Winter wonderland

You may have heard of this. It is a badge of honour that I wear proudly. To have taken part in and survived a seminar so horrifying that even Tom Tam himself recalls it as a terrible experience, is something that I will never forget.

That fateful weekend, that shall ever be remembered in the annals of aikidoka legend as winter wonderland. It was here that I became known as the lone 5th kyu. A name that has since been lost to history.

Also Sensei tried to steal my wooly hat.

Now obviously most of these stories that I write about were not nearly as cool at the time as I make them out to be. They're just really cool in my head and then I exaggerate slightly further as to make for enjoyable reading.

But back to over-exaggeration.

It was a weekend seminar, prior to the christmas seminar. For those training for 5th Kyu and above. And the heating was broken.

Let me say that again. THE HEATING WAS BROKEN. You know how cold the dojo is, and that's when the heating is working. Oh and this was the coldest weekend of the year. It snowed!

You weren't there. You don't understand what it was like. I can categorically say that it was the coldest I have ever been in my life. It was so cold that we all slept in the lobby area. We stuffed about 15 bodies onto the floor of the lobby area while we slept because it was too cold to be spread out in the main dojo. I was fully clothed, in my sleeping back, surrounded by other people and their body warmth, and I was still shivering because I was so cold. I was so cold that I couldn't sleep. I think every one else had more or less the same experience those two nights we were there. And to get up in the morning after that, knowing that you'll spend the next hour sitting still for zazen....I've never experienced anything like it and never want to again.

Next time you're in the dojo, feeling like life is unfair. Just remember winter wonderland.

Of sneak attacks and psychological warfare

I can't recall what technique it was. But there was a class that Tim was teaching and I was taking Ukemi for his demonstration. No problem there.
Then all of a sudden, with no warning, he produces a tanto from within his Gi and tries to stab me.
He had picked up the tanto from the kameza earlier in the lesson and stashed it in his Gi for later use.

I seem to have an unusually large amount of memories of people trying to stab me.

But anyway, the point is, it was a sneak tanto attack to check that I had good connection. In this particular instance I did and I remained unscathed.

A few lessons later Tim happened to be taking the class again. I noticed early on that there was no tanto at the kameza. Needless to say I was on edge. Every time I took ukemi I was getting ready for a sudden tanto attack. But none came.
This was scary. I spent the whole lesson watching Tim like a hawk, expecting him to strike at any moment.
It later turned out that whoever was doing the weapons had forgotten to lay out the tanto at the start of class and I had failed to notice.
Sigh.


I think most people have at least once seen Sensei suddenly attack a student as we've all been kneeling and listening to him tell us about the importance of connection.
Well he did it to me once too, pointing out that we never know what might happen. And again on this occasion my connection was good and was unscathed.
However afterwards for several months afterwards he would walk slowly up to me whenever he was talking and remind me that we never know what might happen.
I'm certain he was waiting for the one time I let my guard down. But I never did. Either that or he was waging intense psychological warfare on me. Freaking me out, always keeping me on edge.

I'm not exaggerating about this one, he did this most classes for several months. Slowly walking towards to me as he spoke, always working that sentence in somehow. You never know what might happen.

I'm still waiting for that attack to come. He's still saving it for me. He hasn't said it now for at least a year. But I know he's still waiting for me to forget, to let me guard down. And I'm still waiting for that attack.

I'm still waiting.

You never know what might happen.

Training at EMK over Summer

Probably two of the most intense classes of aikido I've ever had were when I was training at EMK in Summer 2012.

During summer without the GSJ crowd around the place quiets down a bit and very occasionally, as I discovered, you may find that you're are the only one, or one of two people there.

The first was when Sensei was away on other business and so Tom Tam took the class. And I was the only person there. It was intense.

There was no stopping to demonstrate techniques. Tom did the techniques four times and then I tried to do it four times. When I did it wrong he would counter me to show me my mistake and if I did it wrong again he would counter me again. Barely a word was spoken.

A week later Sensei was back. And only Tom and I were there. We spent the lesson working on my connection by way of doing a lot of tanto work. Many of you may not have noticed but in EMK Sensei has one or two tanto which are sharper than the others. Much sharper. When stabbed with normal tanto it feels like someone is pressing a block of wood into you quite hard. When stabbed with these ones it feels like you are being stabbed.

So the lesson was largely around me and Tom practising not getting stabbed by each other as we wielded some rather sharp tanto. At the peek of the lesson this involved grabbing Torii's wrist and waiting for them to try and stick you with the tanto at which point, if your contact is good, you don't get stabbed.

I got stabbed a lot.

I also learnt a bit about striking someone with a tanto. Sensei noticed I had no idea about how to cut someone with a tanto. He, with a tanto in his belt, told me to perform a shomen with my tanto. And with very little effort stabbed me as I tried.

I'm pretty sure he actually rolled his eyes as he did it, I made it just that easy for him.

Thanks for reading!

Daniel Brunner's visit to EMK

In 2012 EMK was fortunate enough to be visited by Daniel Brunner Sensei. For those of you who don't know Daniel Brunner is a 6th Dan Shihan from Switzerland and could perhaps be quite reasonably described as a real-life sword master. Yeah, that's right.

So anyway, this all happened a while ago now so the order of events are slightly less clear in my head then I would like but I'll reminisce anyway.

The day began with Zazen followed by Batto-Ho as you might expect. Then came the first class of the day, it was a day of Bokken taught by Daniel Brunner Sensei by the way. As I said I can't remember it all that well but a few key moments stick in my mind.

The first being whilst demonstrating a technique with Tom Tam as Uke he wanted, if I remember correctly, to demonstrate the importance of entering and how when we practice, in general, we do not commit properly to the attack, meaning that when training in bokken we should really be putting the pressure on.
He demonstrated this by more or less attacking Tom with a Shinai and quite literally chasing him around the dojo trying to hit him. Just to be clear though, Tom wasn't exactly running with his tail between his legs, he was defending himself properly and backing away with due urgency, it was probably the closest thing I've ever seen to a dual, it was cool, so cool.
In the process of trying to murder Tom Tam with a Shinai he had also hit the Kamiza and knocked several Jo's off their weapon stand. This was the very beginning of the day and at this stage it seemed like he might tear the whole building down by the end of it. Although I can't say for sure but I think Sensei was thinking a similar thing, I glanced over to him during this and got the strong impression he was biting his tongue and deeply concerned over the well-being of the dojo.

Luckily this was the most eventful part of the day, no more damage to the dojo was done.
The other thing I remember was during one of the breaks I grabbed Boon to practice a technique that I hadn't quite got my head around during the class.
Before I knew it Daniel Brunner Sensei had appeared, taken Boon's bokken and wanted me to practice the technique with him as Uke. I almost wet myself from the fear. I had just wanted to get my head around the mechanics of this technique, I knew that when I had it would still be martially embarrassing, but it was good enough for me. But now I was faced with a man who in my opinion, as I have said, could quite fairly be described as an actual sword master. Every movement I made would be an affront to the study of the sword, he wouldn't correct me on it, as there would be too much to even begin doing so. But he would know and I would know that my form was beyond correcting.

As he politely corrected little bits of my form the hot tears of shame ran down my face because we both knew that in reality everything was wrong. Okay so I didn't actually cry but I was crying on the inside.

In reality of course he is a very kind and patient teacher and in no way did anything to make me feel bad about my aikido. It is just hard not to feel a bit awe-struck and inadequate when faced by such great teachers.

Thanks for reading folks!