Last post I commented that I found myself not breathing while being the uke (person being thrown) in aikido, and I thought that it was hampering my ability. So last night at class, I focused on breathing out during my rolls, and they became 100% better. In fact, it wasn’t just during rolls, but also… Continue reading Lesson 17: Breathing Works

Lately in aikido, I have been paying as much attention to uke (the person being thrown, in this case, myself being the uke) as possible, and have found much insight. Last night I found that sometimes when I do ukemi (a roll) when I am thrown, I close my eyes and hold my breath. Both… Continue reading Lesson 16: Frozen Ukemi

Being a good student of aikido is like being an egg. At school right now I have a large amount of free time, so lately it has been spent translating pages from an aikido book I bought in Japanese. It takes a loooong time for me, but the upside of that is that I spend… Continue reading Eggs are good for Aikidoka

Though aikido movements may be taught with clear seemingly 2 dimensional movements sometimes, tonight I realized that in fact they are very 3 dimensional. This may be a strange way to explain it, but I was training with a new student tonight, and I found that he was doing the movements mostly correct, but nothing… Continue reading Lesson 14: 3D

Lesson 12: Joe Joe is a reason to miss practice and even neglect your blog. He is my absoulute best-buddy from college in San Francisco, and paid me a visit for three nights this past week. But as you can see by the wooden weapons we are holding, Aikido was not wholly ignored. Due to… Continue reading Lesson 12 & 13

Right now in Japan, we are in the thick of the rainy season, and less people have been showing up to aikido. Everyday is very very warm, usually partly overcast, a little rainy every day, and extremely humid. The best adjective I can think of for the weather now is “thick”. I’ve never sweat as… Continue reading Lesson 11: Rainy Season Training