[Aikido] Another mass e-mail from Charlie

[chhudson at vassar.edu]

Hi all,
Charlie again. I am still doing well in Tokyo. Last week my situation
changed unexpectedly. I found out at the end of last week that practice at
Waseda would be suspended from the 4th to the 11th, for some unexplained
reason. Today I found out that practice would be suspended indefinitely.
This is aparently all because of an accident that happended during the
freshmen training camp. I was told when I arrived that something like four
or five freshmen were in the hospital, I guess someone decided that was
unnaccaptable. (and you thought Alan`s practices were hard!)
For three days this week I practiced with Seijou University. They were
really nice to me, especially because I don`t think they had any idea that
I was coming. The practices at Seijou are almost as different from Waseda
as Vassar is, and I learned a lot in three days.
Every day they do several drills that I had never seen before, at least
one which was apparently invented at Seijou. This is a footwork drill
which they do after the regular three eight counts of the basic footwork.
I don`t think I understand it compleatly, but it is more circular, and
seems to focus on different foot positions that the regular footwork
doesn`t cover, also it involves more hip turns, which are obviously
important. They also do several drills every day focusing on transitioning
between different techniques in randori, as well as drills focusing on
different types of timing in randori (I never got a satisfactory
explination for how these are supposed to work, but I like what I do
understand of them).
I was also fortunate to recieve some kata instruction. On my first day the
captain was very kind to explain the second set of nana ho nage kazushi
waza to me, which I had learned briefly at Waseda. They also cleaned up my
suwati waza and the first set of kazushi waza a bit. There are a few
techniques which are different at Waseda, Vassar, and Seijou.
On my last day I was fortunate to see some sort of demonstration (I never
figured out if it was in-house preperation for an upcoming tournament or a
test, but there were lots of older Sempais and Senseis there taking notes,
or grading or something.) People performed many different Kata. Some were
very impressive.
So I don`t know what I am going to do in my last week, maybe return to
Seijou, maybe check out the Tokyo University dojo, hopefully climb Mt.
Fuji and maybe another day trip, we`ll see. Anyway, I am having a blast.
Good work if you read all the way to the end. Take care, -Charlie