Website updated
  04 Feb 2018

AIKIDO COURSE - ALMUSSAFES, SPAIN - 1st to 3rd February, 2013

El proximo mes de Febrero tendremos el gran placer de tener de nuevo a Adrian Tyndale sensei en el club de Almussafes para seguir cubriendo el importante tema de los giros y barridos. Una gran forma de empezar el ciclo de seminarios del 2013 :-)
The next month of February we will have the great pleasure of having again to Adrian Tyndale sensei in Almussafes club to continue to cover the important topic of turns and sweeps. A great way to start the cycle of seminars for 2013 :-) 

AIKIDO COURSE - ALMUSSAFES, SPAIN - 1st February, 2013

Toshu Randori Session 

WHAT DID WE LEARN?

How to thank your partner for showing you your weakness when they throw you.
A most enjoyable session with some "Slippery" partners. We attempted to implement some ideas on "Ground Path" and "Movement-without-Moving".

More tomorrow morning . . . 

AIKIDO COURSE - ALMUSSAFES, SPAIN - 2nd February, 2013

Day Two


Elements of Balance Breaking with applications to Toshu Randori



More Sunday morning . . . 

AIKIDO COURSE - ALMUSSAFES, SPAIN - 3rd February, 2013

NOT ANOTHER SUNNY DAY

Report by Vicente Bosch

Here goes my version:

Today we have started the weekend seminar with Adrian Tyndale sensei. First day started off by some quiet meditation thinking about ki ... eh no, we started doing randori 

Sensei started with some randori with each of the attendants of the first session to set a mindset. After each randori he explained briefly what he had felt and what he had applied.

As happens usually when performing randori there is some kind of power struggle / resistance where a deadlock is performed as both persons involved make a ground path and collide head on. With this usual scenario sensei explained that when performing randori it is the goal of each person to remove the opponents ground path: if the opponent does not have a solid lower body connection with the earth the upper body strength has less relevance and if we reach this situation we are in the possition to "Take a chance".

In order to study initially the ground path and destruction of the ground path we practiced by pairs. Uke would put his hand firmly on Tori's chest and push against him making use of the earth, Tori would also perfom some pressure so that a connection between Tori and Uke would be made. This would be a starting scenario, a controlled version of the struggle that might happen during randori. 

From this point we studied a initial way to destroy Uke's ground path by moving back slightly ( without losing the connection) so Uke would loose his back legs connection with the earth. As initial approach after performing this we applied Waki Gatame by continuing the balance break backwards by streching ourselves on that direction to proceed to Waki gatame's final posture. Sensei stressed that what was not important of this final posture is which leg is in front of the other but that the posture is solid and that you have a ground path.

Of course Uke can try to regain his balance, as happens in Randori, so from this basic scenario we spanned out to secondary scenarios where depending how Uke tried to regain his balance Tori would adapt to apply another technique so that he would not regain it: Kote Gaeshi, Gedan Ate, Ude Gaeshi, etc 

As we developed this scenarios Sensei would review/point out how me must effectively use our whole body ( our weight, moving from the center,..) to perform the waza, to adapt to the movements from Uke so that the technique "works". Some underlaying principles and issues considered:

- Maintaining the connection
- Keeping Uke pinned / double weighted otherwise the transition to other waza would not be successful ( partly to do with the first point ) 
- Performing the movements slow /slower to move correctly (from the center, using our weight, etc) so that we would not loose our ground path. Going faster to make the technique work is just a "Mirage". 

We finished the session by performing the initial movements of the Shichihon no Kuzushi where Uke adapted to the balance break caused by the current movement by grabbing Tori's hand with his free hand ( preparing for the next one in the sequence). Most probably an introduction exercise for the rest of things to come ... 

Fun in any case