Sushi Deshi, 1 year in Japan

So, during my first exchanges of email with Takashima Sensei, he told me he wanted me to help him with the kids class. So I was like, yep no problem, it will be a good experience for me. What I didn`t get is that he was contracted with 3 different kinder garden schools, thus teaching Aikido 2 hours a day to kids from 3 to 6 years old, 3 times a week. Surprise Surprise!!!   

The schedule is a followed:

- Monday, Kawagoe (1 hour from Tokyo) kinder garden, from 2:00 to 4:00

- Wednesday, Soka Kinder garden in Tokyo, from 2:00 to 4:00

- Thursday, Another kinder garden in Kawagoe, from 2:00 to 4:00

When I think about how terrified I felt the first time I was in front of these kids, and how I start to love them now, I'm thinking that you can experience tremendous changes within 3 months...

Because I was not the kind of "kid" person. And suddenly, I have 60 (yes 60) of them in front of me, ready to eat me alive. That might have been one of the most difficult thing I`ve done. I felt a bit like this guy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tO4X8_c80kg

BUT, I find now that teaching is a good experience, it helps me to face my own mistakes, and allow  me to understand difficulties of learning and teaching. I can teach only what I understand, of course, so hopefully I know more Aikido than 3 years old beginners. Even though, sometimes, it`s just impossible for them to understand.  At first, I thought, "guys are you dumb or what?? just do what i'm showing you!!" and often, It's a lost cause. And then I think about my own training with Takashima Sensei . And how he is always repeating the same things,   " no not like that, like this.." . I'm wondering how he doesn't get frustrated at us, He must have told us a thousand of times, but unless you are ready to hear it and understand it, you are doing it wrong. So in the end, it`s just that people have different levels of understanding something. 

And also, now I love kids. :)

Look at these chubby faces.

This month was pretty packed with many new things. We had the visit of Igor sensei from St petersbourg, who wanted to spend 2 weeks in the dojo, learning Riai (Principles) with Takashima Sensei. I think it 's brave at this point of his aikido career to put things into a different perspective and add new things to what he learned so far. I found out that It can also be very frustrating...

So Takashima Sensei introduces the notion of "Shoteng", or target where you focus your power. You create a target simply by gently placing your hand on a part ok uke's body, fix it, and move your body a bit forward and inside to stiffen your Uke, and take control of his body. Easier written than done. But the more we do it the more I realize where in many techniques we have to use this concept of Shoteng, for exemple in the katamochi and Hijimochi techniques. I realize it, but still can`t do it. 

We also started to train for the Instructor class, the structure of the Instructor test is as followed:

- Kamae
- Kihon dosa
- 3 simple random techniques
- 1 round of jyu waza
- goshin jiustu or self defense
- Teach a technique in 5 minutes, where you organize your timing between demonstrating, speaking about the baselines, important points and common mistakes of the technique.

Seemed like a breeze when I was told the program!... But no, it`s not. 

First of all, the check of your Kamae, thinking about all the details of it, your overall feeling, your ability to move freely into any of the basic movements from this position. I remember joking with the city dojo fellows about "The Prefect Kamae, Volume 1". Well, it`s not that far! :)

Same with the Kihon Dosa, the goal is to see if you really understand what`s going on, and if you can perform it correctly.

About the 3 random techniques, they are supposed to be basics, in order to check if you can use the basics movements inside a technique.

So, lots of fun!

Since Igor Sensei was here, a short road trip to Aizu was organized, and you can see more about it here. 

We also had many events during this month, including the Summer training, or 10 consecutive days of morning training from 6:30 to 8:00. It wasn`t a big change for me, although I have to say it was quite draining to have this on top of everything.

Once the summer training was finished, we continued with the summer camp for kids. 3 days of activities, games, Matsuri, aikido, breakfasts, lunches, dinners, showers, baby sitting, for 40 kids, aging from 5 to 12 years old. I was not prepared for that at all. But it was fun. Sort of. It was exhausting, but on the other hand, it was really good to get to know these kids deeper. Plus I had to improvise my first teaching experience, since it was a last minute request from Takashima Sensei. So on the whole, it was a great experience, learning to balance between discipline and fun, jokes and orders. And I have to say I`m starting to like these kids. Meet them below!