Uke at the enbukai

Even if he was injured at a shoulder (and I had a twisted ankle), Ondřej Malina performed also the enbukai at Saku and I was the second uke.

..on a second thought I have to add something: check my comment below!

Other demos have been posted earlier!

Endo Shihan enbukai in Saku – “full” video

It is not the complete video and the quality is not great. Also the Japanese is not so clear, no subtitles, but for us, “followers”, it is not new what he says.. like any other training with sensei, when we hear the same words in.. Japanese and translated to Finnish, German, French, Czech, Slovakian, Russian, etc…

Except actually in Japan, when sensei spoke English most of the time!!! 🙂

More than a demonstration is in fact an explanation of the spirit of his Aikido for the Japanese audience (Aikido families and normal people in Saku) and the three politicians on the right side (among which there is Saku city major).

Hope you’ll enjoy a little anyway:

FUNNY THING OF THE DAY – In order to upload this video, first I had to send it by chat to my father in Italy, save locally there then remote his pc from mine during Italian night hours (hoping in faster net connection..) and upload on my youtube channel.. and this was a pain!!! Sending the file from China was much faster than the last upload! 50% uploaded on youtube in more than 4 hours!! Is that normal? But this upload, via my proxy to open youtube, was apparently impossible (and flickr video is limited in time/size!)

[tags post by email, funny thing of the day, saku

Endo Shihan enbukai in Saku

This is just a small but so relevant (for me) video from sensei demonstration at the 18th Saku International Aikidô Kenshûkai in Saku, Japan.

What I especially love in this video is a concept typical in Iaido but not so developed in Aikido: the concept of “seme“, 攻め, literally “attack, pressure”, that from my learning it is not a physical attack, but it is more metaphysical, psychological, expressed by the power transmitting from the eyes of the samurai, by the way, before drawing the sword, one looks at his opponent. Iaido is anyway “saya no uchi de katso“, the victory (the outcome) is in the scabbard, everything is decided before drawing the sword.

In Gorin no sho, “The Book of Five Rings” (五輪書 by Miyamoto Musashi), it is said: “The body merging with the katana, united, becoming one”. So it is not need a physical manifestation of the pressure you give to your opponent, to disrupt his sense of confidence and resolution, prior to an attack.

And this is exactly what sensei is doing toward the end of the video!

I can tell that the first time I saw Endo sensei freezing the strike of uke in midair just thanks to a sudden shift in his stare, I felt goosebumps! Not only timing, as sensei always says, but my mind jumped to my Iaido training: before performing any movement in the kata we had to visualize the scenario of the kata and then “be there”, mentally and psychologically, then transmit this presence not only with the cuts but with the eyes and full presence as well.

In Aikido we focus more on zanshin, 残心, the state of mind at the completion of an action (important in Iaido as well). Combining this with the feeling before any movement, with seme, the technique, if necessary, becomes whole. If your opponent has also a budo mind, probably would see in your eyes there is no need to fight.

Anyway, there are only my personal considerations: long time I do not practice Iaido and my teacher was never a recognized one. Also, being only at the beginning of my martial art path, if I wrote something too silly, please forgive me. But these are my feelings, my understanding for now.

I got more or less the full video (unfortunately lots of Japanese talking, bad audio, no English), but I have to uploaded to youtube (in some ways.. remember, the great firewall of China!!)..

Endo sensei embukai at Saku dojo

Embukai in Saku dojo

Some videos of the embukai at Saku dojo!

Jörg Kretzschmar (Tori)
Ariga Yuki (Uke)

Aleksey Aleksandrov (Tori)
Ilya Kazakov (Uke)

Matti Joensuu (Tori)
Jörg Kretzschmar (Uke)

..and of course Ondřej Malina from last year: