Author: Tonya

As all of you know. I plan on becoming an uchi-deshi at New York Aikikai.  The time is drawing near.  It’s only five more months until I move to New York and I can almost taste the hard work.  I can’t wait to be sore again, no offense to my home dojo of course.  I… Continue reading Almost There

This was my first camping trip with the dojo (in Jacksonville). We had quite a turnout. There were a lot of senior students, as well as some newer ones. I recall (actually I cannot forget) the freezing temperatures and smoke from the camp fire. I would have to say my favorite part of the whole… Continue reading Camping Trip March 2008

I could go on and on about today. But I will suffice to say that the classes were great fun and that I actually got a fair amount of sleep, so I could enjoy them. The day started out with Karen, Doug and I going out on the town in search of oranges and Gatorade… Continue reading Sunday 23rd

So the deal here is Karen and I were dying to get out on the town, and we knew that there would be so many people training that we wouldn’t be missed…so we went out to Rockefeller Plaza and had our picture taken with this metal man person and looked at the Christmas tree and… Continue reading Saturday the Seminar

So I trained with Luke in the 12:15 class. I felt really confused the whole class. I believe this was because I hadn’t gotten enough sleep the night before. I can’t recall why. The opening was slightly different than what I was used to. I think the technique was sankyo. I trained with a beginner… Continue reading Friday 21st

I forgot to mention Wednesday night. Karen, Doug C. and I went to where Luke works. Its really nice, plus once you learn the correct way to project your voice, you can actually have a conversation over the music. So anyway Thursday morning was fun. The openings Steve Pimsler did weren’t so difficult that I… Continue reading Thursday 20th

Sorry it’s taken me so long to write this. I had a very eventful trip, so much so that I had trouble sitting down to write anything, because I was busy and/or preoccupied. Anyway Sensei taught the 5:30 class and because Karen and I wanted a break at that point, we trained together. Maybe that… Continue reading Rest of Wednesday

Today’s first class was tons of fun. I trained with Mike in the first class. Steve Pimsler taught. He’s one of my favorites because he’s such a sweetheart… and his technique is really clean. Last night we got in late around 10:30. I had fun giving the deshi the stocking I put together with Karen.… Continue reading Wednesday December 19

Today was a lot of fun I trained with Claire Keller who sometimes teaches here. I asked her to train with me specially because I liked her style of teaching so much. We had a nice relaxed training date together. The last two classes were taught by Douglas Firestone who is really funny and only… Continue reading The last training day

Wednesday Sensei taught the 12:15 class and the 5:30 class. I was the by his side the instant he took off his hakama after class so I could fold it. I think he was amused at how fast I moved to be the first one there. Today Luke picked me to train with him, which… Continue reading Wednesday and Thursday (the last)