National Aikido Convention

Today at the Japan Martial Arts Stadium, the 2014 National Aikido Convention was held. I went with four other members from the Tsukuba University Aikido Club. Being a first year, I was involved backstage in directing the flow of people. 

Here are some pictures from the day :)

The sign says "54th National Student Aikido Convention".

Below is two senpai's from Tsukuba university represent.

We received a bento and a bottle of tea as a sign of thanks for helping out on the day. I accidentally ate one onigiri before remembering to take a photo...

View from backstage

A demonstration by the current successor and guardian of the Aikido technique and son of the Aikido master.

Aikido checkpoint 1: clear

Two weeks ago, I took my first aikido grading test. Last Thursday, I got my certificate of acknowledgement.

Looking back, I guess I've made quite a lot of progress. I still remember practising safely falling in April, and struggling with forward rolls in May. Half a year later, I'm still far from polished but the Aikido federation has acknowledged my grasp of the basics. 

Aikido grading is split into two levels, the lower "kyu" grading (級) and the higher "dan" grading (段). The "kyu" level is split further into five tiers, with 5 being the lowest and 1 being the highest. The "dan" numbering is reversed, with 1 being the lowest. To obtain first dan, you need to not only be proficient in all the skills required for first kyu, but also demonstrate proficiency in teaching them to others. From there on, it's a matter of refinement. The grand master and founder of Aikido, Morihei Ueshiba, was regarded as eighth dan.

The expectations for fifth kyu, which I obtained, however, are not very high. The four techniques regarded as the foundations upon which many other are grounded are assessed, and we are to be able to execute the relevant technique upon request. Upon popular demand, I recorded a video of me doing three of those techniques. Special mention goes to my friend in the video who took the grading test at the same time as me.

Clearly we are far from perfect. This is just the tip of the iceberg - looking forward to progressing from here!

Summer Vacation Aikido Club Retreat

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 :)

And because we all love Hollywood, here's the aikido master who brought Aikido into the limelight - Steven Seagal.

Addressing my first Japanese letter

Yesterday, I addressed my first envelope in Japanese. These envelopes contain invitation letters to Aikido practitioners from dojos affiliated with the one at TUFS. They are for the upcoming TUFS Aikido club camp. For privacy reasons, I photographed only the back of the envelopes.

 

It was indeed an important life lesson in living in Japan. Making mistakes is a learning process, and in the process of addressing my first Japanese letter, I indeed made quite a few errors. These included writing the name off centre, writing names too small or too big, irregular spacing between letters, and of course, incorrectly writing names (or addresses). In Australia, if I made an error whilst writing the address, I would probably either cross it out or white it out and correct the error. However in Japan, by any standards, that is not acceptable. If you sent a letter with corrections in the address or the name of the recipient, that is considerably rude and disrespectful. The point of writing a letter is to convey to the recipient that they are valued, and it defeats the purpose if the addressing is sloppy. Of course, in Australia, such meanings also exist, but definitely not to such an extent. This experience gave me further insight into the high standards expected of all citizens in Japan. It appears every citizen carries out their duty in upholding that expectation, and in my case, teaches ignorant foreigners how to do so as well.