Before Zen crossed the shores into Japan, the students of the Tendai school would study meditation, as part of their daily practice. Four of them, close friends all, promised one another to observe seven days of silence.
On the first day, no words were spoken, and the students took pleasure in their auspicious beginning. When night came however, the oil lamps grew dim, and the room slowly darkened.
One student, named Hoshin, called out to a servant: "Servant! Attend to the lamps, so that I might better observe our accomplishment!"
The second student was surprised to hear Hoshin speak. "We are supposed to keep quiet," he chided.
"But you also spoke!" declared the third. "You are an idiot!"
"I am the only one who has not talked," concluded the fourth, as he settled into seiza.
For the group: What are your Aikido related New Years resolutions? I’ll start. MM and I have resolved to kick up our training a notch. Every Friday, we plan to undergo a “mini” misogi training session–essentially, half a cleansing class.
That translates to 54 turns as uke, and 54 as nage, with no breaks until we switch roles. The plan (hope?) is to gradually increase the number of throws until we hit 108 each. Perhaps we’ll incorporate bokken.
This entry was posted on Monday, January 11th, 2010 at 9:16 pm and is filed under Conversation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
1.Attend an Open Mat Night
2. By this time next year…be 3rd kyu
3. Personally I feel like I have plateaued in my training, atleast over the past year. I’ve learned new techniques and what not. But I dont feel like I…”look better”? if you get my meaning. Seemed like after my 5th kyu test I spiked in my abilities…now i feel like i’ve just planed off.
On an unrelated note…this is for Jerry. I practiced that shio-nage pin you showed me today…poor Sam…lol
But with that I got a question. Today my class (which was just a one on one tutoring with Sam) I stressed direct Iremi from katate tori (same side wrist grabs) for speed and efficiency. I did a technique where uke grabs the wrist and you move in iremi bringing your wrist up past uke’s head in an upward motion, now normally, i’ve seen people just do a direct iremi-nage with this motion. But I thought “what if you screw up on the opposite arm coming in, instead of curving it, you get lazy and do a cloths-line, uke sees this and blocks it” Well i notice shio-nage is right there with that other hand…just abandon the cloths-line, grab uke’s hand with your other hand and apply shio-nage downward and behind uke.
Have never seen this before…but i did it? Did I actually make a martial assumption and added 2+2 to get 4? Or, did I just show a fabricated technique? lol 
Show me in class. I’m not visualizing it.
I think my New Years Resolution is simply to show up for more classes. If I can do that, I will accomplishes a lot (maybe).
Chris
1- Get into my size 8 wedding dress (thus training with Jerry at open mat)
2-increase my core muscle strength to improve my lower back issue(which has me on bed rest for the next two days)
3- train and take 3rd kyu …eventually.
4- buy a car
5- move to a bigger apartment
6- get a job that’s easier on my health
7- get married…yay!!(thus, the size 8 wedding dress.)
DK, is the shihonage performed with uke’s attacking hand? If so, that’s a common technique, but there are a few things to keep in mind.
First, you have to position your head immediately behind uke’s elbow, right next to his shoulder. That way, you protect your face if uke lets go.
Second, your free hand is normally raised in a kokyu motion up uke’s centerline, under his chin. This prevents uke from easily blocking the hand.
(You can think of it as an atemi, or open palm uppercut to uke’s chin, since I know how much you like inflicting pain. 
)
Your free hand then cuts over uke’s shoulder to perform iriminage. So it is a combination shihonage and iriminage, I suppose.
The other alternative if uke raises his free arm is to abandon shihonage and perform ikkyo (or its derivatives).
mon/weds at 4:00pm
weds has been shot for this week. Ryan had work and I cant make the weds classes. but other than that…like i said…mon/weds
DK,
Taught tantotori last night. That shihonage I showed you, the one that sets uke up for breakfall? It occurred to me that this particular variation is perfect for tantotori, because it allows nage to take the knife while the blade is pointed away.
It’s also safer for uke, because if you execute standard shihonage, uke may fall on the knife after the throw.
Hey,
I’ll be at UNF Wednesday night, if you can’t come DK.
I’ll hang out and see if anyone shows… so tell Mike and Sam and who ever that there is class Wednesday…i’ll be on campus.
What’s wrong with uke falling on his own knife? Irony….
It is an unaccounted for variable in a high stress situation. Would you rather control the weapon, or have it lay unguarded, on the ground, for someone else to retrieve?
(I know you posted tongue in cheek, but it’s a good question).
Any ideas for blog topics? What would you guys like for me to write about?
The saga of the dressing room curtains may soon be at an end.
There’s been a new development.
My resolution is to improve my weapons work. I think that is what I most lack in my Aikido.
As far as classes at UNF, we are scheduling Mon/Wed @ 4 are norms, but I had to work wed last week so we had to do it friday @ 4, but that was a one time deal.
good to know someone understands tongue and cheek posts *drumroll*
you should write a post on how awesome i am…
Sure, DK:
Batman is awesome.
That’s what you meant, right Carl?
of course
I’d prefer not to discuss school business on a public forum.
Thanks.
Ok if no one posts something soon, I’m going to talk about what Me, Ryan, Jerry, and Joey were talking about saturday after class…
“Now, listen carefully…And do not mention Frodo, or the Ring. And say nothing of Aragorn, either. In fact, it’s better if you don’t speak at all, Peregrin Took Dark Knight.”
I’m working on new content. Feel free to contribute anything you like, even short posts. It doesn’t have to be Shakespeare.