Picked up a book in the dojo where my Chinese Medicine practice is, 'The Secrets of Aikido'. As far as I could tell the secrets are that for all his martial talents, Ueshiba was just a bit insane; and that if what he was doing was aikido, then nobody else has ever done aikido. Anyway the book has a chapter titled shugyo - constant training. There are no secrets to butokuryu aikijujutsu, there's just constant training. So happy Australia/ Invasion day, we train as usual.

謨賀新年
Another year of training is here. We'll be back at the dojo Tuesday January 12.
Here's this year's sumo Dezuiri ceremony at Meiji Jingu.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_GEDx4n0YE

ko uchi gari

Small techniques can be devastating. The big forward throws of judo like seoi nage are effective, but the person being thrown has plenty of time to prepare themselves for the impact and will usually handle it without too much damage, even if they haven't learned how to fall safely. But the suddenness of well timed small techniques like ko uchi gari make them treacherous for even the most skilled breakfallers.

Cup day

Training's still on.

atemi workshop

A reminder to all about our atemi workshop on October 25. Familiar ground for those who train with the club, the aim is to show how basic aiki movements can be used to deliver powerful and deceptive atemi.
Details in the poster below. At the Melbourne Budo Academy, Level 1 226-230 Brunswick St, Fitzroy, 10am-1pm.

grading Thursday August 27

It's been a year or so since the last grading, and some students have improved so it's time for another one. Let's make it Thursday August 27. Afterwards we'll go somewhere for refreshment.

We practice uki-otoshi to learn how to get power from extending the open side hip, this video can give some pointers. Float uke up first, then throw him over his front foot by drawing hikite to the open side hip. Notice how both the first two exponents extend both their leg and hip on the open side. Finally Mifune turns as he does the nage no-kata uki-otoshi - I thought it was just us aiki folk that did that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiLCfJk2mEA

I was wrong in saying that it was likely that nobody had ever won a judo bout with uki-otoshi. It works fine as a counter:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVt6VgJK_8c