How to be uke on koshinage?

Yesterday we did koshinage in class and it is a good looking technique, but I have one big issue with being uke and how to do the ukemi. If you have not heard me before I can tell you again that the mats here in Japan tend to be quite hard. How can I protect myself as uke in this technique? The obvious would of course be to not fall at all and stop the technique on the back of nage, but this does not enable us to practice the technique to the end.

The fall kind of looks like a high fall, but it also seems to me that uke is turning a bit before landing. Have a look at the video.

Writings

Yesterday I got these writings and I would love help to translate it !

Additional tools for learning

It is always much talk about learning by doing and not letting the head get in the way of learning a new technique or practice. This being said I find it inspiring to see both videos and read about aikido.
Today I bought the Aikido 3D tool for my computer and are looking forward to see what it can offer me in ways of inspiration and information on the various techniques.

There is some videos on youtube showing off the main functionality.

Sensei, Uke or You?

I have since I came to Japan been lucky enough to train with many different people and also the class has been with several different sensei. Everyone that I have trained with has had their own perspective. Sometimes we talk during the technique and other times we do not say much just communicating through the body movements. There is always someone doing the technique differently, because there is no one technique. The basic technique is there yes, but there is so many variables to this if you are to be able to do the technique together with uke. The obvious one is when uke´s height is higher or lower than yours, but also the small things like where is uke´s feet. You can even go deeper than that I think and see how strong is the intentions of uke. Does uke concentrate on the attack or is uke going in another direction than what you would expect. All these things is only noticeable when you look for them.

I remember one training in Norway where Bjørn Eirik Olsen sensei showed us morote-dori kokyu-ho and told us to think about where we had our focus. Do you focus on the first or the second hand of the attacker or something else when doing the technique? This showed me how much of aikido is actually in our mind and not only technique. Thus being here in Japan and training with many people in classes with different sensei makes me search inside my self for the aikido that I can do. Everyone is telling me something new or something that often is different than the last person i did the same technique with did. Who can you listen to? The obvious answer would be sensei. I also think that you have to listen to your body and doing what works for you in the given situation. At the same time we are practicing the basic technique and it has a pattern to follow.

I have decided to take all tips and help I can get and listen to it and try to adapt at the same time learning what feels right in the technique. I am willing to try what people are telling me of course, but I will reflect on it after doing the technique and then try it again with moving my focus to some other part of my body.

Anyways I hope my ramblings can make sense to someone.

Google Trends: Aikido

I was curious about how many people are searching for Aikido related information on google.com. Maybe you are too?
It seems to me that the trend is going down so less people are searching for the word aikido, but at the same time we have more coverage in the news. Here is the link: http://www.google.com/trends?q=aikido



You can of course make many assumptions on this topic, but the numbers are still there. I did also try to the a trend check on Twitter, but it seems to be too few tweets containing "aikido" to give a real trend report.

Hospitality

This Sunday we spent together with Toshiro Nishida and his family. First we visited Space World, a big amusement park located east of Fukuoka. We did a great variety of rides and compared with the universal studio park in Osaka this was a joy because of the few queues we had to go through. I am also very happy that the scariest ones were closed so I did not have push myself in to one of those. Later in the day we were invited to have dinner in the Nishida family's house for dinner. The invitation could have mentioned the great entertainment we had there as well. I think the Japanese are excellent hosts. We had both pizza and sushi with beer, wine and soda. The entertainment started when the kids brought out the Nintendo Wii ( A japanese invention as it was mentioned) and all the kids (all 8 of them!) went crazy playing various games. The last game being hide and seek with the wii remotes. As proper adults we helped the ones that was hiding the Wii-remotes with various suggestions and often offered ourselves as hiding place. All great fun for both adult and child.

Once again we have experienced japanese culture at its best. We feel very lucky to have been able to see a japanese home and to be invited in to such a friendly family.

Hiroshima and Miyajima

Today we did a few sights that we felt was important here in Hiroshima area. We had to visit the Peace Memorial Park and the A-Bomb Dome. The last serving as a reminder of the awful event that happened here in 1945 when the USA dropped the atomic bomb over Hiroshima and killed more than 200 000 people. We hope that the visit will give the kids a perspective on nuclear weapons.

Miyajima on the other hand was a nice place to do some sightseeing. We had close encounters with the local "wild" life as we began walking towards the floating torii, local shrines and temples. There were lots of signs warning us to not touch the deer. We thought that _if_ we did see any we would not go after it and touch it. We ended up seeing at least 10 of them and they were more interested in what we might have in our pockets than we were of touching them. They seemed to be very used to people and had no problems with following you around during your trip to the shrines.

When walking around in the unfinished building of Hokoku Shrine, also known as Senjokaku (hall of thousand tatami mats) I could not stop thinking of how it would be to train aikido in a building like this. It would be a great experience and the atmosphere it would create would really inspire people to enjoy practicing aikido. Imagine that this building was intended for buddhist chanting every month to console the souls of the dead in the war. It was ordered built in 1587 by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, but was not finished due to his death.

Tomorrow we travel back to Fukuoka and I can finally get back to some aikido practice! I really miss the training and I feel that all I have done the last two weeks have been eating and walking between looking at shrines and animals. And by the way if you wanted to know the japanese word for training it is "keiko" 稽古