bokken sur la montagne

Todays morning class got off to a slightly late start. There was a seminar in Ottawa and apparently a lot of stuends were there. Claude was teaching at the seminar and another instructor was supposed to be there, but apparently there was some confusion and Claude arrived and taught the class before leaving for Ottawa. Perhaps this is why he was so energetic with us. Warmups included running, sideways running, crisscross running and burpees! Yes, burpees! Wow. I was already warn down after the warmups. (Admittedly, the lack of sleep wasn't helping.) The class started with bokken work and I was quickly corrected in not being committed enough. The yudansha was very admit that I strike with commitment such that if she didn't block I would make solid contact. Reminded me of my earlier weapons work, but we are a bit more form oriented in the class work at shin budo kai. The waza wasn't one I remembered, but it came to me reasonably easily. Then we went on to do kokyuho-nage derived techniques. I was pleased that I was able to bring one of the more complicated techniques back from my distant memory and help a yudansha who wasn't quite getting it. We ended again with jiyu-waza and a fully exhausted me.

Jiyu-waza on the mountain

So, a gluten for punishment and not one to pass up on a workout while on vacation, I was back to Aikido de la Montagne for a second day. This time it was the regular adult class taught directly by Claude. Claude is has very strong aikido and is a good instructor. I think I worked with him only once before in a seminar many years ago. The class had a full stretching, ki and ukemi warmup and then we practiced a large variety of techniques that were (mostly) centered around shiho-nage. Interestingly, Imaizumi sensei tends to organize around foot work whereas the aikikai tends to organize around a technique. The length of time spent on the techniques was a bit shorter than I'm used to (anywhere else, actually) but maybe that's just my miss-remembering things. The students were good and helpful for the most part. Major differences included most techniques being taught as breakfall techniques rather than rolls (thought people could and did roll if they couldn't breakfall). Also we did a hip throw which I hadn't done in probably three years and it showed. I barely got it right. Also, many of the approaches are subtly different: for example, the ryote-tori techniques were done from the fully grabbed position (uke behind nage with nage's hands in a handcuff like position) whereas we encourage never letting that static position exist at shin budo kai. Also, the terminology is completely different: the Aikikai uses amote and ura to describe techniques that enter in front of or behind the opponent, where as we specify the foot work and direction. The biggest difference was that every class ends with jiyu-waza. This is definitely not something I encountered at my previous Aikikai dojos. At the other dojos there was some jiwaza and ronduri but it was definitely not apart of every class. This jiwaza was more difficult than yesterdays because the attacks we'd studied were ones that I was not as comfortable with and the pace was higher. Still I think that this is a really, really good idea for improving your practice and I hope to somehow include more of it in my training. Now off to Jazz Fest!

Back to the old(er) school aikido

I returned to the aikido of Kanai Sensei via Claude Berthiaume Sensei at Aikido de la Montagne this afternoon. The class I took was the beginners class and it was very full. (We need to really work on bringing up beginner attendance at Shin Budo Kai...) We did a bunch of exercises and then techniques based on them including forward rolls and break-falls, Ikkyu, and kote-kaeshi from ryote-tori. It was very interesting to feel the differences in style, derived from between the Aikikai tradition and Kanai Sensei. The end of class included a bit of jiyu-waza/randori like practice. We used one simple forward roll technique in groups of three where two people were uke and the nage was continuously attacked. having not practiced like this at Shin Budo Kai in a while (and perhaps helped by the beer and late lunch) I was totally winded and warn out after a couple of rounds. A good days aikido.