Notes of a training camp - Day 1

Many of us from the dojo attended a one week training camp in Hungary. This camp is organised by the Aikido Foundation (Hungary) every summer and the trainings are held by Laszlo Elsner 5th dan master. With this post, I start publishing my personal notes which I either wrote in the evenings of  training days or a little bit later, using my evening notes. Here's what I wrote on day one.

The first day of the training camp

Today we had one training in the afternoon from 6 to around 8. This was the first day of the camp which usually starts with moving the mats from a van into the dojo (sports hall of the University of Pannonia). After putting the mats in place the first training of the camp started and it was lead by Laszlo Elsner 5th dan Aikikai.

Setting up the scene

This training was a really special one for me as I had never taken ukemi from sensei in front of 80-90 people. I had taken a couple of ukemis before but that was only when he came to us to correct something and to show us some movement (i.e. it was in front of my current partner, not a 80 strong audience). I think this was because Karesz told him that me and Chris would go for our 1st kyu at the end of the camp. I got really tired by the end of the training but I learned a lot by being called out several times. The others told me at the end of the day this wasn't the end of the week for me, I should expect such calls throughout the week as sensei wants to make sure I am worthy of a 1st kyu exam. I'll see but I'm looking forward to it. As sensei said to someone during the class: "There is more space here to do at least two more mae ukemis! Don't tell me at the end of the camp that you paid the camp fee but you didn't practice enough (smiles)". This is how I see my situation: I paid the camp fee and, on the first day, I received the most for it. I'm very happy about it.

Elsner sensei

The training was about basic aikido training principles. We started with the base steps. Quite unexpectedly for me, the names of the steps and the number of distinctly identified steps have increased since I last attended sensei's camp. We had two kinds of base sliding steps: okuri ashi and tsugi ashi; we used to have only tsugi ashi and it was performed as the new okuri ashi but it's the movement that matters more not how you call it. I guess Connor will have a say about these steps in one of our next instuctional videos which we are planning to record on Wednesday or Thursday (depending on the weather).
We also had steps formerly named ayumi ashi, they are now called irimi. Sensei said many of these steps are called differently at different dojos and places but it is the principle that matters not how you call them. There were a lot of ukemis practiced, forward and backward as well. During the rest of the training, we practiced tegatana, the guard position and various irimi point techniques, all the very basics which are still hard to do properly. We learned the differences between irimi, tenkan and their versions: soto irimi, soto tenkan, uchi irimi, uchi tenkan.

Legs up, it's an irimi point!

On Tuesday's two sessions, we are supposed to continue with these basics and we will gradually increase the difficulty level of techniques and I guess we will practice various attacks as well. More about these in my next post, after these two sessions.