My interest in aikido and its relationship to horsemanship continues to grow. Inspired by the Mark Rashid book "Nature in Horsemanshp" and personally meeting and chatting to him about the idea I have been pursuing aikido for around 2 1/2 years now. I'm at a very lowly level having just passed my 4th kyu grade, but finding the benefits are enormous.
My sensei, Tony, thought I was ready to attend an aikido camp in Stockholm and after a little persuasion I agreed. This was not just any aikido camp.
Seishiro Endo himself was going to be there. If you read his wikipedia entry you'll see that he is fascinated by the concept of ki energy and feel to make aikido as soft and powerful as possible. It is fair to say that he is the head of the version of aikido that I follow, so to train with him would be a real treat.
On Friday 13th of February I got on a plane to Stockholm with more than a little trepidation as to what I had let myself in for.
The good news was that there was a total of 6 of my friends from the Dinton Dojo going so I was in good company. All the others had been there before so that really helped in me finding my way around the city and the training.
The camp took place over three days, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The format was 1 1/2 hours training for each session with one session on Friday and Sunday, but two on the Saturday. The only downside was that it took around 1 1/2 hours to get from where we were staying to the training in the city. The upside is that we all travelled as a group so it gave time to chat.
The first session was on Friday evening. After the journey out to the training center we all got changed into our gis.
I had heard rumours as to how high the average grade was going to be of the participants. Mere kyu grades (below black belt) were in the tiny minority. There was a significant number in the higher black belt grade of 5th, 6th and 7th Dan. Fortunately Tony seemed to know all the high grade participants which made me feel more at ease in their company.
For the Friday session Tony said I should just stay near the back, train with whoever I wished to and just soak up the atmosphere. There was a lot of atmosphere to soak up. Around 90 people training with Endo out in front demonstrating what he wished us to practise. No, or minimal talking, on the mat whilst training, but high levels of concentration.
Endo speaks enough english to get his ideas across, but not a huge amount. Strangely this was an advantage. I had to concentrate on what he was doing, not what he was saying. And what he was doing was fascinating.
Endo is very much concentrated on being in the moment with your training partner and using ki energy in your encounters with your partner.
In English ki probably best translates as "intention" but it is more than that. I'm reading a book on the concept at the moment and it says that westerners have a problem with ki as they think too much in words. You have to try and think without words to really understand ki.
We did lots of exercises that involved feeling and moving with your training partner without resistance. Then we moved onto how to move them with minimum muscular effort. These techniques largely revolve around being very loose in the shoulders and mind. Feeling for the partner. Feeling for their balance point and then moving to disturb that balance.
Trying to disturb the balance too much is counter productive as it will lead to resistance and a battle. Disturb the balance just enough then you can move the opponent with the minimum of effort.
One thing that was noticeable was Endo's choice of language. Like I said his English is limited. But he used the words "confirm for yourself" a lot. I think he is trying to really make us concentrate on the feel and understand that feel. It is not something he can give us directly. He can set up exercises to help us feel, but we must do the feeling ourselves.
After that first session I came away with my head spinning with information, but felt I had made progress.
On the Saturday Tony said I should come towards the front of the mat more and play with the big guns at the front. I did not want to interfere with their training whilst the master was around. However I quickly understood that not only could I learn enormous amounts from the 6th and 7th Dan folks, but they could learn from me !! Because my aikido is so poor they have to work out how to move my stiff uncooperative body in the manner they want it to move. This is a challenge for them as well as me.
So I got to train with some of the best practitioners of aikido in the world ! And boy did that help me make progress fast. As always my problem is being too stiff in my body. They could use their skill to help me find more softness. Just the odd move here or there to bypass my blockages and I suddenly found I could move in ways I had not experienced before. And it felt good.
It's not that folks at my Dojo hadn't been helping me with this, but we are a mixed ability group and on a training evening I might get to train for a short time with the top folks. Here I was getting concentrated 6th and 7th Dan help. For most of the 1 1/2 hours !
After that first session on the Saturday with the "big boys" I had the confidence to seek them out in the subsequent sessions so I got lots of training with very good practitioners of the art. Lots of what they did I didn't fully understand but at least I got to feel it and see where this art form could take me.
This gives an overview of the course. I'll speak more in future about specific techniques.
At the end of the course my feet were trashed. We train bare foot and the mat surface was just a little textured. Over the 6 hours that texture wore through bits of my skin making my feet very tender. In the intensity on the mat I tended to forget the pain, but putting shoes on afterwards was "interesting".
I've trained back in Dinton since. The folks there report that my shoulders seem softer and more relaxed. I feel a new intensity to my training and thirst to get it right.
I know you'll all want to know what this has achieved for my horsemanship. I'll leave that for a later posting ;) , but it's been very very positive.
My sensei, Tony, thought I was ready to attend an aikido camp in Stockholm and after a little persuasion I agreed. This was not just any aikido camp.
Seishiro Endo himself was going to be there. If you read his wikipedia entry you'll see that he is fascinated by the concept of ki energy and feel to make aikido as soft and powerful as possible. It is fair to say that he is the head of the version of aikido that I follow, so to train with him would be a real treat.
On Friday 13th of February I got on a plane to Stockholm with more than a little trepidation as to what I had let myself in for.
The good news was that there was a total of 6 of my friends from the Dinton Dojo going so I was in good company. All the others had been there before so that really helped in me finding my way around the city and the training.
The camp took place over three days, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The format was 1 1/2 hours training for each session with one session on Friday and Sunday, but two on the Saturday. The only downside was that it took around 1 1/2 hours to get from where we were staying to the training in the city. The upside is that we all travelled as a group so it gave time to chat.
The first session was on Friday evening. After the journey out to the training center we all got changed into our gis.
I had heard rumours as to how high the average grade was going to be of the participants. Mere kyu grades (below black belt) were in the tiny minority. There was a significant number in the higher black belt grade of 5th, 6th and 7th Dan. Fortunately Tony seemed to know all the high grade participants which made me feel more at ease in their company.
For the Friday session Tony said I should just stay near the back, train with whoever I wished to and just soak up the atmosphere. There was a lot of atmosphere to soak up. Around 90 people training with Endo out in front demonstrating what he wished us to practise. No, or minimal talking, on the mat whilst training, but high levels of concentration.
Endo speaks enough english to get his ideas across, but not a huge amount. Strangely this was an advantage. I had to concentrate on what he was doing, not what he was saying. And what he was doing was fascinating.
Endo is very much concentrated on being in the moment with your training partner and using ki energy in your encounters with your partner.
In English ki probably best translates as "intention" but it is more than that. I'm reading a book on the concept at the moment and it says that westerners have a problem with ki as they think too much in words. You have to try and think without words to really understand ki.
We did lots of exercises that involved feeling and moving with your training partner without resistance. Then we moved onto how to move them with minimum muscular effort. These techniques largely revolve around being very loose in the shoulders and mind. Feeling for the partner. Feeling for their balance point and then moving to disturb that balance.
Trying to disturb the balance too much is counter productive as it will lead to resistance and a battle. Disturb the balance just enough then you can move the opponent with the minimum of effort.
One thing that was noticeable was Endo's choice of language. Like I said his English is limited. But he used the words "confirm for yourself" a lot. I think he is trying to really make us concentrate on the feel and understand that feel. It is not something he can give us directly. He can set up exercises to help us feel, but we must do the feeling ourselves.
After that first session I came away with my head spinning with information, but felt I had made progress.
On the Saturday Tony said I should come towards the front of the mat more and play with the big guns at the front. I did not want to interfere with their training whilst the master was around. However I quickly understood that not only could I learn enormous amounts from the 6th and 7th Dan folks, but they could learn from me !! Because my aikido is so poor they have to work out how to move my stiff uncooperative body in the manner they want it to move. This is a challenge for them as well as me.
So I got to train with some of the best practitioners of aikido in the world ! And boy did that help me make progress fast. As always my problem is being too stiff in my body. They could use their skill to help me find more softness. Just the odd move here or there to bypass my blockages and I suddenly found I could move in ways I had not experienced before. And it felt good.
It's not that folks at my Dojo hadn't been helping me with this, but we are a mixed ability group and on a training evening I might get to train for a short time with the top folks. Here I was getting concentrated 6th and 7th Dan help. For most of the 1 1/2 hours !
After that first session on the Saturday with the "big boys" I had the confidence to seek them out in the subsequent sessions so I got lots of training with very good practitioners of the art. Lots of what they did I didn't fully understand but at least I got to feel it and see where this art form could take me.
This gives an overview of the course. I'll speak more in future about specific techniques.
At the end of the course my feet were trashed. We train bare foot and the mat surface was just a little textured. Over the 6 hours that texture wore through bits of my skin making my feet very tender. In the intensity on the mat I tended to forget the pain, but putting shoes on afterwards was "interesting".
I've trained back in Dinton since. The folks there report that my shoulders seem softer and more relaxed. I feel a new intensity to my training and thirst to get it right.
I know you'll all want to know what this has achieved for my horsemanship. I'll leave that for a later posting ;) , but it's been very very positive.
No comments:
Post a Comment