Last
weekend, the TUFS aikido club went to Niigata Prefecture for a club retreat.
The full duration of the camp was Friday to Tuesday, since university students
are still on holidays, and will be until the beginning of October. However,
since the Japanese language centre where we are being educated runs on a
different schedule, our lessons began start of last week, so us exchange
students could only attend the camp over the weekend. Even so, I had a great
time developing my aikido, and developing relationships with the other members
of the aikido club.
Each day
we had a training session in the morning and one in the afternoon, both of two
hours duration. Not only students from the TUFS aikido club attended this camp
- aikido members affiliated with the university but who attend either the NHK
aikido club or the Aikido International Headquarters dojo also came to train
with us. In total, there were about 20 people in attendance during the weekend. As a result, I had the opportunity to practice with a variety of
styles and learn to adapt to different personalities, not just rehash rote
learned sequences. As a result of the camp, I feel that performing each
technique has become more natural, and consequently more effective. One of the
important lessons our aikido sensei taught us was to be responsive to the
signals that our opponent is sending, most of which they are performing
subconsciously. By tuning ourselves with our opponents' movements, we can
literally effortlessly bring them under physical submission. Of course, this
theory will take many years of practice to refine.
I was too busy practising aikido to take photos, hehe. But instead, here's some footage of aikido taken at the university's martial arts exhibit at the beginning of the school year. This demonstration, performed by members of the TUFS aikido club, was to promote the club and encourage new members to join, so I think it's ok to help them publicise it. If you ever come to TUFS, consider trying out Aikido for yourself :)
I was too busy practising aikido to take photos, hehe. But instead, here's some footage of aikido taken at the university's martial arts exhibit at the beginning of the school year. This demonstration, performed by members of the TUFS aikido club, was to promote the club and encourage new members to join, so I think it's ok to help them publicise it. If you ever come to TUFS, consider trying out Aikido for yourself :)
And
because we all love Hollywood, here's the aikido master who brought Aikido
into the limelight - Steven Seagal.
you have to record yourself sometime :P
ReplyDeleteIn time, Darren ;) Thanks for your support.
ReplyDelete