Training Summary
After a strong start to the year unfortunately I couldn’t train as much as I’d have liked in the second half of the year, training only 114 hours.

I finished the year with 250.5 hours, having taken 199 lessons on 172 days. Coincidentally this is the same number of days as I trained in 2010, however I trained more hours, an average of 20.9 hours per month compared to 19.5 hours per month in 2010. Not bad considering I “lost” 2 weeks training due to the Great East Japan Earthquake, and another week to vacation at the end of the year.
Overall I’m pleased, but still hoping to train more next year.

Teachers for 2011

Over the course of the year I attended classes by 21 different teachers, although the vast majority of my training was in classes by Kobayashi Sensei, Katsurada Sensei, and Suzuki Toshio Sensei.

Highlights for the second half of the year

• Taking ukemi for a Obara san’s Shodan Test in July. I was quite tired afterwards. I really don’t know how Sonobe San (my uke for my test) managed to take ukemi for 3 people in a row!
• Taking lots of ukemi for my teachers in Advanced Gakko (Kobayashi Sensei and Katsurada Sensei).
• Last but not least, continuing to be called up by Kobayashi Sensei in ippan class (Hombu 3rd floor). I think he called my up a total of about 5 or 6 times. Each time I was surprised, there are so many people in the class that take better ukemi than me.

Aikido Highlights for 2011

The highlight was obviously my shodan test in February.

Following that I was lucky to be able to take lots of ukemi for my Teachers (including ippan class at Hombu!) as well as take ukemi for 2-and-a-bit shodan tests.

Aikido Goals for 2012

My main focus for 2012 is to improve my ukemi. I really need to work on my stretching and improve my flexibility. My aim is to train 180 days in 2012, although I know this will be tough to reach.

Training Summary

I trained a total of 136.5 hours in the first 6 months of 2011, a nice improvement over the 102 hours in same period in 2010. I would have liked to train more, but I did manage to train regularly, making it to the dojo 3 or 4 days every week, except for the 3 weeks I was away.

Training hours by month (2010/2011).

Cummulative Training Hours (2010/2011).

Shodan test
I began the year training 5 or 6 days a week, in preparation for my shodan (black belt) test. I received my Shodan certificate in late February.

I passed my shodan test!

All shaken up
A few weeks later, on 11th March, life in Japan became a whole lot different, due to the massive Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. The earthquake itself was quite scary, I was on the 29th floor at work and the building swayed and creaked a lot, but thankfully the damage in Tokyo was minimal (unlike the devastation up north). I went to aikido training as normal the morning following the earthquake, there were only 7 students in beginners class.

More scary was the news of the damage to the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant, and then the completely empty shelves at the supermarket.

No food left at the convenience store.

A few days later I made the decision to take an unplanned 2 week vacation and head down to Kyoto, unsure if I’d ever return. Thankfully disaster was averted, and life in Tokyo had mostly returned to normal after the 2 weeks, apart from power cuts which luckily didn’t affect me too much. The two weeks off had given me a chance to recover from the harder training I’d been doing before my black belt test, and I was eager to get back into training.

The new normal
Training at Hombu Dojo soon returned to normal. I have been able to train 3 or 4 days a week since the beginning of April, and even though I’d like to train more this has been my limit, factoring in work and injuries. Getting used to wearing a hakama was difficult, but I mostly don’t notice it any more. I’m enrolled in my second semester of “Advanced Gakko”, and I get called up to take ukemi quite a lot during class, which I enjoy immensely. The Shinjuku Sports Center Dojo reopened again in June, after being closed as part of the power saving measures, and it’s great to train there again.

Aikido highlights

• My shodan test – undoubtedly the highlight of my year.
• Taking lots of ukemi for my teachers in Advanced Gakko (Kobayashi Sensei and Katsurada Sensei).
• Taking part in the 49th All Japan Aikido Demonstration as part of the Advanced Gakko class.
• Being called up as uke twice in ippan class (3rd floor at Hombu), the first time by Toriumi Sensei, the second time by Kobayashi Sensei. I was very surprised and honored both times.
• Taking ukemi for a shodan test at the Shinjuku Sports Center dojo in June. 石井さん、昇段おめでとうございます～！

Aikido is still a regular part of my life, and for that I’m grateful.

Poster for 49th All Japan Aikido Demonstration.

This year I took lots of photos. Here are a couple of photos of my teachers for Advanced Academy:

Kobayashi Sensei in the 49th All Japan Aikido Demonstration.

Katsurada Sensei in the 49th All Japan Aikido Demonstration.

Advanced Academy Demonstration

This was my third time taking part of the demonstration (last year I was in the demo for the Intermediate Academy and in 2009 it was for the beginners academy). This years theme was yokomenuchi.

I’ve uploaded a video of the demonstration to my youtube channel.

It’s strange seeing myself doing techniques and taking ukemi, but a great opportunity for me to learn what I’m doing wrong and hopefully improve both. There is another video from another angle uploaded by yoshi23yama.

My partner for the demonstration was Nakano San, and as usual it was a great pleasure to train with her. 中野さん、ありがとうございました！また宜しくお願いします！

With my partner for the demo, Nakano san.

I was also very lucky that my friends took some photos of our demonstration, and they turned out great. 園部さん、納土さん、写真と動画を撮ってくれてありがとうございました！

Me doing yokomenuchi shihonage.

Finally, I also updated last years post with a video of the Intermediate Academy Demonstration, 2010.

Wearing my black belt and hakama to training for the first time.

Preparation
As I wrote in my previous post What does shodan mean?, I had some reservations about taking the test, but I’d been training 4-5 times a week since August last year as preparation anyway. For the month before the test I increased that to 5-6 days a week. The official requirement for the shodan test is 70 days training after 1st Kyuu, and by the time my test arrived I had reached 106 days. I would have liked it to be higher.

My only experience with shodan tests before my own was watching the December 2010 grading at Hombu Dojo. In my previous Kyuu tests for the Aikido Beginners Gakko and Aikido Intermediate Gakko we had been given a list of the techniques we were required to perform, but for the shodan test we were not given a list. Instead we were expected to do be able to do any technique that the teacher called out. Like the “regular” test ours would be in two parts. In the first part the teacher calls a technique, for which we are expected to perform omote (left and right), and then ura (left and right), repeating until the next technique is called or we are told to stop. The second part is jiyuwaza (自由技 – free technique), where the teacher calls one of the possible “attacks” (片手取り、両手取り、諸手取り、正面打ち、横面打ち、後ろ両手取り) and you are expected to perform a variety of techniques, preferably without repetition.

I didn’t really have a good strategy for passing the first part of the test. I probably should have been diligently working my way through the Aikikai text book to make sure I studied all the techniques, but for some reason I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. My approach, which I knew had the potential to backfire badly, was just to train as much as possible, and if I didn’t know the techniques by the time I took the test then I would fail!

On the other hand, I did end up with a clear strategy for my jiyuwaza, although it took a while to develop. Following advice I’d received when taking my 2nd Kyuu test about a year earlier, I started by making a list of the techniques I would do. Initially I just listed the techniques I knew for each attack. The lists were quite different depending on the attack, and most of them only had about 4 or 5 techniques (I’d covered the “grasping” attacks for my 2nd Kyuu and 1st Kyuu tests so they were a bit longer). The first few times I practiced jiyuwaza for the “strike” attacks were a disaster. I could only recall a handfull of techniques, so I’d freeze up quite often while thinking of the next technique I could do. After a few attempts I got slightly better, but still far short of what I would call acceptable. This was obviously my weak-point, and I knew I had to do a lot of work before the test.

I started fleshing out the lists with techniques as I covered them during classes, and at the same time tried to make the lists more consistent. I found that I had often grouped techniques together in pairs, and extending this idea made the lists easier to remember. Even though it would make it harder, I decided that I wanted to do each basic technique only once (no variations), hoping that I could show more diverse techniques. Even with only a week to go before my test I was still quite unhappy with my jiyuwaza, I could only seem to remember the first half a dozen techniques from my list. As the test approached I spent more time doing “image training” – running through the list in my head.

Both the ‘advanced gakko’ teachers had a huge influence on my approach to jiyuwaza. I was deeply inspired by the videos of Kobayashi Sensei’s embu demonstrations, which I’ve watched many many times, so much so that I decided to start with the same sequence of techniques that he often uses in demonstrations. I was also strongly influenced by Katsurada Sensei’s approach to jiyuwaza, which he demonstrated to us in the weeks before the test – no hanging back waiting for uke to come, be “assertive” (for example, for katatedori clearly “offer” your hand to be taken by the uke).

With my teachers Katsurada Shihan (left) and Kobayashi Shihan (right) after the test.

Special thanks
Training in aikido is not really possible without a partner, and I owe thanks to all the people I trained with leading up to the test, but two people in particular.

The first is Sonobe san, who very kindly agreed to be my uke for the test, even though it meant he would be uke for three people. Sonobe san’s ukemi is outstanding, and training with him is a real pleasure. Sonobe san also made a special effort to train with me in some of the 3rd floor classes Hombu Dojo in the weeks leading up to the test.　園部さん、本当にありがとうございました。

The second person is Nakano san, who also took the shodan test. Sonobe san was her uke as well, so by asking Sonobe san to be my uke I took away some of her practice time with him. In addition, I was very fortunate to train with Nakano san a lot in the weeks leading up to the test, especially practicing our jiyuwaza. I’ve been training with Nakano san since beginners gakko, and her ukemi is superb. She has clearly been the outstanding student in the gakko classes, and it’s always great to train with her. 中野さん、本当にありがとうございました。

With Nakano san (left) and Sonobe san..

The day of the test
I arrived at the dojo about an hour before the class was scheduled. I was the first of my classmates to arrive, which surprised me. It was quite cold, about 12 or 13 degrees I think, so I started warming up straight away. It was actually nice to be there alone, although I was a little too tense to really enjoy it much. A couple of the other students taking the test were the next to arrive about 15 minutes later, and we discussed how we were feeling about the test. Other students gradually filtered in and people started practicing, the dojo returned to it’s normal lively state.

The teachers arrived at 6:30pm (the normal class start time), and we were informed we would have about 25 minutes of “free practice”, and the test would start at 7pm. The test would be taken in 3 groups of 3 people (jiyu waza would be performed individually). When the groups were announced I was the first name called. I was actually quite happy about that, mainly because I wouldn’t have to sit in seiza for 20 or 40 minutes before taking my test! I took one last opportunity to go through some techniques with Nakano san.

The test part 1 – techniques
Just before 7pm we were instructed to move to the rear of the class. With little-a-do, myself and the other 2 people in the first group were called to take out places out front, closely followed by our ukes. After bowing to shomen and our uke it was straight into the first part of the test.

I remember parts of the test quite clearly, but overall it’s a bit like trying to remember a dream. Mostly I remember my mistakes, of which there were quite a few, but thankfully mostly minor. My worst mistake by far was when I did only omote for yokomenuchi shihonage. I can very clearly remember Katsurada Sensei’s voice; “パーカーさん、裏もやってください！” (Mr. Parker, please do ura as well). I felt so embarrassed (恥ずかしかった！), but quickly changed to ura. Thankfully I had no time to dwell on it as we quickly moved on to the next technique.

The first part of the test went for approximately 10-12 minutes. The following is a rough list of the techniques from my test, as best as I could recall about 6 hours after the test (I couldn’t sleep). There may be some techniques missing, but I believe it’s fairly accurate (I’m not so sure about the order though).

Note: The second and third group of students performed roughly the same set of techniques, however there were some small differences. They were both were asked to perform ryotedori ikkyoinstead of morotedori ikkyo, and at least one group was asked to perform yokomen uchi ikkyo.

Looking back at it, the list of techniques was roughly what I expected (ikkyo through yonkyo in both suwariwaza and tachiwaza, gokyo, hanmihandachi, and a few others taken from a mix), and concentrated on the kihon (基本 – foundation) waza. I expected more ushiro ryote techniques, given how much time we’d spent on them during the gakko classes, but I was thankful that there weren’t many!

The test part 2 – jiyuwaza
Following on from the main technique part, it was time for jiyuwaza, and I was first-up.

Katsurada Sensei called shomen uchi (正面打ち), which was one of the attacks I’d concentrated on the most. I managed to remember the order of my techniques, and I tried my best to be assertive. I messed up the start of my kotegaeshi, entering too deeply and without a proper tenkan, so I had to adjust mid-technique which probably looked terrible, but the other techniques went smoother. To my surprise Sensei called 止め (yame – stop) after just 6 techniques.

Next up Sensei called katatedori (片手取り), which was the other attack I’d concentrated on. It really seemed like my lucky day. Once again I tried to be assertive, almost to the point where it felt like I was chasing my uke around the room! This time I got through about 10 techniques before the call to stop.

Then I was told to take my place with the other students and the next candidate was called to perform jiyuwaza. I couldn’t believe it my test was over!

The other candidates
After my test I got to watch the jiyuwaza from the other 2 people in my group, and then the entire test for the remaining 2 groups (6 people). It was great to watch, and everyone seemed to do quite well, especially for the first part of the test.

With five of the other shodan candidates (25th Feb, after graduation).

Special mention goes to Takeshita san, who had suffered an injury to her ribs about 4 weeks before the test, and was unable to train for most of the lead-up. Despite the fact that she was still in pain during the test she battled throug, and did a great job. Very inspiring.

Takeshita san with her uke Watanabe san.

The jiyuwaza seemed like the hardest part of the test for everyone, I wasn’t alone there. Katsurada Sensei asked the second group to perform yokomen uchi jiyuwaza instead of shomen uchi jiyuwaza. Nakano san, who was first up in that group, handled it quite well given how unexpected it must have been. One candidate in the last group was so nervous that even though the first attack was shomen uchi he kept lining up in gyaku hanmi, which obviously made the techniques difficult, and you could see him trying to figure out what was going wrong. After a short time Katsurada Sensei told him to stop, saying to move on to katatedori, and that he would come back to shomen uchi after that. Thankfully the katatedori jiyuwaza went okay for the candidate, he calmed down a bit and his second attempt at shomen uchi jiyuwaza, this time from ai hanmi, was much better.

The ukes all did a great job. Sonobe san was amazing. It must have been tough taking ukemi for 3 shodan tests in a row but yet he made it look easy.

After the test
We were asked to take our places at the rear of the dojo, and the teachers excused themselves from the room. After a few minutes they returned, and announced that all 9 candidates had passed the test!

With my uke for the test, Sonobe san.

That evening was also the dinner for the end of the Advanced Gakko semester, so we left the dojo quite quickly and headed to the restaurant. It was a great night, lots of fun.

Celebration drinks.

Black belts

We received our black belts the following week, as a gift from the other students in the Advanced Gakko.

With Nakano san after receiving our black belts.

Graduation
The graduation ceremony for the ‘advanced gakko’ was held one week later, we received our Shodan certificates from the Doshu Ueshiba Moriteru and officially became yudansha (有段者 – a person with a dan grade).

Class graduation photo with the Doshu.

Postcript

Reaching black-belt is truly just a beginning in aikido. I know I have a long long way to go, but it’s nice to feel like I have at least made a start. Now back to training…

Note: I originally posted this on my page on Aikido Waza Journal on January 15, 2011. But it was such a personal post that I decided to move it here.

What’s the issue?

There is nothing more that I would like than to be able to receive my black belt. Aikido has become a big part of my life, and I intend to keep doing it for many years to come. But honestly I’m not sure I deserve the right to call myself a black belt yet.

Shodan = Black belt

For me, the words “black belt” conjure up the image of an “old master”. I think this probably stems from my childhood. I didn’t do martial arts as a kid, but I remember wanting to try karate after watching The Karate Kid (I was 10 when it came out). My image of a black belt is basically Mr Miyagi!

Pat Morita as Mr Miyagi in Karate Kid (photo courtesy of wikipedia)

I have since come to know that in aikido, and in many martial arts, there are many “levels” of black belt (typically from 1 up to 9). Shodan (初段) is literally the “first grade”, and thus you are very far indeed from being a master. In fact, I’ve heard it said that once you reach “shodan” you are finally ready to start learning! But where do you draw the line?

What level am I?

It’s hard to classify a level of aikido, but I would describe it as follows.

I started aikido in Tokyo in August 2008, so February will be 2 1/2 years. Over that time I guess I have averaged about 3.5 hours per week (I averaged just under 4.5 hours per week in 2010, but I was training more than when I started). So that would put me at roughly 400 – 450 hours of class time. Is that really enough to qualify for shodan? I seems quite low to me. It certainly depends on the individual, and while I’m not too old (36) and in reasonable shape, and I’d love to think that I’m better than average for my amount of experience, it’s safe to say I’m not especially talented at aikido.

I think I have a reasonable “knowledge” of the basic techniques required for shodan – I can perform the techniques when the teacher calls the name, and believe I generally have the techniques “correct” (i.e. I don’t move the wrong foot, or in the wrong direction). In fact I know multiple variations for many of the basic techniques (e.g. I can demonstrate at least 3 variations of katatedori shihonage omote, based on different teacher’s styles). There are definitely techniques I’m not good at, and most weeks I still see techniques that are new to me, but those are almost always advanced techniques outside the scope of the shodan test.

However, is that the only measure of shodan – whether you know the techniques? I don’t think it is, or at least, I don’t think that it should be.

What about jiyuwaza, which is also on the grading test? I know I need to work on this a bit. I’m at the stage now where I no longer freeze up, but the number of techniques I know is not large and sometimes I can’t recall all of them mid-practice, so I tend to repeat techniques. This is natural I think, and something that should improve with more practice.

Are my techniques any good? That’s much harder to gauge. I find a massive difference in whether my technique feels good (at least to me) or not good, depending on my uke. In particular I often struggle when working with beginners (e.g. 4th or 5th kyuu), and with more advanced students. A lot of the time with beginners I feel like my technique is not causing them to move in the correct way, so I feel like I have to “force” them, which I don’t think I should really have to do (and am not willing to do because I don’t want to cause any injury). I know they don’t know the techniques, but IMO there’s something wrong with my technique if they aren’t “compelled” to move correctly. With advanced students or teachers I get the feeling that my technique is only “working” because my uke is co-operating with me. Again, I understand that this is part of aikido, and there has to be a certain amount of cooperation, but when I am faced with a “strong” uke my technique often breaks down.

Overall I would say that while I “know” most of the techniques required for shodan, I often get the feeling there is something “not-quite-right” about my technique, and usually I’m not sure what I should do to fix it. There are certainly times when this is due to my timing and/or ma-ai being slightly off. But I suspect the real issue is that I don’t really know how to break uke’s balance (especially with a really hard or soft uke). More specifically, I think it’s because I often can’t tell whether I’ve broken their balance or not, let alone feel the point at which it breaks, so it’s hard for me to learn to consistently break the uke’s balance.

The positive side of this is that I’m mostly past the point of simply memorizing the techniques (i.e. the sequence of movements), now I have to learn how to do the techniques well, and to some extent learn how to feel the techniques, as well as trying to understand the principles behind the techniques. I still have a long way to go, but I can at least see some of the progress I’ve made.

Is that acceptable for someone who is shodan? I don’t know.

What standard of shodan?

Each aikido organisation must define it’s standard for grades, including Shodan. But there is quite a bit of variation, even within Aikikai. Their are some interesting issues with testing for Shodan at Hombu Dojo.

Firstly, it is very possible that the teacher grading the test is not familiar at all with the student taking the test. There are about 20 Shihan that teach regularly at Hombu, but most only take one or two classes a week. Even if you happen to regularly attend the classes of the particular teacher grading your exam (usually the senior teachers), most classes are attended by so many students that it’s not really possible for teachers to get to know individual students very well. Thankfully I have been lucky to take the “aikido gakko”, which have smaller classes, so my school teachers know me and are well-placed to judge my ability.

Ukemi is not an actual requirement of the test. I happen to think that ukemi is an extremely important part of aikido. Shodan candidates at Hombu will often be called up as uke for students taking kyuu tests on the same day, but it’s possible some students aren’t called up, so some students will pass the shodan test without demonstrating any ukemi skills at all (remember the teacher may not have ever seen the student). Again, thankfully my teachers are well-placed to judge my ability to take ukemi.

The shodan test at Hombu is generally only around 15 minutes, which isn’t very demanding physically.

There’s the stuff that’s just not taught at Hombu. There’s randori – this is only introduced at the 2nd dan level, but even then it’s only 2 people. I have zero experience with randori. There is also weapons techniques, or rather the complete lack of them. In some schools there is just as much to learn for the weapons techniques as the unarmed techniques (e.g. Iwama style). And tobiukemi (breakfalls) aren’t taught at Hombu at all, so most students won’t be able to do those. What happens when a black-belt from Hombu Dojo shows up at another dojo or seminar, and can’t do any weapons techniques, can’t do randori, and can’t take breakfalls? While I currently have no means of learning weapons or randori, I have actually started training one night a week at another of the aikikai dojos in the hope of learning tobiukemi (with some limited progress so far).

Finally, there just the number of days required between gradings. At Hombu it’s 70 days training since 1st Kyuu.  At many dojos the requirement is higher, and in some there is even a minimum time-period, often 1 year. By the date of my potential test I expect to have trained about 100 days. I would have liked it to be more though.

It sounds almost sacrilegious, but I believe black-belt test at Hombu is actually easier to pass than at a many other dojos. However I suppose I shouldn’t really be worried about that so much. I’m training at Hombu Dojo so I should pay attention to the requirements that Hombu Dojo have set.

An unexpected opportunity

When signing up for the “advanced gakko” I had assumed I would only be able to take the test after a full year, not a single semester. Six months between getting 1st Kyuu and shodan just seems too fast (even training 4 or 5 days a week), and had figured it would be about a year before I could take the test.

However towards the end of last year there was talk amongst the students of my gakko class about who would sit for the shodan test. A couple of my sempai started encouraging me, saying that if I had the opportunity to take the test I should. Somewhere along the line I started seriously considering it, and it seems so did quite a few of the other students taking the class for the first time.

To be honest I still think I would be much better off with another 3 to 6 months of training before taking the test. What’s the hurry after all? Shodan is just the first step on, hopefully, a long and very interesting journey. It’s just one arbitrary grading, albeit one with very visible results. What matters is to keep training, and keep improving. Years from now it’s not going to matter if I got my shodan after 2.5 years or after 3 years (which is still quite quick IMO).

So why even consider taking the test?

I have reasons for wanting to take the test in February.

Gakko – I would get to take the test with my fellow students (and friends), a couple of whom I’ve been training with since October 2008 when we entered Beginners Gakko together. I would also have the privilege of having one of my sempai from the class as my uke. And finally, assuming I passed, I would receive my shodan from my Gakko teachers (Katsurada Sensei 6th Dan and Kobayashi Sensei 7th Dan) whom I admire and greatly respect. I’m not sure I’ll be able to take the gakko again next semester, so this may be my only chance.

Ego – I realise I should let go of this, but I desperately want to wear that black belt and hakama. I want to be able to train on the 3rd floor of Hombu Dojo without feeling like everyone’s avoiding me because they don’t want to partner up with the white-belt beginner (I’m sure this is mostly my imagination, most people are great partners). I want to be able to train when the teacher restricts the techniques to black-belts only.

Why The Heck Not – if the teachers agree to let me take the test, why not take it? If I’m not ready then I would hope they’d either tell me not to take the test, or fail me!

So will I take the test?

If I can’t take the test, then so be it, but I think that if I am given the opportunity then I will take it. Either way I will keep training!

Update: I have signed up to take the test on 18th February, 2011.

Update Feb 19th, 2011: I passed!

I don’t really expect anyone to read what I write, it’s more for my own benefit, but there’s a lot of great info there by other contributors. In particular Eric, who runs the site, posts an amazing amount of material.

Aikido Training Hours per month 2010

Here’s the data broken down by number of days training per week – it’s clear that I was much more consistent in the second half of the year:

Aikido Training Days per week 2010

Note that the dojo was closed in weeks 32 and 52, meaning I trained at least once every week the dojo was open!

Total
My total training for the year was 231.5 hours of classes (188 lessons) on 172 days.

Nearly half my training was for Intermediate and Advanced Gakko, just under one quarter was beginners class, about one fifth regular classes, and the remainder training at Shinjuku Sports Center and a couple of seminars.

Aikido Training Hours per Class Type 2010

• red – (一般) Regular Class at Aikikai Hombu Dojo
• light blue – (上級) Advanced Gakko at Aikikai Hombu Dojo
• dark blue – (中級) Intermediate Gakko at Aikikai Hombu Dojo
• green – (初心者) Beginners Class at Aikikai Hombu Dojo
• purple – (特別) other special classes
• orange – (スポセン) classes at Shinjuku Sports Center dojo

I attended the classes of 19 different teachers over the year. Three teachers make up the majority of my training – Yokota Sensei and Toriumi Sensei, both from Intermediate Gakko, as well as Kobayashi Sensei from Advanced Gakko and Saturday morning 3rd floor training. In the second half of the year I attended a lot of sessions by Suzuki Toshio Sensei, and Sasaki Sensei. I’m quite happy with the mix, except that I’d like to attend more of the Doshu’s classes (making 6am classes is hard when I have evening classes at least 3 times a week!).

Aikido Training Hours per Teacher 2010

The second half of the year

The second half of the year started slowly as I was still recovering from my knee problems.
But my impending 1st Kyuu grading test, scheduled for the first week of August,
led me to push a bit harder and by the last week of July I was training 4 days a week again.
Thankfully I didn’t have any major issues with my knees again. I graduated from my second semester of Intermediate Gakko, and passed my 1st Kyuu grading.

With the evening gakko classes over I began taking more of the 3rd floor “regular” classes,
and also some of the Doshu’s morning classes in September. I was also invited by a friend to try out Wednesday evening training at the Shinjuku Sports Center, taken by Suzuki Toshio Sensei, which was a lot of fun, and was finally able to attend one of Endo Sensei’s classes.

October saw the beginning of the “Advanced Gakko” semester, with Kobayashi Sensei
and Katsurada Sensei, and the classes were certainly interesting and very challenging. My knees were mostly back to normal so I was able to really get back into training.

At the start of November I signed up for the Wednesday night training at Shinjuku Sports Center under Suzuki Toshio Sensei. I also attended Tada Sensei’s 15th Special Seminar at Hombu Dojo. November was my biggest training month of the year, training on 20 days for a total of 28.5 hours of classes.

In December I was still training 4-5 days a week. Even though I’d only recently joined the dojo I was able to part in the demonstration for the 5th Anniversary of Shinjuku Sports Center dojo. Training 4-5 days a week for 17 straight weeks had started to take it’s toll though, and I was looking forward to end the year and having a couple of weeks break to give my body a rest. I couldn’t resist, and managed to sneak in one last training session on the morning of Christmas Eve day, giving me 70 days training at Hombu since my 1st Kyuu grading (not counting my training at Shinjuku Sports Center).

Looking ahead

I have now officially met the minimum number of days required to be eligible to take the Shodan grading test, although I know I’m not quite ready yet. My focus for 2011 will be preparing for my black belt grading and, most importantly, continuing to improve my aikido.

Tada Sensei is 80 years old, but that’s hard to believe given the way he moves, which I’d describe as “spritely”. He is obviously very passionate about Aikido, and he talked a great deal during the seminar. Unfortunately a lot of what he talked about was beyond my level of Japanese, but I think I managed to understand at least most of the main points.

The themes of the seminar listed on the program were the same as those for the April seminar:

1. Kokyu-ho: Development of “KI”
2. Basic footwork
3. Basic techniques and “ma-ai”
4. Basic techniques for multiple attackers
5. Image training and practice in reality
6. unconcious reaction

Tada Sensei started by talking about when he joined Hombu Dojo as a young man, and you could tell he was in awe of O’Sensei. His talk then moved on what I would translate as the “Energy of the Universe”. Interestingly, I don’t recall the word “Ki” being mentioned by Tada Sensei (I could have missed it), but it was listed on the program as such. This is an aspect of Aikido that I haven’t seen taught at Hombu Dojo, at least outside Tada Sensei’s seminars. We performed a series of breathing exercises, taking in a deep breath and then exhaling slowly, making the (Japanese) vowel sounds, and later without the sound. The idea, as I understand it, is to feel the energy “resonating” inside you. Tada Sensei would refer back to this concept often during the seminar, and it seems fundamental to his understanding of Aikido.

The next section of the seminar was about footwork, and this is another area that Tada Sensei places great importance on. Tada Sensei has developed a series of exercises designed to systematically work on correct footwork. The later exercises involve moving in 8 different directions, similar to Happo giri, along with the variation of whether the front or rear foot is moved first. Watching Tada Sensei’s demonstration at the 48th All Japan Aikido Embu, you can get a feeling for how quick his footwork is, and how light on his feet he is. We only got to practice a couple of the exercises.

Setup for Exercise 1 is as follows:

• start with your feet wider than shoulder width, feet facing forward and parallel (i.e. not hanmi). Knees slightly bent and weight down.
• feet should not lift up, the front part of your foot in in contact with the mat.
• you should be light on your feet.

For Exercise 1, one “shuffle” is as follows:

1. movement is from the “leading” foot (the foot on the side you are moving towards), but make sure to push off from the rear foot.
2. after moving the leading foot, the trailing foot moves close to the leading foot.
3. the leading foot takes another small step to return you to a centered position.

The actual Exercise 1 is:

1. shuffle left, shuffle right, shuffle right, shuffle left (back to original position).
2. pivot to left 90 degrees so you are in left hanmi.
3. shuffle forward, shuffle back, shuffle back, shuffle forward (back to original position).
4. pivot to the right 180 degrees so you are in right hanmi.
5. shuffle forward, shuffle back, shuffle back, shuffle forward (back to original position).

Exercise 2 was the same as above, but the “shuffle” is made from the reat foot first, bringing it up to the leading foot, then pushing the leading foot forward, and finally the rear foot moves forward a little to bring you back to a balanced position. Next up we practiced what I believe is exercise 6, with the same general idea but the initial movement off the line.
This is an area I would like to incorporate into my Aikido, and I would definitely like to explore more in the future.

It was about this time that Tada Sensei demonstrated “unbendable arm”, which he related back to his earlier topics. We paired up and practiced it briefly.

The first technique that we practiced was Katatedori Iriminage, and Tada Sensei’s version is quite different from normal Hombu style. You can get an idea from about 1:09 into the embu video (that’s Shomen Uchi Iriminage but the form is similar). This was followed by Ushiro Ryoutedori Shiho Nage, and Tada Sensei talked about how he does not wait for the Uke move around behind him, but rather it is his intentional movement and turning in front of the Uke. He talked about how this makes sense when you view the encounter as if there are 8 opponents, and he wants to control the direction of movement. This is another technique where Tada Sensei teaches quite different from the normal Hombu style. I like his reasoning, and watching him perform the technique his back was barely exposed to his opponent at all, it reminds me a lot of the Katatedori Uchi Kaiten movement. Definitely another area for me to explore more in the future.

The last 90 minutes or so of the seminar covered sword-taking techniques. For a Shomen Uchi strike, the tori enters to either the left or right side of the uke, and it’s important to get completely off the line of attack, especially the trailing hand. We practiced taking the sword first using Ikkyo (4 variations). The motion is different depending on the side entered and the hand taking the sword. This is probably impossible to understand, but for my own benefit here are the 4 variations:

• enter to left, grasp with right hand -> grasp from the side near you, ikkyo is up and to the right
• enter to left, grasp with left hand -> grasp by reaching over, ikkyo is up and to the left, push the back of the blade with your right hand.
• enter to right, grasp with left hand -> grasp from the side near you, ikkyo is up and to the left
• enter to right, grasp with right hand -> tenkan and grab behind you from underneath with palm facing up, lift up as tenkan’ing back towards uke, ikkyo is to the right

In all cases you grasp the sword from your little fingers (not index finger), and don’t just grab Uke’s hand (or they can let go of the sword and control it with their other hand). This was followed up with the same basic technique but changing to Sankyo, reaching up from underneath when required. Tada Sensei then demonstrated how ALL the basic techiques could be applied (Irimi Nage, Kotegaeshi, Kokyu Ho, Kokyu Nage, Shiho Nage, etc) for sword-taking. There were far too many variations for me to possibly remember them all, but I hope to at least remember the basic techniques we practiced. After that we briefly paired up for a quick session of Ikkyo/Nikkyo/Sankyo suwariwaza,

The seminar finished with Tada Sensei reiterating some of his points. He also talked briefly about “image training” (imagining the techniques), and in particular the breathing exercises. He suggested that 30 minutes of breathing exercises before going to sleep at night would be well worth the effort.

The seminar covered a lot of material, and I’m sure that there was plenty to learn for everyone attending. As a beginner there was so much that I’m sure I won’t remember half of what I even picked up on. It did jog my memory a bit of the seminar in April, and reinforce some of what I’d learned. I hope to incorporate into my Aikido at least some of the basics that Tada Sensei presented, in particular the footwork. I feel privileged to have been able to attend, and I hope to be lucky enough to attend again in the future!

Intermediate Gakko graduation August 2010

Course Overview
Intermediate Gakko, or “Intermediate Academy” (合気道学校　中級課程) is open to anyone holding 3rd Kyuu or 2nd Kyuu. You do not need to have taken the Beginners level, but you must sign up before the course begins and places are limited. The course runs in two 5-month semesters per year, April-August and October-February. There are two 90-minute classes a week, Wednesday and Saturday evenings. At the end of the semester students who have attended at least 2/3 of the classes are eligible to take a grading test (up to 1st Kyuu). The classes are taught entirely in Japanese. More information about “Aikido Gakko” is covered on the Aikiaki web site, in English and in Japanese.

A big challenge

After a brief welcome speech by the Doshu, Ueshiba Moriteru, in which he welcomed us to the course and encouraged us to attend as many classes as possible, it was straight into training.

Intermediate Gakko was a big jump up in difficulty from Beginners Gakko. The classes in the beginners level started slowly, and progressed at a steady pace, and even by the end of a full year were limited to a fairly small set of techniques. Intermediate level, on the other hand, felt like being thrown in the deep end. Right from the start of the course each lesson consisted of a large number of techniques, many of which were new to me. There seemed to be an endless stream of new techniques, even after more than a month into the course. By the end of each lesson it was often hard to remember what techniques we had just been doing, as all the techniques tended to blend into one big jumble. In one extreme case Yokota Sensei covered 15 techniques in 90 minutes, which made for a very challenging lesson! Frankly this was quite overwhelming at first, and I often felt it would have been better if we could have covered fewer techniques and given each one a bit more time to sink in.

One thing I did realise quickly was that each class had a “theme”. I can distinctly remember one of our first classes with Yokota Sensei where the entire class was based on Yokomen Uchi (横面打ち – strike to the side of the head) coupled with a dizzying array of techniques – Shihonage, Iriminage, Kotegaeshi, Ikkyo, Nikkyo, Sankyo, Yonkyo. At that point I had no idea most of those combinations existed, as we had only been taught Yokomen Uchi Shihonage in Beginners Gakko. On the other hand, I remember one of Toriumi Sensei’s classes that seemed to be based around “Kokyu Nage” (呼吸投げ – breath power throw) from a variety of different “attacks” (Katatedori, Ryoutedori, Morotedori, etc). Once you get used to it, this makes a lot of sense, and seems to be normal for most classes at Hombu Dojo.

I can’t remember when it was exactly, but at some stage during my first semester it finally dawned on me that, irrespective of the technique, each of the attacks is generally “dealt with” in a few distinct ways, and that almost any of the attacks can be combined with any of the pins or throws as long as you can make the “transition” between the start of the technique and the end. After that realisation the seemingly endless stream of techniques became a lot less daunting (even if they were still very hard to perform), and the classes made more sense to me.

Gradually the techniques became more familiar, the classes less confusing, and after a while I was finding the Intermediate classes very enjoyable.

Teachers

Once again I can’t talk about the Gakko without special thanks to the teachers. My teachers for Intermediate level were Toriumi Sensei 7th Dan (鳥海先生 七段) on Saturdays, and Yokota Sensei 7th Dan (横田先生 七段) on Wednesdays, with Sasaki Sensei 5th Dan (佐々木先生 五段) taking classes when the other teachers were away.

I’d heard rumours before starting the course that the teachers were very strict, and this was confirmed in the very first class when a couple of the second-time students were chided for their poor ukemi! In fact this was largely in jest, and I soon came to find that the teachers are not overly strict, and even shared a joke or two at times (of course if you were to do anything disrespectful or dangerous the scolding would not be a joke). The teachers were always more than willing to provide correction, and answer any questions regarding techniques (my poor Japanese speaking ability makes it hard for me to ask questions, but the teachers were always happy to answer other students questions).

Toriumi Sensei is usually quite serious, and teaches a lot of suwariwaza (techniques from a sitting position), which he’s very adept at. He included a lot of these on the grading tests at the end of the semester, much to my chagrin.

Me and Toriumi Sensei

Yokota Sensei often talked about the use of the sword, which he studies. He demonstrates an amazing number of variations of the techniques, including some unusual examples – in one case his “pin” consisted of pinning my arms behind my back and sitting on me, which got a lot of laughs from the other students.

Me and Yokota Sensei

Sasaki Sensei also taught some great classes that focused on timing and ma-ai (spacing), and I also appreciated his talks about how you should experiment with your techniques rather than just copy the teacher, and he explained that Aikido is different for each person and with each partner.

Me and Sasaki Sensei

The teachers have a wealth of experience and knowledge, and it was an amazing opportunity to learn from them. I hope I have retained at least some of what they tried to pass on.

Round and round we go

At the beginning of the course Yokota Sensei began teaching us mae-ukemi (前受け身 – forward rolls). He demonstrated his distinctive style of forward roll, which is a very high forward leap followed by a very graceful landing. At that time I was reasonably comfortable doing forward rolls after having been given some pointers by a helpful sempai in beginners class and spending some time practicing, but the “Yokota-style” rolls were something completely beyond me. Thankfully he then began teaching the rolls in a very accessible manner, starting from a kneeling position, with lots of helpful pointers. Many of the students in our class were obviously “roll virgins” and extremely reluctant, even from a kneeling position. Intermediate Gakko is a good place to learn the forward roll. Yokota Sensei showed tremendous understanding and patience during the course, letting people advance at their own pace. It’s a credit to his teaching that by the end of the course many of those people were performing very smooth rolls from standing with little hesitation.

More daunting than the forward roll, at least for me, was the back-ward roll, which I had not really practiced before. As with the forward roll, “Yokota-style” rolls are very impressive. He demonstrated a roll from a standing position, throwing himself down and “catapulting” himself back onto his feet. Thankfully once again he started instructing us on how to perform the roll from a kneeling position, at slow pace, providing lots of pointers. At first I found it difficult to remember which foot should go over which shoulder, but after a while I realised that it’s just a forward roll in reverse, and after a few attempts I got the basic hang of it.

I spent some time after the classes practicing the rolls, and after a few weeks of trial and (sometimes quite painful) error, I got to the stage where I could perform a poor imitation of the “Yokota-style” forward roll, and even the standing backward roll ending on my feet. My forward roll improved quite a lot, I can now roll “straight” (i.e. where I intend to roll – many people aim for one spot and end up somewhere else!) and it gave me quite a bit more confidence.

Old Friends, New Friends

One of the best things about my time in Beginners Gakko was making friends with my classmates. Some of my friends were still doing their second semester of Beginners level, and a few others couldn’t join Intermediate Gakko because of the classes on Saturday evenings (5:30pm-7:00pm), but quite a few of my friends did join Intermediate level.
For many of the women joining Intermediate Gakko it meant their first time wearing a hakama (袴 – dark pleated pants). At Hombu Dojo women are encouraged to wear a hakama from 3rd Kyuu, whereas men only wear them from Shodan (初段 – 1st black belt). Seeing my friends wearing hakama for the first time was great, it seemed to suit all the girls well and they seemed a bit more imposing. I think they were a bit self-conscious, as I would be, but I have to admit I felt a bit jealous!

There were also some new people joining at the Intermediate level, which meant new friends.
Three new girls from another Dojo in Chofu joined the class. I noticed that their technique was different (in a good way) the first time I trained with them. I wasn’t surprised to find out they had been training for a number of years at their local Dojo, compared to 12-18 months for most of us. They had not had the opportunity to take gradings at their home Dojo, so their official grade of 3rd Kyuu didn’t reflect their level of experience.

Another notable new classmate was Don (he insisted everyone call him that, most people use their surnames). Don was the oldest student in the class by quite a margin, and announced during the semester that he had just celebrated his 80th birthday! Training with Don meant taking extra care, as he was understandably a bit more fragile than us youngsters. He had a particular difficulty with mae-ukemi, but he showed remarkable tenacity. Don eventually stopped going to the school classes during our second semester, but only because he was training every day in the regular classes and was the first amongst our level to pass the 1st Kyuu grading!

The opportunity to meet so many great people and make friends has been just as important as the chance to learn Aikido from the fantastic teachers.

Intermediate Gakko end-of-semester dinner.

Listen very carefully

Just like in Beginners Gakko, the teachers provide a lot of explanation during the classes, significantly more than the regular classes. Thankfully my Japanese listening had improved quite a lot during the previous year, especially with regards to Aikido terminology. There were still many times where I didn’t understand the subtleties (or sometimes the main point) of what they were saying, but those times are becoming less frequent. I found I was usually able to watch how the teacher was moving while still listening to their explanations, and then really work on improving my techniques in the area the teacher was talking about.

For foreign students thinking of taking Intermediate Gakko, I think not knowing Japanese would be a big disadvantage. The techniques should be roughly familiar at this level, and a lot of value can be gained by watching and feeling what the teacher is doing, but it would be a shame to miss out on the explanations the teachers are giving, as they will often be trying to direct your attention to a specific concept, and it does give a lot of insight into their views on Aikido.

Jiyu Waza

Once again the semester passed much quicker than I realised, and it was soon time to prepare for my 2nd Kyuu grading. This was my first grading where I would be required to perform “Jiyu Waza” (自由技 – free technique). In Jiyu Waza you are required to perform a continuous series of techniques from the same “attack” – in my case katatedori (片手取り – one hand held). We were told we must be able to perform 7-10 distinct techniques, and techniques were not to be repeated. This sounds simple, but upon trying it I found that it is very easy to get “stuck” thinking about what technique to do, and freeze up. It took quite a few practice sessions before I managed to avoid freezing up while thinking of my next technique.

Thankfully I got a tip from Kikkawa San, a sempai I’d met in beginner classes around the time I started, that I should decide on an order of the techniques ahead of time, and he suggested using alphabetical order. This seemed a little bit like cheating, but it helped a lot to get started. After a while I found myself relying less on the order, although it’s hard to avoid repeating techniques unless you keep track carefully.

The other aspect of Jiyu Waza, that wasn’t really explicitly required for the test, but I tried to incorporate into my practice, was to move from a series of single “static” techniques, to a more “flowing” series of techniques. That is, rather than waiting until my partner has grabbed my hand, start the technique as they go to grab. This requires you to work on your timing and distance a lot, which makes it hard but very worthwhile. Jiyu Waza is still not easy for me, but I improved a lot from the practice.

Third floor classes

It was towards the end of the semester that I finally had the courage to try out the “Regular” classes on the 3rd floor. I didn’t really know what to expect, so it was quite daunting. I attended a couple of Seki Sensei’s classes, which turned out to be a good choice as he generally concentrates on techniques that someone around 2nd or 3rd Kyuu will know. You don’t change partners in Seki Sensei’s classes, so you can train for the whole class with someone you know, or if you train with someone new it gives you more of a chance to get used to your partner. The classes were difficult, but very worthwhile.

Testing time again

As the test got nearer everyone seemed to be getting more serious, with most people staying around after class to get in a bit of extra practice. The week before the test we did a full dress-rehearsal of the test. A couple of people were obviously struggling to remember some of the techniques, and Toriumi Sensei was quite strict and made them repeat the techniques until he was satisfied.

I’d been expecting to take the test with Kuboyama San, one of my friends in the class, and we had spent quite a bit of time paired up for the Jiyu-Waza practice sessions. Unfortunately when the pairs for the test were called, I was partnered with another student with whom I had not really trained much, and Kuboyama San had been left out! Thankfully Kuboyama San got to do his test in the end, and my test went okay as well. The people who’d struggled the week before had improved noticeably, and everyone passed the test.

The following week we received our certificates for attendance and our new Kyuu gradings from the Doshu. He gave a quick speech congratulating us, and encouraging us to continue with our training. This was followed by dinner with the teachers and students.

I was lucky enough to listen to some of Yokota Sensei’s stories about him being sent around the world. He talked about going to China to visit some monks that practice Kung-Fu. They were determined to test him out, and he was suddenly faced with a monk making a flying kick to his head! Apparenlty Ikkyo can be quite effective against kicks! On another occasion somewhere in Eastern Europe he had to demonstrate on a cobble-stone courtyard – too bad for his uke! Sasaki Sensei talked to me about how he had lived in Papua New Guinea for a few years, teaching the local police force. These teachers were literally responsible for the spread of Aikido around the world, and it was an amazing experience to be able to talk to them.

Yokota Sensei and Toriumi Sensei

Second Time Around

I was very keen to attend Intermediate Gakko for a second semester, and signed up as soon as possible. The second time through the course was not as overwhelming as the first, although the classes were still very challenging and I felt I had a lot to learn. My friends who had just completed their second semester of Beginners level had now joined our class, and training with them again was a lot of fun. Being one of the senior students, I also got to take quite a lot of ukemi, particularly from Yokota Sensei, which was a fantastic experience. Yokota Sensei also called on Nakano San a lot as uke, which is slightly unusual as mostly the teachers call on the males, but that’s understandable as her ukemi was undoubtedly the best in the class and great to watch.

Tobi Ukemi

While the Intermediate course covers mae-ukemi, it does not generally cover tobi-ukemi (飛び受け身 – break-falls). However, at one point during my second semester, Yokota Sensei started talking about tobi-ukemi, and even started to demonstrate it with a few people. I think some of the students had asked him about it during the dinner at the start of semester. I was lucky enough to be one of those people. Instead of our normal ukemi from kotegaeshi, he told me I should do a forward roll. The first time he let go, and I did the roll. The second time he didn’t let go, and with a quick flick, I made my first break-fall. It was surprisingly easy and painless, given the loud slapping noise as my legs hit the floor. A couple of other students were also lucky enough to get a go (or rather be demonstrated on). Later in the class it was Tsujikawa San’s turn, but unfortunately she landed awkwardly (through no fault of Yokota Sensei). She ended up with a badly sprained knee, requiring crutches, and could only watch the lessons for the next 8 weeks or so. Thankfully Tsujikawa San recovered, and was able to rejoin the training, and take the test at the end of the semester. Unfortunately that was the end of our instruction in tobi-ukemi, and I doubt Yokota Sensei will teach it during Intermediate Gakko again.

Back to the 3rd floor

In April I finally decided it was time to start taking one or two 3rd floor classes a week. The classes were definitely hard, but I think the Intermediate level classes helped a lot. After warm-up there’s a scramble to find a partner, and I couldn’t help feeling that most of the black-belts didn’t really want to get stuck with a white-belt, but that being said, my partners were always very helpful and patient. For beginners it can be a good idea to go with someone you know for the first few times, especially if you can make it to one of the classes where you don’t swap partners (e.g. Seki Sensei’s classes).

Embukai

In May our class participated in the 48th All Japan Aikido Demonstration, which was a lot of fun.

Weak in the knees

Around the second week of June I hit my first big road-block in training. It still isn’t clear to me exactly what happened, but I believe I put too much pressure on my knees during stretching, and the day after a walk up Takao-San I found I had a sharp pain when bearing weight on my left knee (my right knee was affected to a lesser extent). I stopped training, sitting in on one of the Intermediate classes without participating. The next few weeks I only attended the Intermediate classes, and at first I was only training very slowly. The teachers were very understanding, and I was allowed to avoid the seated techniques which were too hard on my knees. My biggest fear was that I wouldn’t recover in time for the test at the end of August, but thankfully I was able to ease back into training and started taking extra beginner classes again about mid-July. I had just a taste of what it must have been like for Tsujikawa San, who was out of action for over a month. It must have been much harder for her, but she came to every class to observe, and she showed remarkable spirit. She was also able to resume training with enough time to prepare for the test.

Finishing Up

It was testing time again, and this time my Jiyu Waza would be Morotedori (諸手取り – the attacker using both hands to hold one arm). Thankfully I’d had a really good class on the 3rd floor earlier in the year, in which I got to train with one of the uchi-deshi, and that had given me the basics I needed. Plenty of practice during class in the weeks leading up to the test helped a lot too, so I wasn’t feeling completely out of my depth by the time the test came around.

A couple of people struggled on the test, mostly due to lack of practice time. For those people only taking the school classes, the tests are going to be very hard. There are only about 35 lessons in the semester before the test, which is significantly less than the normal requirements, 50 for 2nd Kyuu and 60 for 1st Kyuu, which is really not enough. I’d thoroughly recommend attending extra classes, which most people are quite keen on doing.

In the end everyone passed the test.

1st Kyuu, Intermediate Gakko August 2010

We had our final ceremony, receiving our new Kyuu certificates, and had a dinner with the teachers after our last lesson. I was able to talk to my friends quite a bit, at least until it came time for each of us to give a short speech, and then my Japanese ability quickly disappeared. Yokota Sensei even offered to translate for me. Toriumi Sensei encouraged me to speak Japanese, which Yokota Sensei then translated into English, getting a few laughs.

End of semester drinks

Getting Serious

A lot of my friends from the Intermediate class seem to be just as obsessed with Aikido as myself. I’ve been getting steadily more serious about Aikido, and as I wrote in Time on the mat, I’d been keeping track of my training times since the beginning of the year. I’d worked up to training 4-5 times a week for April and May, and only reduced my training due to injury. By the end of my second semester I was regularly running into them in the other classes on the second floor, and the 3rd floor as well.

At the end of the semester Yokota Sensei asked for an indication who would be continuing on. I think almost all of the students who had just passed 2nd Kyuu said they would be repeating Intermediate level, and of the 14 students who had passed 1st Kyuu, 12 indicated they would be going on to the “Advanced Gakko”. Everyone seemed keen to continue training, whether it be through the Gakko or via other classes.

Final thoughts

Things to consider

The things to consider about taking Intermediate Gakko are largely the same as those for Beginners Gakko.

The fixed schedule may be hard for some people. Classes early on a Saturday evening can be especially hard for some people due to work, but for others like myself it is actually a good day for training.

The 4th floor dojo is quite small, and with 25 or so people it can get quite crowded. It’s a shame the course can’t be held in one of the bigger dojos, which would give people the chance to take ukemi a bit more freely. But most of the other classes at Hombu Dojo are even more cramped, especially the “regular” classes on the third floor, so it’s not really a disadvantage.

The cost of the course is 63,000円, which is a significant amount, but this is an amazing opportunity to learn from the incredible teachers. I’d thoroughly recommend taking extra classes, so don’t forget to allow extra for that. If your budget allows it’s well worth it.

A reasonable understanding of Japanese is required to get the most out of the course, as the teachers generally explain more than the normal classes.

Overall

The learning curve of Intermediate Gakko is steep, but it does provide a good transition from beginners classes (both those on the 2nd floor and Beginners Gakko), to the regular 3rd floor classes at Hombu Dojo and it’s a good way to improve.

My time in the Intermediate Gakko was a fantastic experience, and I enjoyed it tremendously. I have made some great friends, I’ve had the opportunity to train under some great teachers, and I’ve had a lot of fun.

Friends from Intermediate Gakko

Doshu Ueshiba Moriteru
The current head of Aikikai, and grandson of O’Sensei. I’ve taken some of the Doshu’s regular classes.

Ueshiba Mitsuteru (Waka Sensei)
Great-grandson of O’Sensei. I’ve taken some of Waka Sensei’s regular and beginners classes. He also taught some of my classes at Beginners Gakko.

Yokota Yoshiaki Sensei
Yokota Sensei was one of my teachers from Intermediate Gakko.

Kobayashi Yukimitsu Sensei
Kobayashi Sensei will be one of my teachers for Advanced Gakko, and I also took his beginner classes when I started at Hombu Dojo.

Kanazawa Takeshi Sensei
Kanazawa Sensei was one of my teachers from Beginners Gakko.

Fujimaki Hiroshi Sensei
I’ve taken some of Fujimaki Sensei’s beginners classes.

Sasaki Teijyu Sensei
I’ve taken some of Sasaki Sensei’s beginners classes. He also taught some of my classes at Intermediate Gakko.

Suzuki Toshio Sensei
I’ve taken Suzuki Sensei’s beginners classes at Hombu Dojo. Suzuki Sensei can be seen taking amazing ukemi on many of the Doshu’s videos.

Thanks to BudoExport for making the excellent videos available on YouTube.

2009
I hadn’t kept an accurate record for 2009, so I was only able to come up with a rough estimate. My training mostly consisted of classes for Aikikai Hombu Dojo Beginners Gakko, which was twice a week for about 10 months. Most weeks I also attended a Saturday morning class, although by the end of the year I was training some other week-nights as well. My best guess it that I trained about 105 days, or about 135 hours. Not bad, but at that rate it’s a long road to 10,000 hours!

Following the adage of you can’t improve what you don’t measure, I started keeping a record of my training.

2010

The graph above shows my time spent in class broken down by month. The colours indicate the type of class:

• green – (初心者) Beginners Class at Aikikai Hombu Dojo
• blue – (中級) Intermediate Gakko at Aikikai Hombu Dojo
• red – (一般) Regular Class at Aikikai Hombu Dojo
• purple – (特別) other classes

I got off to a reasonable start to the year, especially considering Hombu Dojo was closed for the first week. However around the end of February I came down with a series of colds, and this kept me off the mat for the first three weeks of March.

Thankfully I was mostly recovered by April, which saw the start of my second semester in Intermediate Gakko. I finally started attending “Ippan” (regular) classes on the 3rd floor of Aikikai Hombu Dojo Tokyo, which are a lot more challenging than beginner classes. I trained 5 days in a row for the first time.

In May I made the switch to morning classes for weekday classes (other than Intermediate Gakko), and training started to feel like part of my regular rhythm. I spent most of my time in beginners classes, trying to concentrate on basics for the Embu Taikai, but I was also able to observe my Sempai training for his 2段 (2nd dan) test and even act as uke for some of his training sessions which was a lot of fun.

I continued training 4 or 5 days a week through most of June, until my knee became unstable (overstressed from my stretching?), which has kept me out of training for the last week of June and most of July (a bit of a worry for my upcoming 1級 test).

My total training time for the first half of the year was 102 hours (82 lessons on 75 days), nearly reaching my total for the whole of 2009 in only 6 months. I hope to train even more in the second half of 2010, and will be aiming to reach 220 hours for the year.

Most importantly I think my Aikido has improved from the extra time on the mat.

On Saturday I attended the 48th All Japan Aikido Demonstration (第48回 全日本合気道演武大会) at the Nippon Budokan, commonly call the “Embu”. It’s the biggest event of the year for Aikikai, with people coming from all over Japan (and from overseas) to attend. It’s even professionally recorded by NHK, and you can buy a 2-disc DVD set covering the teachers demonstrations (get the 2009 edition here). Eric wrote a bit more about last years event, and again this year. I thought I’d post some photos and write a little about my experience.

Doshu doing kotegaeshi

Intermediate Class Demonstration

For the second year running I’ve also been lucky enough to participate in the demonstration, as a part of the Aikido Gakkou at Hombu Dojo. This year I was part of the demonstration for Intermediate Gakkou.

Me at the 2009 All Japan Aikido Demonstration

The upcoming Embu had been the focus of our training in Intermediate Gakko for about the last 3 weeks or so. We were told our demonstration would be 2 minutes, and held at the same time as the Beginners Gakko and Advanced Gakkou classes. We were asked to pair up, and I was very happy to have Shishido san, my partner for the demonstration last year, as my partner again this year.

Me with Kan (my partner for the demonstration), 2010

We spent a large part of our preparation time in the Gakkou classes on the appropriate etiquette – where and how we were to line up to enter the floor, the correct bows before the waza, waiting for the taiko drum before starting, where to position ourselves on the mat, bowing correctly after the waza, and where to leave the tatami.

Our teachers also prescribed the techniques we would be performing, and our classes have been mostly restricted to those techniques for the last few weeks:

We found it pretty hard to get through that list in 2 minutes, but the practice gave us a good chance to “polish” our techniques a bit, and in our final week of practice my partner and I had been getting fairly consistent at finishing the final technique around the 2 minute mark while hopefully not looking too rushed. We were also told that someone would be video’ing the demonstration, which provided a little extra “incentive” to practice hard.

Intermediate Demonstration – The Mixup!

Despite all the instruction on etiquette, or perhaps because of it, things didn’t quite go as planned on the day. We had been explicitly told by both teachers that we were not to start our waza until the taiko (drum) to sound after we had bowed.
We dutifully filed onto the tatami and lined up in seiza as instructed, waiting to be told to bow to shomen (the front). Unfortunately the taiko sounded before we were told to bow to shomen, and not after, leaving our entire class sitting waiting while the other groups had started their demonstrations. Finally someone yelled out that we should start, and a confused bunch of Intermediate Class students scrambled to start. I’m sure it looked a little ridiculous from the stands. Due to the delay starting Kan and I didn’t quite finish, I was just about to start my final kotegaeshi when the Taiko drum went. I think we also managed to perform okay, especially given the distraction of the late start.

Updated: I’ve uploaded a video of the Hombu Dojo Intermediate Academy – 48th All Japan Aikido Demonstration

Aikido Gakkou 2010 Intermediate class

More Demonstrations

After our demonstration everyone hurried back upstairs so we could watch the demonstrations of the Hombu Dojo Senseis. I got a couple of photos, so I’ll make another post and including some from last year. After the Hombu teachers, a couple of us went to look at the dogi and hakama which were on sale. I’ve been training 4-5 times a week and having only 2 dogi has been a bit awkward, so I bought a summer dogi which should help a bit, not to mention be more comfortable in the upcoming heat – there’s no aircon at hombu dojo!
Quite a few of my classmates stayed until the final demonstrations by Tada Shihan (9th Dan) and the Doshu (the head of Aikikai).

Doshu giving a speech (2009)

Doshu doing ikkyo

It was a great day, although it seemed to go far too quickly. Not only were the teachers amazing, but the ukemi was superb.

Some More Photos

Nippon Budokan (on a quiet day, not the day of the embu).

Nippon Budokan Sign. Note that it’s written right-to-left!

2009 All Japan Aikido Demonstration

2009 All Japan Aikido Demonstration

2009 All Japan Aikido Demonstration

Kids practice session 2010.

Suzuki Koujiro Sensei striking the massive Taiko

Fujimaki Sensei (left) with Nishimura Sempai (right) as uke

Friends from Hombu Dojo

合気道 – Aikido
I’m happy to say started training again in Aikido at 合気会本部道場 (Aikikai Hombu Dojo) in Shinjuku in late 2008. I had stopped training in Melbourne after only 3 months, which I will always regret. I started training once a week, but now train 3 or 4 times when possible. My classes are completely in Japanese, which is another plus.

• February – Completed my first semester of Beginners Course in Aikido Gakkou and passed my first grading, to become ４級 (4th Kyuu).
• April – Attended the annual Aiki-Jinja Festival in Iwama, where O’Sensei lived for most of his later life.
• May – participated in the 47th All Japan Aikido Demonstration at Nippon Budokan with my classmates from Beginners Course. I’m sure no-one watched us, but it sure was fun!
• August – Completed my second semester of Beginners Course in Aikido Gakkou, and passed my grading for ３級 (3th Kyuu).
• October – Began my first semester of Intermediate Course in Aikido Gakkou.
• Trained in the regular (i.e. non-beginners) class for my first time on Christmas Day – the last day of training for the year.
• Saw in the New Year with 越年稽古 (New Years Eve Practice) at the dojo.

日本語 – Japanese
I’ve been learning for a number of years, but I’m still intermediate level. I felt like I improved quite a bit in 2009.

• Read my first manga series completely in Japanese – デスノート　(Death Note).
• July – Passed 日本語能力試験２級 (JLPT Level 2).
• Began watching Japanese tv shows with Japanese subtitles. Depending on the show I understand anywhere from 50-90%.
• Sometimes at aikido training I forget the teacher is speaking in Japanese.
• Finally started to feel like I can speak a little. It’s still frustrating a lot of the time, speaking is definitely harder than listening and reading.

色々 – misc

• Unfortunately not much traveling around Japan, but there’s plenty to see and do in and around Tokyo.
• Finally bought a digital SLR – a Nikon D90
• Hired a dog for a day.
• Ran 10km for the Run for the Cure.

Holiday in Bali
Spent just over a week relaxing in Bali. The weather was amazing, 32 degrees and sunny every day. Thanks to Bron for finding such fantastic places to stay!

Became an uncle
Congratulations to Penny and Ken, who had their first baby, my nephew Keiran, on 2nd November.

My nephew Keiran Fretwell

Aikido, which can be translated as “Way of Harmony with Ki”, was developed during the middle of the 20th Century by O Sensei Morihei Ueshiba (植芝盛平) – by all reports an incredible man.

Aikido is a martial art, and while it could be used to injure other people, the focus is on neutralising (potentially multiple) attackers, and as such it is very effective for self-defence. In fact, O Sensei was a deeply spiritual man, and an important facet of aikido is the corresponding responsibility given the potential for injury that comes with the knowledge of aikido techniques.

I’m studying aikido at aikidojo in West Melbourne. Aikidojo practices the Iwama Style of aikido, which is based on maintaining the aikido as taught by O Sensei to Sensei Morihiro Saito in Iwama, the spiritual home of Aikido (the home of both the Iwama dojo and the Aiki shrine).

Aikidojo is not a large dojo, but there is an incredible level of experience among the members. I went to dinner after one class and by my rough estimate the cumulative experience of the six senior members at the table was around 65 years! I’m very lucky that I get the chance to learn in that environment!

Even after a short time, it’s definitely clear to me that aikido is not something you ever “master”. Rather it’s something that will always involve learning on many levels.

I think that’s one of the things that I find most compelling about it.