new years, 2011

January 14, 2011

On New Year's Eve Day we held our annual winter dojo cleaning and 28 members and friends came to help! We took up the mats, emptied the closets, and scrubbed the dojo from top to bottom. Thank you to everyone who gave so much of their time and energy on that day.

Later that evening, twenty people gathered to train and celebrate the end of 2010 at Brooklyn Aikikai. We started at 10 pm with misogi chanting followed by a half hour of zazen (sitting meditation). At 11:30 pm Savoca Sensei led a vigorous class that took us into 2011. The dojo kansho (large bell) was rung from the rooftop 108 times to mark the end of the old year and the beginning of the new. After the class we broke out the sake and made toasts to honor our teachers past and present, the community of the dojo, and all who could not be with us.

It was probably about 1:30 am by the time we sat down to our formal dinner. Three appetizers (including foie gras pate), homemade pasta with pesto sauce, salad, and the main entree: wild boar accompanied by chard and parmesan. Dessert was homemade gelato - espresso or lemon, and a tarte tatin. It was a real feast! Thank you to all of the chefs - especially Mike Mikos who spent days (really) preparing a significant share of the dishes!

In between courses there was entertainment: we had impromptu skits, several impersonations, and a live band down on the mat before dessert!! After the meal had been cleaned up it was time to bring out the microphones and the projector for the (now) traditional KARAOKE! The details of that shall be known only to those who were there... you'll have to come next year to find out how many great (or at least enthusiastic) singers we have in the dojo.

Cormac Savoca joined the party at about 5:30 am and things were still going strong. The last people to leave didn't go until about 6:45 am (that's more than an hour later than the year before... I'm a bit nervous about what will happen for 2012!).

It was a fantastic night of strong training, terrific food, and great fun. Thank you to everyone for making it so great. Special thanks to Matt Desmond, Liese Klein Sensei, and Rodger Park Sensei for joining us!

Below are just a few of the many wonderful photos Sean MacNintch took of the evening's festivities. Note the clock in the final picture, which reads 6:30 am! View the rest here:

http://macnintch.com/ba_newyears/

winter testing

January 10, 2011

On Friday, 12/17/2010, the dojo came together for winter testing. Thirteen candidates tested for the ranks of 5th through 3rd Kyu, and Scott Friedman, Yuho Baldini's student, tested for Shodan. It was a rigorous, spirited, event, beginning with a 6 pm, all-dojo warmup and mini-practice that was basically standing-room-only (introducing an extra level of challenge to our ukemi: rolling into a dense crowd of limbs!). The testing ended close to 9pm. Highlights included jyodori, randori, and a surprise choke attack. The tension ran high at times, as Sensei exhorted testers to stay connected and show a higher level of ki. But in the end, everybody passed, and Noah Landes was promoted to 2nd kyu. The dojo celebrated afterwards with a delicious potluck dinner and drinks. All in all, it was an extraordinary evening--one that demonstrated the spirit of friendship, hard work, and commitment that makes Brooklyn Aikikai a unique space in the lives of its members.

rikimi

December 9, 2010

by James Yaegashi

I wish I had something insightful to say about my training in aikido. The truth is, I don’t. I practice simply because I made a commitment to learn. In the process, I’m finding that training is informing my life beyond the walls of the dojo. So, here follows my attempt to articulate one of the ways a beginner’s life is affected by training in aikido. I am made aware of a multitude of things in practice. One such realization is that I have a tendency toward rikimi (forcing or tensing). For example, in kokyunage (or in any other technique, for that matter), I often find myself pulling or pushing using my arm or shoulder strength, rather than moving my center through irimi, tenkan or kaiten and receiving and redirecting the energy coming from my partner. I see in my mind what I need to do, but I am far from being able to execute it — which, of course, is why one practices, repeating over and over in hopes of eventually executing the technique as Sensei demonstrates, and making it a part of one’s being. During practice at the dojo, I am focused on the specific details of a given technique that I am working on — how far do I need to step in to absorb my partner's energy at my center rather than pulling him/her to me? Did I step in too far? What is the positional relationship between my line and my partner's line when I do tenkan? Am I staying connected (or, "sticky," as Sensei says) with my partner? Why has "sticky" become "pushing" or “pulling”? How do I correct that? When taking ushiro ukemi, at what point does balance transform into being thrown? As if working through these details on the tatami isn’t enough of a challenge, I must simultaneously be mindful not to fall into rikimi. Interestingly, these very specific points I work on in the dojo act as a sort of stimulant to my mind — they pique my curiosity outside the dojo about how I relate to other people. How do I meet the energy of my whining 4-year old and redirect it, rather than merely insisting that she stop? Where does my metaphoric center need to be vis-à-vis my wife's in order to harmonize when we are both exhausted from a day's work and have to put the kids in the shower and ready them for bed? What is my spiritual ukemi when a meter maid has just written me a ticket for double-parking while I dropped my son off at school? And as an overarching question, at what instances in life does rikimi seem to be my way of responding, rather than receiving and harmonizing? The more I train at the dojo, the more I become aware of my deficient attention to all the details of technique. As a beginner, that is to be expected — or, rather, it is exactly where I should be. One might even say this, “naturally,” will lead to rikimi. But, I hope continued practice will eventually bring me out from rikimi to shizentai (natural being), where meeting and harmonizing becomes a part of my being, both in and outside the dojo.