Aikido for Kids in Western Mass.

This week I took the first step in settting up an "aikido for kids" class with the Union 38 school district in Western Massachusetts. My idea is to provide aikido principals with in good mix of games as well as some standard paired aikido practice.

Sounds good right?

Well, in my opinion, it's even better in practice. In the past I've assisted my teacher with a class for at risk teens. He provided a good mix of discipline, technique, and fun for the kids at the same time. I hope to emulate this process and provide an entry level introduction to aikido.

I just found a great video on Youtube after searching for kids and aikido! I search with a purpose as I'm working on setting up an aikido program with the after school program in the Whately school district of Western Massachusetts. It's my opinion that aikido and positive role models can have a positive influence on children & adults alike, which is what I hope to provide with my aikido program!

Very exciting.

Private Hosting Plans?

Right now, the aikido-matt blog is hosted at blogger, a free service that has to include the term "Blogspot" in the url. Not something I'm terribly pleased to have in my visitors address bar, there's something about a private domain that seems a bit more legitimate. Maybe it's time to make a move to a private domain and web hosting plan?

That's when I started looking for the best vps hosting I could find for the least amount of cash. Enter Web Hosting Geeks and their site dedicated to sharing various products and hosting plans from some of the best web hosting companies available today. I was able to narrow my web hosting choices down by prices or features and windows or linux platforms. Kind of a one stop shop for web hosting plans, which can be a bit faster than bouncing around Google for an hour or two before finding what you want.

Tea Culture Katana Review

Having used several katana in my pursuit of ken-jutsu, I wanted to share my review of the Tea Culture katana from CAS Hanwei. To date, the Tea Culture katana is one of the nicest blades I've had the pleasure of using. At about 29.5", it feels good in the hand, not too heavy and not too light with a nice balance. The furniture is also quite nice, I especially like the "battle wrap" tsuka. The only gripe I have on the overall package is that there appears to be a scratch in the suede ito wrapping, it came this way and is unfortunate. Other than that, I'm quite pleased with the Tea Culture katana.

Now for some pictures.

My new Hakama

Last week I received my new hakama from Bujin Design! I ordered one of the heavy weight cotton hakama, and I must say I wasn't let down by the result. Everything feels well made and durable, it's not too heavy, and the length was just right.

After such a good experience with Bujin, I definitely recommend their services to anyone on the market for a new Gi or hakama.

Yoga and Aikido Practice

Over the past few years, as I've finally hit my thirties, I've found that my need for stretching has increased. That led me to find a local yoga class; I tried bikram and I thought it was a good practice, but I found it a bit too extreme. My local bikram teachers pushed a harder style of yoga where I found myself really hitting the poses. It was vigorous but not quite what I was looking for.

So, the search was back on, and I ended up finding a small yoga group at the Whately MA , town library. It was a slower practice, more affordable, and really emphasized building core strength. The prefect compliment to my aikido practice, and I'd highly recommend the pairing of yoga and aikido to anyone else. For more info on the Whately MA yoga classes, click here.

If you're interested in some goods geared towards the Yogic lifestyle, click below.

Kendo Tsuki

I just found the image above over at SFI, and wanted to share it here as well. There are many forms in aikido and ken-jutsu that use a tsuki attack. But, it is very rare to see it used so effectively in contact. Were that blade steel or even a wooden bokken, an attack like that could have been deadly.