1st kyu Grade Test

Had my 1st kyu grade test two days. All in all, it went pretty well and I'm happy with how it went. Manderbacka was judging the test and she commented that it looked "nätti" ("pretty"), which… I'm not 100% sure what that means, but I suppose it means it didn't look ugly or awful. She did comment that I should do less, let uke do more. I was nervous in the test, so I probably didn't want to give uke too much space or time, but I'm sure the comment also applies to my technique in general. Also, she said my technique had quite a lot of "mättö" (hard to translate, basically being a bit too heavy handed), but she did say that when you're young, that's the time for it if ever. One of the things she said that felt really nice was that my jiyuwaza looked like I hadn't planned anything, that I hadn't decided which techniques to use beforehand. The jiyuwaza was far from perfect, but it felp pretty good. I didn't panic or get too overwhelmed by the attacks. There isn't really anything I'd like to do differently, but it would have been nice if we could have show the jo katas more than once. Now I can start studying aikido again, not just the grade test techniques. To start taking it easy again. I think I'm going to study jo kata 22, as it was removed from the grade test technique list and I didn't practice it for the test.

Frank Noël seminar: 30°

This was the first time I went to Frank Noël's seminar, even though he's been coming every year during the time I've studied aikido. I'm just too lazy an aikido student to go to seminars that are held outside our own dojo or Helsinki, and even so I attend seminars very seldomly. Thus my experience with well-known foreign senseis is pretty much limited to ENDO Seishiro Shihan, IGARASHI Kazuo sensei, and KOBAYASHI Yasuo Shihan. Now that I'm studying for the 1st kyu, I've been attending seminars to reinforce the momentum.

Throughout my involvement with aikido, Frank Noël has become familiar through people at my dojo teaching aikido using his approaches to techniques and principles. Now that I've been able to observe him in person and take ukemi for him, it's even more clear that our dojo unofficially follows his style. Noël's technique is almost more prominent at Meido-Kan that Endo Shihan's, but that may just be me. That's probably the reason why the seminar felt almost mundane, everything was so familiar. Not that I could actually preform the techniques the way Noël sensei showed them, but the forms were more or less similar to how I see kihon waza.

The subject of the seminar was the entry angle that applies to almost all techniques from a frontal attack. According to Noël sensei the angle is 30°, give or take an angle. Being reminded of this came at a convenient moment for me as I've been pondering on the entry for shomenuchi in jiyuwaza. I don't have to change anything, the fundamental parts are the same, but I can try and refine them by using the exact angle. This is good. Have to see what Igarashi sensei has in store for us, his seminar's up in a fortnight.

Martial no more

Had an… epiphany of sort. When I started studying aikido, and for quite a few years, I thought of it as a 'martial art'. I thought of various aspects of self-defense, taking those into consideration when trying to understand the techniques. I'm not saying anything has really changed, but today I realized aikido is not a martial art. Not for me. Not anymore. The 'martial' aspect of it is gone, the 'art' remains. Some may read this as "aikido is choreography, a dance", but that's not exactly what I mean. The principles taught can be applied to a situations where violence is a real threat. The art can be used for self-defense. But it is not a martial art. For me, now, Pekiti-Tirsia Kali is the martial art I study. Aikido that I study is… merely an art. How it is used, it's immaterial. In a way, I've lost something. Something I miss already. But it will fade away and at some point I've forgotten what I thought I saw in aikido. I just hope the mere 'art' is enough for me.