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.

Japanese Archery

Today I read an article about Japanese Archery and thought I should share with my blog visitors. Here's a quick quote:

ZUSHI, Japan – It is about as far from the Olympic sport of archery as it can get. The bow is taller than the person shooting it, and, to the uninitiated, it appears lopsided and unbalanced. There are no sights, no high-tech stabilizers.

And, of course, it is done on horseback, at upward of 40 mph.

It's called yabusame, and it is the sport of the samurai.

Each year, archers in feudal shooting gear climb atop their decorated mounts for a lively competition on the beach of Zushi, a town just south of Tokyo, galloping in the sand as thousands of onlookers cheer and shout. The first competition was held here in 1199.

The scene is like something out of a movie by the great Akira Kurosawa. Banners flap in the ocean wind marking the beginning and end of the shooting runway. Little boys in bright robes and black hats scamper about collecting the arrows and the debris from the wooden or clay targets destroyed by each hit.

"There is nothing like this outside of Japan," said Ietaka Kaneko, who heads the Japan Equestrian Archery Association and the Takeda School of Horseback Archery, which traces its origins back more than 800 years.

You can find the entire story here

Promotion

Last night I was unexpectedly promoted in my Ken-jutsu class. Sensei taught a great class, Aaron (my kohai) and I had a good workout with some very good lessons learned. Now that our ken-jutsu class has changed to Fridays at 5:00 I am very hopeful for paired practice and larger classes.

At the end of class sensei lit some incense and called me to the front of the dojo with him. At that point sensei signed my sensu with my new rank and appologized for the burden (I now have another rock to carry). All in all it was a great day!