Doshu Seminar in Almere, Holland - Day 2

On the second day of the Doshu weekend there was one training in the morning and a number of demonstrations in the afternoon. Here's what happened:

The training in the morning was just as crowded and sweaty as those two on Saturday, and Ueshiba Sensei was teaching us techniques mostly from an attack from behind (ushiro waza). We had kokyuho, ikkyo, shihonage, iriminage, etc. My impression is now, at the time of writing this post, is that the two days seminar had the most perfect duration possible. It was enough to learn about the basics as Doshu teaches them, and it was just not too much so the crowded place did not make you too stressed.

I was delighted that all the moves Doshu taught at the seminar were the same as the ones my teachers have been teaching me/us since the time I started practicing aikido. His way of teaching was also a source/cause of slight annoyance from my side, as I noticed that some of my training partners - either consciously or unconsciously - did not follow Sensei's moves. Ueshiba sensei was clear about a couple of positions, he emphasized that he expected us to step in a certain way when doing ushiro waza yet some people consistently stepped one step less or started moving to opposite direction to what had been just shown. I'm not saying their approaches were bad, and they were certainly moves they had embodied very well, yet I thought I did my best to follow what the Doshu demonstrated and they did not seem to. There were people I helped out when they did not know how to move, but since there were an awful lot of people senior to me and I tried to train with senior people I did not feel I had the right to correct them. On the other hand, when practicing with a couple of people senior to me I was very happy to see that they were ready to help me. I just needed to ask them to correct me (I usually did this after a couple of rounds when I developed the feeling that I could trust their knowledge), and they seemed to be ready to help me, and they were happy when I understood something and started doing things the way they told me. There was especially one person who was really happy when my shihonage improved after his giving me some concrete instructions about some details (I was focusing too much on twisting the wrist). That was definitely a moment I was really happy about. Both of us had better feelings after training together than before (I hope).

I tried to improve my tactics to get closer to the demo spot, and on one occasion, I was lucky enough to sit in the first row so I could see everything, especially foot movements of the Doshu. He showed ushiro ryokatadori jujigarami (or jujigarame, I'm not sure; attack comes from behind, uke grabs gi at shoulders, tori grabs their hands, crosses them and throws them using this cross-armed position). I memorised foot positions and steps and - more importantly as it turns out - I memorised which hands should grab which hands. This was a version I don't remember practicing before so knowing that my left hand grabs uke's hand grabbing my left shoulder and right grabs at the right turned out to be a very important thing. There was no space where I was to finish the throw properly but at least me and my partner could get to a position where it was just a yes/no decision whether we stop or throw the other.

We finished the training with suwari waza ryotedori kokyuho, a seated technique focusing on breath-power (kokyuho, as Sensei often mentioned during the seminar). Then we finished the training, did the usual bows, and applauded Sensei as he left the room. He seemed to enjoy this and he walked in front of us smiling. Then we got changed and went to the other big room where the demos would took place, we quickly reserved some good seats and I set up my tripod to record the demos.

There were 10 different organisations demonstrating. The eleventh, final demo was by the Doshu and his two ukes. There were demos I liked a lot, there were some whose styles were not so close to me. There were kids demos, demos with only two people on the mats, demos with a lot of people on the mat (around 20 or more). There were demos with and without weapons. There was also a demo with a person in a wheelchair which was quite impressive I think (I will talk about it in a separate post and I will upload the corresponding demo soon).