I managed to cobble together what I could from Monday’s session. I’m not very good with video editing, and its seems more than a little glitchy. I couldn’t get it to overlay my music like normal, so I let Youtube choose a track automatically, and I think it did rather well…… Enjoy
Monday Training – Shaun Hoddy Sensei
Last night, Genryukan Dojo had the pleasure of training with Shaun Hoddy Sensei (6th Dan ZETAR).
Shaun took the class through the following;
Randori No Kata;
Shomen ate,
Aigamae ate
Goshin Ho;
Jodan no kuzushi aigamae ushiro ate
Jodan no kuzushi gyakugamae ushiro ate
Gedan no kuzushi aigamae kotegaeshi
Gedan no kuzushi gyakugamae kotegaeshi
Koho no kuzushi ryote oshitaoshi
Koho no kuzushi ryote ushiro ate
Tanto Kakarigeiko & Hikitategeiko
Shaun also presented Jim with Sandan, and Lis with Shodan menjo certificates.
Photos from last night can be viewed in the our gallery
Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the session. Our many thanks go to Shaun for driving down from Essex to take the class.
Neil Saunders’ Books & DVD on sale
Genryukan are proud to be the UK’s official seller of Neil Saunders’ books on Tomiki Aikido.
1. Aikido – The Tomiki Way – £20 (signed by the author)
The larger of Neil’s books, with over 1100 photographs, covers the following subjects on Tomiki Aikido;
Introduction to and History of Aikido
Overview of Tomiki Aikido
Discipline & Etiquette
Ukemi
Basic Movements of Tomiki Aikido
Principles of Aikido
Randori No Kata & Randori No Kata Ura Waza
Koryu Dai Ichi
Koryu Dai Ni
Koryu Dai San
Koryu Dai Yon
Koryu Dai Go
Koryu Dai Roku
2. Tomiki Aikido – £12.50 (signed by the author)
Neil’s second book Tomiki Aikido, contains over 400 photographs, covering the following;
Tomiki Aikido
Basic Techniques
The Basic 15
Tanto Randori No Kata
Goshin Ho
3. Koryu Dai San DVD – £17.50 (signed by the author)
Neil’s DVD covers in detail all 50 techniques of the Koryu Dai San, also known as the Koryu Goshin No Kata. Also covered are sections on ukemi and weapons etiquette. As an additional bonus, the first 19 techniques of the Goshin Ho are included.
To order one of the books or the DVD, please use the “contact us” page on our website for a very fast response. We are happy to accept paypal payments.
Interesting Tomiki article from 1969
Tony Evangelou from London Aikido Dojo, very kindly uploaded an article originally published in Black Belt Magazine in 1969. Entitled “Maverick of the martial arts”, the article covers Tomiki Sensei’s approach to aikido, along with quite detailed mention of the techniques of the Randori no kata.
I enjoyed the reference to Tomiki practicing without any call to a metaphysical force, such as aikido’s “ki”.
Note the use of the aikijutsu terms ikkajo, sankajo and nage alongside the usual Tomiki nomenclature. Also the term shime-waza is used to refer to pinning.
Tomiki is also referred to as a “Judo and Karate instructor”. I don’t know if these are intentional or not, but did notice the obvious “tegata” and “akijutsu” spelling mistakes, so who knows.
Anyway the download is available at this link from London Aikido
“Hajime” style training
Last night at Genryukan dojo, we tried a new training method inspired by the Yoshinkan, which proved very popular with the students. If you have read Robert Twigger’s account of the Yoshinkan Senshusei course in his book Angry White Pyjamas, then you may recall the intense training they call “hajime” sessions. As you no doubt know hajime is the Japanese word for “begin”.
In Yoshinkan aikido, “hajime” sessions are generally where one technique is performed repeatedly, without a break for periods of up to an hour. Twigger’s book tells of participants passing out and vomiting with instructors sometimes dishing out punishments to trainees if they feel they are not pushing themselves enough, including rounds of push-ups, sit-ups and the notorious usagi tobi (bunny hops).
Now we don’t put our students through the intensity of the Senshusei training mentioned above, but we can take inspiration from the spirit demonstrated and hope to replicate a little of the ramped up intensity experienced in hajime sessions. At the very least we borrowed the name for our new training method, as the term is shouted over and over again throughout the exercise.
The thinking behind adoption of this training is “mushin” or “no mind”. The methodology, to increase the repetitive nature of the techniques whereby the students get into a rhythm, and stop worrying about the intricacies of the techniques themselves.
Students pair up, starting uke and tori roles are assigned, plus techniques to be worked on are established. On the shout of “hajime!”, the technique begins. At the precise moment the pair who are last to finish the technique return to their starting positions, the next “hajime” is called.
In a similar way to the military adopted beep fitness test, this means whoever is last, gets the smallest rest period between techniques. Kamae is alternated so every technique is trained on both sides. Then roles are swapped, and everything repeated and so on.
There is an aesthetically pleasing synchronicity to the hajime exercise, as students perform the techniques and this is a definite benefit for coaches as is it is easier to view what is happening, and students’ timing getting out of step for whatever reason is very obvious.
Last night we did a solid 15 minutes as a trial to start with, and it appeared to work exactly as intended. It is very easy to see who is thinking too hard, and do not remain relaxed throughout the exercise as they use up considerably more energy. For those students they will find the exercise will get much easier over time as they adapt and learn to relax.
On the whole I was extremely pleased with how it turned out, and even more so when students said afterwards “I like that, can we do more of that please?”
We will therefore investigate this further over the coming sessions…..
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