Welcome to South Austin Aikido

This year was extra special because we had seven members from our dojo attending the DC Camp. This included Todd and Brian Kammerer, Charles Pummill, Darrell White, Violina Rindova, Denne Reed and myself.

The road to DC started out pretty rough due to flight cancellations for five of us on the Friday before the camp. The five of us were originally on the same flights to DC but due to the airline challenges, we all wound up on different flights going into Baltimore. Though we missed the first day of camp, we were able to be on the mat by the second day and enjoy six days awesome days of training. This was tough on our bodies. Fortunately, Darrell, Charles and I found a hot tub we could use and enjoyed it on a regular basis during the week.

This year we did many different types of practice that quickly got us outside our comfort zone. This included two sword practice, jo vs bokken and shoto vs bokken. The camp also included quite a lot of open hand practice, which complemented our weapons training. My brain is still processing all of the new information, but one thing remains the same. The principles we apply everyday in our open hand practice is clearly evident in the weapons training. Our focus must be on our partner’s center and contact must be made from our own center without using arm strength to make the techniques work.

On the final day of training our own Darrell White got called up for demonstration with Saotome Sensei. It was exciting to see Darrell take center stage and even get a hug from Sensei. Way to go Darrell!!

Special thanks to Violina and Denne for making room for some of us to stay in their cousin’s home and for introducing us to their many friends in DC.

Click here for a few pictures from the DC visit.