Well we had a pretty good party/cross training.  Lots of folks tried yoga, karate, aikido and kali.  The kali was a bit different from what I’m familiar with, but that is all good.  When setting up I looked at some aikido videos I’d forgotten I had and which I’d never looked at, and we did some of the exercises from Ikeda’s videos.  Some of his stuff is pretty interesting, and if you think a bit it does transfer to strikes.  The sun did get a bit hot in the front pasture where I had planned to work out, but we moved under the trees where it was a bit better.  I had planned to have us beat up on a bunch of cardboard boxes, but we didn’t get to them.

I didn’t count how many folks came, but we did have quite a few.  Not quite as many as had said were coming, but still a good number.

It is always hard to participate as well as orchestrate an event, but I think everybody had a good time, and thanks to George for doing all the cooking.  I way overestimated the numbers of hot dogs we would need, but they will freeze for the next time.

I think in view of the typical attendance I am going to move the advanced class from Tuesdays to Saturdays, 11 am.  Nobody is prohibited from attending this class, but the focus will be on the highest ranked student, instead of the lowest.  We have some higher ranked folks that I need to stretch a bit.  In a lot of ways, advanced is basic.  Often we need to focus more on the basics, but with a different intent.  But advanced students need to learn to read the attackers and not think too much.

When done properly, aikido does not require a lot of effort.  When you have to work hard, you are doing it wrong.  Sure, we all mess up now and again and use strength to make up for our deficiencies, but in the dojo you should practice using as little strength as possible.  It is a good practice in the dojo to try to use only a quarter of our strength.  Then if you have to defend yourself IRL you have a good margin for error.

When getting ready for the party I looked at some aikido videos I have.  One was by a high ranked individual who is the head of his style.  However, his angles were wrong.  He was doing kote gaeshi in a way that would get him hit in the head.  Angles are really really important.  I wonder if he really would do kote gaeshi that way in the street.  A lot of people teach one thing and do something different when pushed.  Teaching is hard.  You need to have good technique, but you also need to be able to teach it.  That involves seeing what you actually do, being able to express what you do, and being able to communicate that to the student.  In addition, you have to be able to motivate the student to expand his or her limits.  A lot of good technicians can not teach.  A lot of good teachers are terrible technicians.  It is important to find a good technician who is a good teacher to get started right.  Once you are on the right path, all you need is a good technician to learn from, though it does help if you can get more than that.