Welcome to South Austin Aikido

This past weekend several of us traveled to Fremont California for a seminar with Ikeda Sensei. During the weekend SAA had two students testing for Dan (black belt) ranks: Todd Kammerer for Sandan (3rd degree) and Tim Schmelter tested for Nidan (2nd degree).

The tests were as intense as any that I have seen before. Ikeda Sensei had them all test at once, dividing them into pairs so that each test candidate had to play the role of both uke and nage. The pace of the test was not for the faint of heart, as everyone involved attacked with a lot of energy. They started with tanto dori, then moved on to tachi dori, and after the takeaways, Ikeda Sensei had them all participate in randori for each other, taking turns as nage. The randori included all strikes (shomenuchi, yokomenuchi and tsuki), and took a lot of energy to both attack and defend. It was like a 15 minute sprint, and all the test candidates were completely spent at the end. The mumblings from the watching crowd often included things like, "I'm glad it's not me out there!"

It was difficult to keep up with both test pairs going on at the same time at such a torrid pace. However, from what I could see, both Tim and Todd performed admirably and it is safe to say that just surviving a test like that is a victory. We should all be very proud of their efforts in preparing and testing in Fremont as they both represented our dojo very well.

Way to go Tim and Todd and Congratulations!

Photos and videos coming soon.