Welcome to South Austin Aikido

This has been quite an eventful year in preparation of so many shodan tests. This past weekend was the culmination of those efforts. Darrell White, Chad Leath and Brian Kammerer each tested over the weekend with Ikeda Sensei in San Antonio.

Darrell had the dubious honor of going first since it was decided to break the tests up by having one at the lunch hour and the other two at the end of the day on Saturday. Darrell displayed so much improvement over the past year by trusting his body movement and not just relying on brute force. This is something that did not come easy for someone who is not small in stature and is a real credit to Darrell for opening his mind and pursuing something that many would avoid thinking it is just too hard to be possible. Needless to say, Darrell displayed some very inspiring aikido during his test and we are all very proud of his efforts, accomplishment and dedication to training. Also, his paired kumi tachi with Chad was the best bokken work I have ever seen Darrell demonstrate. Way to go Darrell, you should be very proud of your growth in aikido!!

Chad Leath tested first immediately following the afternoon training session. His focus and intention were immediately clear. He moved very well through the suwari waza and hamni handachi techiniques. This is was especially pleasing to me since we do not work on this very much. Many of us have knee issues and we just do not spend the time we should on this type of training. However, despite that limitation, Chad did very well on this portion of the test. His takeaways looked very crisp as well with the only problem being on the entry for tachi dori. However, Chad kept his cool and went on to put together one of the best shodan tests I have witnessed. Way to go Chad, your paired kumi tachi was inspiring indeed!! Way to go on a great test!!

Finally, Brian Kammerer tested. Watching Brian perform one would think he has been taking aikido all his life. He practically has, given that he started training in Aikido when he was 11 years old. Brian demonstrated beautiful movement and connection during his open hand portion of his test. He stumbled a little during his tanto dori and jo dori, but did not let it bother him and even stepped it up a notch for the rest of his test. His randori left me jaw hanging at how quick he moves and really utilized the mat well. He made his ukes look like they were moving in slow motion. Even Ikeda Sensei was encouraging the ukes to move quicker. They could not catch the stealth like youngster. Way to go Brian, we are all very proud of your test!!

It was a very exciting day to see so many good shodan tests from our group. I hope everyone enjoyed this as much as I did. All of the hard training and preparation lead to a lot of improvement in each of the test candidate’s aikido. Thanks to everyone who came to support the testing and especially those that took ukemi. Special thanks to Tommy Kammerer on an iron-man like performance as uke on all three tests.

Click here for pictures of the Shodan tests