Following: Santa Cruz through Wyoming, an alternative view

Monday, October 26, 2015

Santa Cruz through Wyoming, an alternative view

A different view of the weekend and our departure from California.

The weekend at Santa Cruz was great. The chief instructor is Linda Holiday Sensei, who visited Madison last year and made a strong impression on all of us. The most striking thing is how natural her Aikido movement looks. I sort of feel that if you made a movie of her training and through the magic of computers were to delete her partner from the picture, it would not look strange. She would just be sort of wandering around as if lost in thought.

Holiday Sensei and Nevelius Sensei co-taught throughout the weekend, and their ideas bounced back and forth. It was really interesting to see the interplay, because their approaches, at a basic level, have some significant differences. They both share an emphasis on softness, though, which is probably one of the reasons that they both appeal so strongly to Evie. She was fortunate to take ukemi for both of them during class, and as Evie has noted, each joined the class when the other was teaching. This meant that some lucky folks got special time with some folks who are not only very accomplished Aikido practitioners, but are also excellent teachers.

Here's a picture of Evie in a one-on-one with Nevelius Sensei. The Santa Cruz dojo has a separate small room off the main training space, which was a nice place for 2 pairs to practice away from the crowded main mat.

After class he grabbed her again, apparently just for some play time, because he didn't say anything. Here he is pulling off one of the most difficult feats in the martial arts--pinning Evie:

She's very hard to pin because she has a freaky combination of super strength and incredible flexibility. I have seen people (in good fun) pin her with a knee on her neck or by grabbing her ponytail. I asked if she was truly pinned and she said that she couldn't move, but it didn't hurt at all. That's the holy grail. For most of us, the pin becomes a submission hold and the person taps when they can't take the pain anymore. I guess we all need to keep practicing. . .

Another great day of training on Sunday, with the sensei exchanging meaningful gifts at the end, which I have to say I find extremely moving. I've seen Nevelius Sensei present gifts to some people on this trip, and they are always very personal and thoughtful.

Once we finished up, we hit the road promptly for Reno. We crashed with one of my college housemates, with whom we've not kept up very well since he was in our wedding many years ago. It was great to re-connect even if for a short time. Then we made an early start and drove across all of Nevada and Utah (both the short way!). When Buzz Aldrin looked out at the surface of the moon, he called it "magnificent desolation". He may as well have been talking about Nevada:

This was the Forty Mile Desert, a desolate and dreaded portion of the California Trail used by gold rushers and settlers. No water for 40 miles, there are over 900 graves along the way, and there were thousands of skeletons of mules, horses, oxen, and other work animals. I thought the landscape was fascinating, but it was a bit too lonely for Jen.

With Nevada in the rear-view, next came Utah. The Bonneville Salt Flats are in fact very salty, as demonstrated by this salt refinery with a giant mountain of salt sitting outside. We saw many operations of this scale:

They're also very flat! We did not see any rocket cars going for a land-speed record.

We stopped for a great Indian dinner in Salt Lake City and pushed on to our current location--Evanston, Wyoming. Tomorrow we're going to Boulder for more bakery goodness and more Aikido. We have decided not to stop for Aikido in Denver--we just don't have enough hours in the day to fit both in.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Aikido Glossary

These are the most common terms you'll see here. We've also prepared a more detailed glossary (see below).

Dojo: “The place of the way”. The training hall where we practice our art. In the US, many dojo are decorated with a Japanese aesthetic, but some are in racquetball courts or gyms. In the end, the dojo is wherever the people are who show up to practice.

Gi: Training uniform consisting of jacket and pants (normally plain white for aikido) and an obi, or belt. In our federation, belts are either white or black, but in many federations, there are colored belts, most commonly blue and brown, but sometimes there are more gradations. Some aikido practitioners also wear a hakama.

Hakama: The pleated pants (that look like a skirt) worn by some aikido practitioners. In some organizations, it is (or can be) worn by students of any rank. In others, it is reserved for black belts, and in still others, there are different rules for men and women (which are derived from some interpretation of Japanese ideas of modesty). It has no real practical purpose, but serves as a sort of historical link to samurai tradition.

Hanmi: “Half body.” We use it to mean an aikido stance which is sort of triangular. Front foot faces the partner, back foot points out at about a 45 degree angle. It provides a great balance of agility and stability, while offering only half the body as a target for attack.

Musubi: “Connection” or “joining”, although the word is also used to mean “knot”. A key principle of aikido because it helps avoid confrontation and collision, which lead to destruction.

Nage: The person “doing” the technique, generally the person being attacked in some way.

Seiza: Formal sitting posture, kneeling with a straight back. Tough on the knees if you are not used to it.

Shomen: The focal point of the dojo, the proper direction to face. Most aikido dojo have some sort of shrine to the founder on the shomen. Shomen is also shorthand for Shomen uchi, which is an overhead strike to the forehead with an open hand, like a classic karate chop. It's a stylized attack when performed with an empty hand, but would be devastatingly effective with a weapon.

Uke: The person taking ukemi. A good uke is more precious than gold, because he or she will help you learn better aikido not by teaching, but by creating the conditions that allow you to discover how to make sense of Sensei's teaching.

Ukemi: “Receiving” is the closest translation from Japanese. When someone performs an aikido technique on you, your are taking ukemi. It encompasses a lot of stuff, including the punches, grabs, and kicks that we use to simulate attack, as well as the falling and rolling we use to keep ourselves safe.
On a deeper level, it refers to the act of connecting with and following your partner. Great ukemi keeps you safe, allows you to be alert for opportunities to reverse a technique, and helps your partner learn better.