Saturday class

Today we will have 2 hour 30 minutes class at Aga Khan Sports Club. It starts at 1730. Costs of the venue should not exceed 200 KSh per participant. Welcome

Wednesday class - July 28th

Yesterday we revisited several omote techniques. First was ai-hanmi ikkyo omote, then gyaku-hanmi ikkyo omote. Then we moved to ai-hanmi nikkyo omote, then gyaku-hanmi nikkyo omote. Then - as the order of things dictates - ai-hanmi sankyo omote. Instead of gyaku-hanmi sankyo omote we did ai-hanmi uchikaiten sankyo omote. Then shortly yokomen-uchi shiho-nage, both omote and ura versions. It was a real surprise how quickly two-hour class was over ;-)

Tuesday class

On Tuesday we took advantage of the venue facilities - we piled up some yoga mats and tried to more dynamic techniques.
First we focused on mae-ukemi, up to the point of rolling with big rubber balls ;-0
Then we practiced tenchi-nage and kote-gaeshi.

Short notice - Tuesday class

I would like to inform all of you that tomorrow we will have a class at Aga Khan Sports Club from 1930 till 2100.
The cost to cover the venue should not exceed 200 KSh.
Please feel welcome ;-)

Friday, July 23rd

Today we did ai-hanmi kote-gaeshi and ai-hanmi uchikaiten sankyo omote.

Saturday classes

Just to make all things crystal clear.

We do not have Saturday classes on regular basis. I wish to have a weekend 2-3 hour classes every once in a while, but please remember - unless I said specifically during the week that we do have class on Saturday - we do not.

On meaning of the logo

The logo (in the upper right corner) is a Japanese mon of T.K. Chiba sensei family.

Some books I can recommend for martial artists

I thought I could share some hints about books I read (some of them I have) that somehow I think are worth reading.

AIKIDO
Two books that have loose collection of quotes of O'Sensei:
The Secret Teachings of Aikido
The Essence of Aikido: Spiritual Teachings of Morihei Ueshiba
An amazing book by Kisshomaru Ueshiba:
The Spirit of Aikido. Truly deep, something you will be coming back to over years and finding it more and more deep and relevant.

MARTIAL ARTS/STRATEGY
Sun Tzu 'Art Of War' has multiple editions, I suggest finding the one with interesting commentaries. I used to have an edition with commentary of one USMC general and his views on view of strategy of modern Chinese warfare in relation to Sun Tzu.
Another of thise short but meaningful books is Musashi Miyamoto's The Book of Five Rings.
For me the most amazing thing I ever read (apart from Buddhist teachings ;-) was a book titled Heiho Kadensho. It's available in English under title The Life-Giving Sword: The Secret Teachings From the House of the Shogun. This book contains a series of dialogs of Zen monk Takuan Soho with one of shogun's ninja generals and one of greatest swordsman of the times - Munenori Yagyu.
I can also honestly recommend On War by Carl von Clausewitz. This is one of these classics that will never grow old.

NIHONTO
The knowledge of Japanese swords starts with The Samurai Sword: A Handbook by John Yumoto.
Then there is The Japanese Sword: A Comprehensive Guide by Kazan Sato.
Once you get drawn into the subject, one of the best books is The Connoisseurs Book of Japanese Swords by kokan Nagayama, who recently passed away.

Wednesday class - July 21st

We did a lot of ai-hanmi ikkyo and nikkyo, then tried gokkyo. Also gokkyo from shomen-uchi. Stopped for a second for rokkyo.

Saturday, July 17th

This Saturday we had 6 participants. As always on saturdays we piled up some yoga mats to create two tatami-like spots where students could practice more dynamically.
We started,, as usual, with mae-ukemi and then tried to learn hard breakfalls.
The scope of techniques included shiho-nage, kote-gaeshi, sumi-otoshi, irimi-nage and aiki-nage.
just like twoo weeks ago - low number of students at the class allowed for very personal contact. Very rewarding time.

Wednesday, July 14th 2010

Yesterday we focused on irimi-nage for almost an hour, then we moved on to ai-hamni ikkyo and nikkyo both omote and ura.
We also tried some choking immobilization as well as reverse kote-gaeshi.

Friday

this Friday we spent quite a while on ushiro-ukemi. Then we tried to utilize ushiro-ukemi during ai-hanmi kiri-otoshi.
Then we introduced ai-hanmi irimi-nage. Magnificent technique.
In contrast to other calsses, the one hour at Japanese Embassy seemed very short.

Goolge group: AikidoKenya

To simplify communication between aikido participants a Google group was established. The group is called AikidoKenya. Please feel free to join if you want to receive updates, email notification, etc. Link to the group is here.

Wednesday, July 7th

This Wednesday we focused on shihonage - again. It's interesting how many fine points still needd to be polished. This is the technique we still will be practicing in 20 years.

Then we brushed on kokyu-ho and then introduced irimi-nage.

Interesting class, we had many women participating which made techniques even more challenging and interesting.

Saturday's class at Aga Khan Sports Club

The class was two and a half hour long. Even though only three participants showed up, we still managed to have very interesting and fruitful session. We got to know first of Chiba Sensei's boken suburis. Then we got some yoga mats and improvised a mattress so that we were able to perform some more dynamic aikido techniques. But first we revisited mae-ukemi in suwariwaza and then tachi waza. Then introduced first steps of high breakfalls. And then we moved on to techniques. We tried ai-hamni sumi otoshi, then shomen-uchi sumi otoshi. We revisited kokyu-nage, then moved to the most interesting part of the evening - irimi-nage applied for different attacks - from gyaku-hamni through shomen-uchi, zuki, ushiro-ryote-dori.

The class was very interesting. Thanks to small number of participants we were able to focus on particular problems each of us had. Very rewarding time.

And afterwards we went for traditional beer where we added more theoretical part and - as beer took its toll - discussion slowly drifted off into lighter topic.