VKS KI TRAINING NOTES, JANUARY '99 NOTICES: JAN INSTRUCTOR'S CLASS The January class will be held on Saturday, the 23rd at 1:30. I will be conducting the class, renewing our look at the current method of performing techniques on the examination. There will be a problem solving session with all of us performing the techniques from the examination sheet, critiquing what is done and ending with the teaching purpose of each technique covered. KAGAMI BIRAKI We will celebrate the New Year the weekend of 9/10 January. I will conduct a seminar on the importance of the mind working in conjunction with the body in performing effective Aikido. I will conduct the Saturday session starting at 9 AM and ending at 3:30 with an hour for lunch. On Sunday Steve Kendall will conduct the morning session at 9 AM and ending at 12 Noon. The afternoon session will begin at 2:00 PM and consist of demonstrations in celebration of the New Year. A donation box will be available for those who wish to make donations for the weekend training. The funds collected will be divided between the Merrifield Dojo operating fund and the Kansas City Mat Replacement Fund. They were flooded out in October and have lost their mat, canvas, several training uniforms, etc. and need assistance. I have taught at this dojo in the past and they deserve our support. Please be generous. NOTE: We will get together for a NO HOST dinner at a local restaurant at 5 PM on Saturday. KIATSU-HO By popular request, Norma and I will conduct a series of two hour classes on Kiatsu. The classes will be held one Saturday afternoon per month. the first class will be February 13 with the second class on March 13th and the ending class on April 10. Each class will open with a brief review of Ki extension and progress to focus on a particular segment of the body. SEMINAR SERIES I am initiating a series of seminars focused on the many faces of the Aikido related martial arts. On October 11 Sensei Shiro Shintaku conducted a class on Iaido. I plan to ask him to teach the Aikido he learned from Master Michio Hikitsuchi, 10 Dan, Aikido sometime later during the year. Subsequent seminars will feature instructors from Aikikai, Iwma, Yoshinkan, Yoseikan and Tomiki and possibly ju jitsu and tai chi. Comments please. Hey, no comments as yet - is anyone listening? NEW JERSEY RIVER MISOGI In January Sensei Terry Pierce will be hosting an early morning "dip" on the 3rd. Meet at the World Gym on US Route 130 in Cinnaminson, New Jersey at 6 AM for preparation and the move to the water. Enjoy. MAJOR ARTICLE A Thought at Christmas - Western Intoku It's just a small, white envelope stuck among the branches of our Christmas tree. No name, no identification, no inscription. It has peeked through the branches of our tree for the past 10 years or so. It all began because my husband Mike hated Christmas---oh, not the true meaning of Christmas, but the commercial aspects of it- over spending... the frantic running around at the last minute to get a tie for Uncle Harry and the dusting powder for Grandma---the gifts given in desperation because you couldn't think of anything else. Knowing he felt this way, I decided one year to bypass the usual shirts, sweaters, ties and so forth. I reached for something special just for Mike. The inspiration came in an unusual way. Our son Kevin, who was 12 that year, was wrestling at the junior level at the school he attended; and shortly before Christmas, there was a non-league match against a team sponsored by an inner-city church, mostly black. These youngsters, dressed in sneakers so ragged that shoestrings seemed to be the only thing holding them together, presented a sharp contrast to our boys in their spiffy blue and gold uniforms and sparkling new wrestling shoes. As the match began, I was alarmed to see that the other team was wrestling without headgear, a kind of light helmet designed to protect a wrestler's ears. It was a luxury the ragtag team obviously could not afford. Well, we ended up walloping them. We took every weight class. And as each of their boys got up from the mat, he swaggered around in his tatters with false bravado, a kind of street pride that couldn't acknowledge defeat. Mike, seated beside me, shook his head sadly, "I wish just one of them could have won," he said. "They have a lot of potential, but losing like this could take the heart right out of them." Mike loved kids-all kids-and he knew them, having coached little league football, baseball and lacrosse. That's when the idea for his present came. That afternoon, I went to a local sporting goods store and bought an assortment of wrestling headgear and shoes and sent them anonymously to the inner-city church. On Christmas Eve, I placed the envelope on the tree, the note inside telling Mike what I had done and that this was his gift from me. His smile was the brightest thing about Christmas that year and in succeeding years. For each Christmas thereafter, I followed the tradition---one year sending a group of mentally handicapped youngsters to a hockey game, another year a check to a pair of elderly brothers whose home had burned to the ground the week before Christmas, and on and on. The envelope became the highlight of our Christmas. It was always the last thing opened on Christmas morning and our children, ignoring their new toys, would stand with wide-eyed anticipation as their dad lifted the envelope from the tree to reveal its contents. As the children grew, the toys gave way to more practical presents, but the envelope never lost its allure. The story doesn't end there. You see, we lost Mike last year to cancer. When Christmas rolled around, I was still so wrapped in grief that I barely got the tree up. But Christmas Eve found me placing an envelope on the tree, and in the morning, it was joined by three more. Each of our children, unbeknownst to the others, had placed an envelope on the tree for their dad. The tradition has grown and someday will expand even further with our grandchildren standing around the tree with wide-eyed anticipation watching as their fathers take down the envelope. Mike's spirit, like the Christmas spirit, will always be with us. May we all remember Christ, who is the reason for the season, and the true Christmas spirit this year and always. God bless---pass this along to your friends and loved ones. We each give of ourselves when we work with each other in mastering or just getting acquainted with a technique or concept. It is a way of sharing which we must learn to enjoy. I find working with beginning students to be particularly rewarding. Their questions are so honest and their doubt, challenging to my own beliefs. Let us all dedicate ourselves to sharing with others as our own act of INTOKU. Speaking of Intoku, the following was passed to me by one of your fellow students who asked to remain anonymous: "I was walking towards the front door when a woman with a small child by the hand began walking next to me. Just before we could clear the street a driver who was trying to pick up some packages began to back up and didn't see the woman and child. I cut loose with a KIAI that stopped the driver just before he ran over the child. Thanks, May God Bless you and yours this Holiday." CHIEF INSTRUCTOR'S CORNER There are a lot of ways that Aikido can be taught. Philosophy, mechanics, self perception all play a part as we seek the whole. Koichi Tohei Sensei and I have tried to provide a philosophical basis and sound physical foundation for your training and advancement. There are teachers in our VKS program which come from all sections of the training spectrum. You should have little difficulty finding a couple of instructors who meet your immediate training needs. You should review your needs from time to time and visit the other instructors to get a broader perspective about what you are learning and how to set good goals for personal advancement. In the section to follow is a major segment of a discussion item I found on the Internet this past week. It talks about making a distinction between training and practice. Now, English is one of those wonderful languages which provide words which can be taken in a number of ways. It seems to me that "training" in the discussion refers to a student working without a direct class teaching environment and exploring the range of responses which the techniques learned to date by class practice provide. This is why I have dedicated Saturdays to "Open Practice" "Practice" relates to what is done in class at the direction of the teacher and is designed to "get this right" as a technique but without specific focus on its ultimate application. This is what we do in most of our classes, although we do provide some training time before or after regularly scheduled classes. One should be aware of these distinctions and establish practice times accordingly. I left in a segment on guitar playing because analogies such as this help some of us through our process of growing in our practice/training and the ultimate purpose of both. Susan's thoughts are worth your consideration. I thank her for her permission to use this posting. FROM THE INTERNET > >Saotome Sensei said once that there is practicing and there is training and both are equally as important. And he made a point to make sure that people were not trying to train when he wanted them to practice. >> > > I really like this distinction (maybe because of my upbringing :)). I think that learning techniques and learning Aikido are related, but separate activities. You can't train in Aikido without practicing techniques, but you're not doing Aikido if all you're doing is practicing techniques. (by: Eric Tilles) >> I like it too! I'm not sure of your background, but in mine, I've seen plenty of people who wanted to "train" from the beginning and never learned (thru practicing) how to do aikido. I guess this is what I was mainly going on about. The reverse is certainly true too, that people who only practice never get to do aikido. I guess in my experience, that I've found that too many people though want to go right to and stay with training and skip the practice or they feel they aren't doing "real" aikido. Granted, they aren't (either way), but you have to have a foundation laid first of practicing or training is just a bunch of people muscling each other around. It may be more immediately effective but it's just not aikido (IMO). It's like someone picking up an electric guitar and turning on all the effects and wailing away on it making all sorts of interesting, loud, rockin' sounds. They may find some really neat effects and bend the strings and go "waa waa waa" really loud, but they haven't learned to play music or the guitar. Not even if they find a few really neat riffs. But if all someone does is practice their chords and scales and get really good at them, they aren't playing music or the guitar either (and especially not improvising). But to improvise, you have to have the foundation of scales and chord work and reading music or you are just using the ignorance and dumb luck approach (or ignorance and brute force if it's aikido). In my mind, to really play music you have to be able to play the song and to improvise on it. But I think that someone who has stuck with all the chords and scales has a better chance of moving on if they choose at some point to do so that does someone who didn't. After the skills are developed, it is more what the person chooses to do with it and what their mindset is. I played the guitar for a while and got pretty good at scales and reading music (in particular) but I had difficulty improvising. It is a whole other mindset. My husband also plays the guitar and he has difficulty sitting down and learning songs. He can do the chord work and improvising over a song, but has a harder time with the "tedium" of learning to play a song, note for note. Again, it's a different mindset. He *has* worked hard on scales and the fundamentals, but still is more on the "after you know enough to be dangerous, just do it" side of things. I think we both like aikido because we both feel it stretches us to change our mind sets. And the type of aikido we do (ASU) is not too "note for note" (or step-by-step) so that I would get hung up in the details of the techniques. But it is standardized enough that my husband doesn't just go out and jiyu-waza (or improvise) everything. For me at least, I've found it to be a nice mix that allows me to be less rigid in my thinking of how things are done. It's funny, I don't even think about which foot orientation most of the techniques start from, I tend to more "flow" into it subconsciously. And as I am a pretty "detail-oriented" type of person, this is very freeing for me. I still have more difficulty with the jiyu-waza/randori and going "to the edge" (taking risks), but again that is just part of a mindset. I find that aikido is changing me without my conscious realization of it. It's hard to put into words, but it seems to be making me more open and trusting of myself and my abilities. More willing to take chances and trust myself to pull something out of the hat when I need it. I never felt that way when I was playing guitar. So I guess that is one of the reasons we still do aikido. I read this all again and feel like I was rambling a bit and not making a lot of sense (to anyone else but me) but for what it's worth... Susan Mellott TRAVELS None scheduled for January or February. ??