[Aikido] Letter from Tokyo

[Aslak Berg]

Hi everybody,

I'm writing this letter from Tokyo where I've just spent 6 weeks practicing
at Waseda University. The level of aikido here is amazing, and practices are
pretty hard with lots of randori every day. Unfortunately, they're on summer
vacation now so there is no more practice, but I feel that I've learnt a
lot.
 They do some of the techniques really differently from what we're used to,
and they also have a couple of katas we never do, so there has been a lot to
learn. Another thing I really like about practices here is that they have a
good system, so every day they go through footwork, falls, tai sabaki, etc.
My tai sabaki was so bad compared to theirs, it was a little bit
embarassing, but it's been fun.
    Tokyo is also a really fun city, the nightlife is good and the food is
absolutely amazing. The place I'm staying at has a lot of other foreigners,
so it's been easy to make friends even though my Japanese is bad that it's
almost useless. I've even made a couple of Japanese friends who speak decent
English when I went clubbing in Roppongi with people from the guesthouse.
Anyway, just thought I'd let you know that I'm having an amazing time
learning lots of aikido. On Thursday I'm leaving Tokyo to go to Osaka for a
month to do even more aikido and see another part of Japan, so I might send
another email from there.

Aslak