Welcome to South Austin Aikido

It's that time again! David Huffaker of our dojo is collecting Coats for Kids.  If you have a gently used coat you would like to donate, just drop off the coat at the dojo or give David a call at 512-658-0890 and he will come by and pick it up. Cash donations for Coats for Kids are also welcome. Deadline for pick up is November 29th. This is a GREAT charitable opportunity. 100% of your donation goes to someone in need.

http://www.jlaustin.org/?nd=cfk_help

The Thanksgiving weekend is upon us and with it comes a long weekend. Whether you are working, traveling, spending time with family or getting an early start on holiday shopping, South Austin Aikido wishes you and your family a safe and enjoyable holiday weekend.

Please note that South Austin Aikido will be closed on Thanksgiving Day, but will be open during our normal schedule on Sunday, 11/28.

On Thursday David Huffaker did a very nice job with his birthday rolls, rolling 60 times for the many Aikidoka who helped celebrate his birthday.  Happy Birthday David!

We just completed a great training weekend lead by Tres Hofmeister Sensei of Boulder Aikikai.  The weekend was really enjoyable. Tres Sensei focused on how to organize your body to absorb energy and in general, ways to evaluate how we relate to our partners.

We started with exercises which intentionally put us in an easily off balanced state.  The goal was to maintain your own balance through a variety ways to connect to your partner.  These generally involved pushing off of your partner in different ways but always noticing how your body adjusted to maintain balance.  We also paid attention to how uke adjusted to various movements to remain connected to us.

We then moved into practicing ikkyo but with the same intention.  Paying particular attention to how we must adjust our bodies to maintain balance.  The exercises made it easy to evaluate relating to others without getting wrapped up in a particular technique.  Then we attempted to maintain this same quality while practicing particular techniques.  It was a great learning experience and a new way of practicing aikido principles.

It was very exciting to have Tres Sensei in the dojo once again.  Thank you Tres Hofmeister Sensei for a wonderful weekend of training.  We are already looking forward to next year!  Thanks to everyone who supported the seminar and helped make it such a success.

Jesse tested for his Shodan this past Saturday and did a really great job.  He has prepared for many years for this test and all of the hard work certainly showed during his test.

He was attacked very hard by the energetic ukes, but never lost his composure and maintained a very relaxed approach that was evident in his movement and connection.  Jesse showed a lot of poise and entered very well during the weapon’s take a way, varying his technique and demonstrating a clear understanding of what he was doing.  Then during the randori Jesse moved very well, using the mat space and buying time varying his techniques to keep his ukes guessing.  What a great test!

Keep up the good work Jesse and continue to build on this great success.  Way to go Jesse!!

On Tuesday we had a guest instructor from Fremont California, Martin Christensen Sensei, who has been studying aikido since 1964.

Martin Sensei began by instructing us to keep within ourselves and not use muscular tension to accomplish the moves. He made several suggestions on variations of techniques which enable him to keep from creating tension in uke. We worked on tenkan, ikkyo, iriminage and kotegaishi all with the same theme of keeping relaxed and maintaining good posture. It was an enjoyable class and it was a great experience just to see an 80 year old man having fun training as well.

Thank you Martin Sensei, for taking time to visit our dojo and for sharing your aikido with us!