Musings of a barefoot traveller

The dojo I train in will be holding an open house on Feb 21st. Finale is live blade cutting of bamboo mats. Should be exciting! http://gardenspringwind.wordpress.com/2009/01/28/aikido-and-iaido-open-house/

One of the things I love about aikido is that I can visit a dojo in whatever strange new city and practise there with little fuss. Well, I'm sure that works with other martial arts as well (challenging the seniors in a new dojo to a sparring session?), but I've always felt welcome and had a really good time in all of my visits. It's kind of my perk whenever I travel. Some may say that you can't gain much from only one or two visits, but I'm keeping O Sensei's advice in mind, to touch 10000 hands to get a feel of the technique, and besides, it's interesting to me to see how different instructors interpret the various techniques. And it's fun lah, I get antsy after no aikido for sometime anyway. So I have been kinda grumpy the past 2 days (for various reasons), and was contemplating not going for training and watching Wicked instead. The grumpiness was compounded by me waking up this morning with a head full of green snot, and having to blow copious amount...

Warning: This post is going to be pretty Aikido-intensive and technical. Read at your own risk! One of the highlights of coming to Berkeley for my exchange semester in Spring 1999 was the opportunity to train with Pietro Maida Sensei at the Ki No Kenyukai dojo . It says something about his teaching when his words still resonates so strongly with me even after 8 years. I get asked pretty often what the differences are between practitioners of various Aikido schools like Ki Society and Aikikai, and while officially, there are some broad strokes that led to the founder of that particular school breaking off and starting something on his/her own, in my humble half-baked potato opinion, most times you can't really tell, and it depends on a lot on the instructor of the dojo and what he/she wants to teach you. So managed to find out the new location of the dojo, thanked my lucky stars that there was public transportation there, and was surprised and very very happy that Sensei still reme...

Some videos of a recent demonstration on Feb 17th (yup CNY eve) by the dojo I'm currently training at- the Garden of the Spring Wind Dojo in Wilmington, NC. No aikido videos cos I was too busy demo-ing as well!

Happy happy Lunar New Year to one and all! Been busy with admin and chemical extraction the past couple of weeks, but hopefully will be able to upload some photos soon. V-day as expected, was pretty quiet...I went for Iaido class (got free training this month 'cos I organized a demo on campus for the International Fest), practised for the demos (there were 2 this week), and found a carnation on my car windshield, which scared the heck outta me initially as I thought it was in my car. Calmed down when I ascertained that it was really on the outside, clamped under the wiper, pheeew.. The Significant Other was busy working on his great conservation opus, so no videocall and suchlike, in fact, banged off a couple of article reviews after coming back from training. Met up with some other Malaysians and a whole bunch of Chinese nationals on Friday, when we had an early 'reunion dinner'. Lots and lots of handmade dumplings, and a whole smorsgabord of Asian food. Yums! Yesterday, g...

It appears that I'm going for my grading soon too! Keith and Debbie Sensei informed me yesterday that I should start preparing for my green belt test (too bad it's a colour I don't already have, hehe...maybe I could dye my blue belt with a yellow colour...). It's 10 kneeling techniques, and 10 standing ones. I get to choose my own, and no randori (phew). I'm not sure if the positive and negative versions of the same technique count as 2 out of the 10, so I'm taking suggestions on what I should do!

We've been doing a lot of randori during aikido these days, maybe cos some of us (in the dojo, not me lah) are going for grading soon. And it's not the one-on-one or two-on-one type, it's typically five or six attackers at a time! Can't really do much fancy stuff in this kind of situation. Keith Sensei says that we have to 'swim through' our attackers, blend in and flow with their direction, rather than block them, or stop them by trying to do some pre-determined technique. And of course, it's a lot harder than it sounds. My first instinct is still to try and intercept my attackers, rather than let them bring themselves past me. It's tiring and back-breaking for this number of people involved! In fact, I did a lot better when I was forced to evade attacks with one hand behind my back (and having both behind was pretty stressful, I can tell you). Is it something I do off the mat as well? Try to meet obstacles head-on rather than observe the flow of the si...

It had to happen sooner or later. After enduring a 23 hour flight from Singapore to the promised land of the United States, my jo was happy to finally come out of the bag and and be used for practise in various jo kata s. Oh the joy of being handled and swinging freely the last two Thursdays instead of the occasional weapon seminar. Last night, as Mike swung up to block my kesa strike (diagonal strike), I heard that unmistakable splintering sound as a small reddish projectile shot off into the distance. Well, on the bright side, I now have two fearsome, sharp and pointy weapons, plus, no-one was accidentally stabbed by any flying object. And with a bit of duct tape, I got myself a spare training jo for one person katas !