Aikido in Hangzhou

Last weekend I went again to Hangzhou for practicing and teaching Aikido in the local club. This time much less people on the mats (did I scare them? again?) but still a great atmosphere.

I decided to respect my plans, even if there were not so many people from the club: lots of ukemi, mae and ushiro, from basics to a bit more advanced level, with a short introduction of breakfalls and basic exercises/techniques for testing in practice. As usual I tried to focus on ways to perform techniques in a soft way, trying to avoid the pain just to make it work.. Many people, especially beginners, have the tendency to use a lot of force. Also Tissier sensei used to say that it is normal at the beginning of the learning process to use more strength, but then the technique must overcome the use of un-necessary power. The biggest challenge was keep reminding the guys that the main topic of the lesson was more ukemi than the techniques themselves. So not so important to do a wrist killing kotegaeshi for example, respect to use the right leg for ushiro ukemi, turn properly the hips for mae ukemi or relax and.. pray your gods for breakfall 😉

After a good 4 hours double session on Saturday, that I have to admit took its toll on my out of condition body, my friends had the wonderful idea to go to a foot massage place called Confucian place. And it was not only about feet.. but a quite comfortable body massage as well. Second best massage since I arrived in China! That makes me just wanting to get more! I have to find a place here in Hefei 😉 Funny also that my friends told the girls that I needed the storngest: as in Shanghai before, it was really powerfull massage and often I was showing pain on my face. The girl was then asking my friends if I was ok and I replied that little pain is a good pain, sometimes! The opposite actually that I said during practice: I do not like pain in Aikido, but if some of the students really want to do harmfull techniques, I can inflict pain too 😛

Sunday, feeling a little pain in every joint and muscle of my body (side effect of a good massage), I focus practice on a very nice attack: katadori and katadori men uchi. For the first, I tried again to focus on atemi and body movement, whole body, not just attacking the arm of the hand holding the shoulder. A more Endo sensei way of doing the entrance. Quite fun practice, good way to relax the whole body in order to keep a good mobility, suppleness.

Then for the last session, tantodori and some shiatsu, 指圧, learnt from Norwegian Aikido instructor Birger and a couple of very nice books, followed by a couple of breathing exercises, just to finish the weekend in a very relaxing way 😀

And even a better way to end another nice weekend with these new friends in Hangzhou was a great dinner in a special restaurant: Chinese good with a good modern twist, something similar to Perfetto here in Hefei.