Welcome to South Austin Aikido

Several of us went to San Antonio over the weekend to attend a seminar with our friends at Alamo City Aikido lead by Kevin Choate Sensei of Chicago Aikikai.  Choate Sensei is a long time student of Saotome Sensei and he brings an interesting view of aikido to his seminars.

This particular weekend Choate Sensei focused on the importance of understanding basic technique and how to search for the inner refinements to each technique through this practice.  We worked mostly on ikkyo during the weekend, with different areas of focus within the technique.  By the end of the weekend I was convinced that ikkyo is the hardest technique in all of aikido.  It is definitely a thought provoking seminar.

The theme of the weekend was that no matter how your ideas of connection and movement may change, you should still be able to make the basic technique look like basic technique.  You just add your refinements of these ideas into the technique.

We had an awesome turnout from our group.  Thanks to everyone from our group who traveled to San Antonio to support this seminar and special thanks to our friends at Alamo City Aikido for providing our members a place to stay over this seminar weekend.

Pictures of the seminar