The Training (and Posting) Continues!

I must be feeling inspired at the moment. I am churning out the posts!

After many years, I began teaching aikido again this week. I am teaching a 10 year old boy along with my daughter at my private dojo. It's great to be thinking about aikido techniques again. With this young fellow I have to teach dojo etiquette as well because he has never practiced any martial art before. It brings me back to my early aikido days. The first session went very well. My daughter loves the fact that she can be involved in an activity with her dad and the young boy is diligent and keen. As I took them through the most basic of aikido exercises, I can see already that the body mechanics I have learned in TSYR are already having an impact on my movement and how I teach movement to the students. As I journey through aikido with these young people, I suspect I will be able to piece together how I will apply my aikido with my new TSYR 'engine'. It will be interesting. 

I looked back at some of my old posts and came across this one:

Walking away from aikido

In this post from 2012 I say:

"As my young family gets older and if time allows, I may drift back into aikido training along side TSYR training once more. Time will tell."

Well, here I am in 2016 and I HAVE drifted back into aikido along side my TSYR training! My girls are growing up fast, my youngest is 5 and turns 6 in October. Things are certainly easier with two school children and a private dojo to train in. I also have a VERY understanding wife that knows how important budo is to me. 

TSYR training this week was once again, awesome!  On Thursday we worked through both sets of kumitanto kata. These sets we know well so it was all about refinement. 

On Saturday we spent a lot of time on nairiki no gyo and kunren then we got into kansetsu waza. Lots of fun. I am feeling really happy with my progress in these kata. The last few weeks I have felt that my training has been consistent and solid. Threadgill Sensei is out in September so I'm looking forward to seeing what he thinks of our progress at this stage. Bring it on!

Ritual and respect.

Budo is an odd beast at times. 

One area where this really shows is in reigi (manner, etiquette). One thing a western student will notice very quickly when entering a dojo is the amount of bowing that goes on. When I started aikido I understood that bowing had to do with respect and when bowing to another person it was explained to me that it was like a handshake. Both parties had made an agreement of respect towards one another. When we bow we are saying, "I respect you and I will look after you as we train."  

This worked for me (and still does). But of course we also bowed towards the picture of Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of aikido. To some this seems stranger still. Bowing to the a picture of a dead guy? What?  One woman who trained with us for a while came from a Christian background. She made peace with the idea of bowing to "false idols" while in the dojo. However, her husband discovered that this ritual was part of aikido practice and encouraged her to quit. It was unfortunate. 

So why do budo students often bow to pictures of people who founded the martial art they practice?

I follow Dan Djurdjevic's blog and his recent post answers this question. 

That debt we owe to our masters.

To sum up, he says that it is important to acknowledge your teachers and the knowledge they have given you. Even if you have gone separate ways, you are the martial artist you are now because of your past teachers, and their teachers before them.

In budo, one way past teachers are acknowledged is by having their picture on the shomen (front wall/place of respect). The students bow towards the shomen before and after training. In this way the past teachers continue to be remembered for their contribution to the martial art. This is certainly the case in the aikido, judo and karate dojo I have visited or trained in. 

Bowing is based on the Shinto belief system. In Japan people can be found bowing at shrines to show respect to the kami (spirits/gods) that reside there. 

Yukiyoshi Takamura (the founder of Takamura-ha Shindo Yoshin Ryu) was a man committed to Shinto ideals and customs. In fact it is considered very important to be familiar with Shinto to understand the mindset and training methodology behind TSYR. Takamura is quoted as saying,

"Acceptance or rejection of proper dojo etiquette can expose a student's dedication or shortcomings to a sensei. The student who refuses to embrace reigi is not suitable for continued training because he ultimately views his own opinions and desires as superior to the aims of the ryu."

So as you can see, he took this very seriously. 

This aspect of budo I believe can separate traditional martial arts from the more competitive versions out there. Consider karate, aikido and judo for a moment. Then compare mixed martial arts or kick boxing gyms. Obviously karate and judo have a competitive element to them but reigi is still practiced in these dojo as well. 

Some people might say the traditional martial arts allow an individual to develop a sense of humility due to the values of respect that are involved in practice. Whereas, the athletes of mma and boxing, although very proficient physically may not develop as much respect for others. In fact the intense competition of mma and boxing may develop people with very large egos. To be the very best, you have to think you are the very best, don't you?  

I would say that the environment of the traditional dojo can be both good and bad. I have seen and heard of examples in a traditional dojo where reigi is used to establish power by either an amoral teacher or senior students. Often passive aggression can be rife in some of these dojo. This is reigi gone bad.  It is tainted. Also students come to the dojo with their own values established by their up-bringing. Some students can learn from technically sound "bad people" without being corrupted. Of course, the reverse can occur. A teacher of high morals can attempt to teach and perhaps influence a student with a bad background, but might just end up giving that person more tools to cause harm with. 

When all is said and done, reigi requires sincerity. Hollow bows and over-the-top praise for your sempai or sensei looks and sounds nice but is merely acting. Truly respectful students show respect in subtle ways. Sure, they follow the rituals but they are done with intent. They will quietly carry out duties no one else can be bothered with. They will see that the dojo stays clean, they will help a junior when they are struggling and listen carefully to the advice given to them by their seniors. 

A student who is sincere in their reigi is open to what is being taught to them and may in time be transformed by their practice. A student that does reigi mere lip-service will not change their ways. 

My 10 cents.

Dean.

The next steps!

Training is going well. 

Good session on Thursday with kumitanto. Refining the techniques. Slice and dice!

Saturday was great with good numbers. A couple of members showed up that we hadn't seen on the mat for a while. Sensei took us through the nairiki no gyo then some kunren. After that it was into the katate set of the tachiai kansetsu waza. (Standing joint locking).

I really enjoy this set. It was the first set of unarmed kata I was introduced to when I first started TSYR. Externally they look a bit like aikido techniques such as ikkyo, nikyo and sankyo. However, as some of you may know, they are far more complicated than that. They are considered betsuden, which means they are applications of TSYR principles and are not part of the classical syllabus. My understanding is that Takamura Sensei added these kata in order to cater to the change of the times. They contain an assortment of strikes, different joint locks and take downs. In other words, lots of fun!

One of the guys I train with likes to increase the intensity and when we pair up we do a few slowly then get into it. Often this results in quick decisive movements that slams the other chap into the mats. I get a buzz off this kind of training because I can gauge my progress. If the elements of the technique are not internalised then things get messy pretty quick and the other guy lets me know about it. There is something exciting about executing a technique cleanly at speed.

We spent most of the session on these kata. In the last 5 or 10 minutes we looked at the tachiai tai nage (body throws). There are five and we do them most Saturdays so we know them well. Although there is always plenty to work on. I'm very happy with my progress in this area because my exposure to body throws was limited to koshi nage and seio nage in aikido and even then I did not execute them very well. I am tall and lean so you can imagine my difficulty in getting my hips low enough with correct technique to pull them off. Nowadays, I think I'm getting the hang of these throws.

So overall it was a great session.

On the aikido front, I caught up with my old teacher after 4 years!  He still trains in the same place at the same time so I popped in before training to chat with him. It was great to see him and the other seniors who are still training. I went to ask him about getting certification for my dan grade in aikido. Since I stopped training in aikido he had affiliated with a larger organisation. As I am starting to teach aikido again I thought it prudent to be under the umbrella of this organisation as well. I was asking for his endorsement. He was more than happy to do this. So the cogs are turning and in due time I will have certification of my grade through this organisation. I think it is important for my credibility when dealing with the public.

Next week I begin training a boy in aikido at my personal dojo and I am excited about delving back into my original martial art. I will head back to my original aikido dojo as well from time to time to knock off any 'rust' in my techniques as well. 

Exciting times ahead.

Teaching and Learning

I've had a good week of training and teaching. 

On Wednesday evening I lead the class through all four battojutsu kata at the Hamilton Dojo. We spent the whole session on just those four. I figured that when our sensei came back from the instructor's seminar, he would have lots of new information for us so let's nail our basics. 

Drawing the sword. 

Starting with the first of the kata, I asked everyone to work very slowly but smoothly. While we did this I looked for one or two points each person might need to fix or refine. Sometimes everyone had the same problem so I would stop everyone and just clarify a point. Once everyone had slowly teased out some problems then we would speed up the kata to see how things looked.

We did this for each kata. 

The great thing about teaching is that I learn as well. When I take the time to consider how to explain a concept or share an analogy to help someone through a problem, it clarifies the movements of the technique in my mind also. It can be challenging to come up with a way of describing an idea that the other person understands. Some of the body dynamics we deal with in TSYR are quite subtle and require minute changes in body position or muscle tension. It can be a matter of millimeters between correct and incorrect sometimes. So coming up with a good way of describing movement is very important. Despite only covering four kata, everyone said they enjoyed the training. 

The Saturday morning session was held at my dojo as only one person could make it. It is a long weekend so many people are out and about making the most of the extra day off work. After warming up and going through the Nairiki No Gyo, we decided to quickly work on one of the Idori Te Hodoki that the other guy had not practised for a long time. We then worked through all of the Katate set from the Tachiai Kansetsu Waza (Standing joint locking techniques). 

Rather than just a teacher-student dynamic, here we gave each other feedback as to when we felt our balance was taken and when we didn't. This way we could tweak our techniques as we went. It was a good session with both of us making some progress. It also solidified what we were doing correctly. 

Next we looked at the Tachiai Tai Nage (Body throws). I'm really enjoying these throws at the moment. I had not done much of these sorts of techniques in aikido so I always struggled a bit with them. However, in the recent months something has clicked and I am much more confident in my ability. Just as before, we talked to each other and gave honest feedback to help the other person improve. 

To finish the session off we went back to idori and worked on gaining the centre of the other person while they held both wrists. I find this training fascinating because something like this occurs in aikido training and I knew it as suwari waza kokyu ho. With my TSYR perspective on the exercise I see the value of it much more. 

So that's it. My sensei is back next week and I go back to being the student. I have fulfilled my duty to the dojo by maintaining a training regime while the teacher is away but it will be nice to go back to simply being one of the crowd again. 

Until next time...

Dean.