacher one day presented us with the option of taking karate instead of a nap (with parent approval). With me it was a no-brainer. Not only did i get out of having to pretend to be asleep for over an hour but i got to learn how to fight like a superhero (i was 5!!). I enjoyed it and continued going untill my parents freaked out over a belt rank test at the main dojo. Part of the rank test involved all of us sitting in a dark room and defending from an attack. For some reason my mother and father just wern't keen on it and pulled me on the spot. I didn't take it well, especially having made it through the test and not getting scared in the dark (i was addicted to night lights at the time) but that's the way it goes. My interest never really went away, (i held onto the belts and gi for years) but for a long time i never got to go to another class on a regular basis. Until. I was going to Jr. High ( i think?) and i got invited to an American Kenpo class. The short version of the story is the teacher wasn't affiliated with Kenpo and wasn't even a black belt IN the style. The class broke up. It was sorta a blow, i wasn't far from sankyu and at the time i was disappointed that all i had worked towards was for naught (amazing to look back and see how different my opinion is now. on some stuff. yeah yeah i know what you're thinking John.)
After all that i went to Seibukan Shorin Ryu and fell in love with it. I even got John to come to class for a while but it wasn't his thing so he stopped coming. Biljac is an awesome teacher and i pretty much enjoy everything about the style but cost ended up being an issue. If aikido ceased to be i'd end up back in Seibukan. I constantly see Biljack Sensei and he's always wondering when i'm coming back. High school was a sprinkle of Seibukan, fencing, a small bit of kendo (that ended up mostly being an introduction of just how many times I can take a bokken to the ribs before my eyes leak water), some Shotokan with a substitute teacher (i wonder if John remembers that), a quick return to kenpo and a just as sudden departure, John and i trying to learn Aikikai Aikido from Kisshimaru's Aikido book, and other adventures. I was always looking for a sword fighting school to take up, that's sorta always been my thing but along the way i began to dig the ideas of aikido. I guess it finally came together for me when John and i made the 4 hour trek to the coast once to go to an aikido dojo there. John would have his aikido and i could go for iaido. Watching the class was fun but what really got me into it was seeing how their bokken and jodo training looked a lot like their regular aikido so it really piqued my interest. John ended up finding Pat Sensei's dojo and so we went there. I went for a while with John, we stopped going due to a deer demolishing his truck, a huge span of time later and then i started going back and for the most part have been going ever sense. Aikido is definitely a lot different that anything else i've taken but i can see myself taking it till i'm old, the only thing i guess that's "missing" is kenjitsu or kendo (if you prefer) of some kind. But who knows what'll happen in the future.

Messy and inchoherent but it may have gotten an idea across.

Just another step

Pat talked about a cool idea on how the side step (fall) is a basic idea of all the steps (falls) in tegatana. Side stepping is easy and pretty much everyone can do it with the "right" spacing, so if you do it diagonally you should have the right spacing, the only difference between that and the normal move is facing your feet worward. It's something else for me to try to remember as i practice on tegatana.

I was having a bit of trouble with the inside and outside ideas of kote gaeshi, my brain was moving a little slow for that so i sorta fumbled through it. We also did kote heneri, tenkai kote heneri, tenkai kote gaeshi, and shiho nage. Thanks to the internet for giving me a visual reference to go over.

It's all coming together.

At the moment my measuring stick for tegatana is rated on how many steps i make versus how many falls i make and lately it's about half and half, but i'm practicing on it. The main troubles that spring up is speed and that falling isn't 100% stuck in my head yet.

Tegatana spawned some exercises on speed and the size of a step. 3 or 4 small shuffle steps can cover distance much faster than a single lunging step forward. There's a shorter recovery time before the next fall and it can flow right into the next fall. Since a smaller step is faster Pat had us work on evasions with a smaller step, giving tori just a little bit more time to neutralize uke's attack. It was really cool to see just how it worked in nijusan and everywhere else in aikido for that matter. The smaller the action in aikido the more effective the end result.

Today was pretty cool and i think i did well. It must be the belt.

A neat thing to learn.

Pat showed us this cool litte manuver where you can flick an arm away with your fingertips like in tenkai kote gaeshi or shihonage. It's pretty cool that such a small thing can provide big results, i'm sure i could draw some sort of comparison with the rest of aikido with it but today you can build your own.

John's been telling me about some of the things that have been going on with his training down in florida. Neat stuff. He and bryce are fiddlin around with some of the things in hanasu like #1 where uke pushes down and it causes the fall forward step instead of stepping (which was something that had sorta snagged in my head recently). They're also doing some things with being attacked and different angles of attack and John says that's going pretty well.

I picked up Aikido and the Dynamic Sphere finally saturady. I own Secrets of the Samurai (the writer's other book) so i know i'm in for some extremely DRY reading but sheesh, it looks like it's going to be a slow going. Still a good book though. Some neat ideas.