Tako á Feira

It was yesterday when the Aikido Grading Tests took place at the Hombu Dojo, the last ones of this year, this is why it was so crowded. I think there were about 60 people in total, 30 of whom took the tests. During the test is not allowed to take pictures and/or video, so all the pictures that you will see in this article were took before the “battle” started.

No, I took no test… It was just curiosity what lead me to see how the ceremony is held. I got to the Hombu Dojo at 12h and the tests started at 13h. The lower grades first, so it started with the 5-kyu, and then 4-kyu… until the top, 4-dan.

The whole ceremony took about 3 hours and was interesting, however at the end was a bit “too much”. Three hours of seiza sitting made me think that it were the public who took the test and not the keikogi dressed people.

In this address is a table with all the techniques classified by grade: Aikikai Grading System

This is the street where the Hombu Dojo is, a 10 minute walk from my apartment:

Here is again, the facade of the Hombu Dojo, now under better light conditions

The entrance (I’m the guy reflected on the crystal)

The front door statement, which I think there is no need to explain as it is fully understandable…

Continue reading ‘Aikido Grading Tests’ »

The next morning (really early in the morning… 6 a.m.) again we were dressed in our yukatas and willing to get cooked a bit more time as we had to leave the room at 10 a.m. Here I am crossing one of the bridges.

This time, I used the ninja gesture of the hidden tiger among the Autumn Leafs ready to shoot a Yokomenuchi (dedicated to all the practitioners of Aikido and specially to Mancontro people!)

Continue reading ‘Short view of Takaragawa (宝川温泉) II’ »

Everything happened a typical Friday evening after the Japanese lesson… After taking my backpack with my swim suite and all my other stuff, I headed to the Tokyo Station with all the intention to get the Shinkansen to Joumo Kougen in Gunma (群馬県).

Once on the Shinkansen, I met all the others. The wait was getting longer, and when we were chatting, while reading a magazine I found this:

What seems to be a retrokaraoke system, you know, to sing to yourself… They really doesn’t know what else to invent, and if we see the picture on the right of a chairburguer… no comments.

Once we got to the Joumo Kougen station, around 19h, we tried to find a place where to eat something before heading to the onsen. Mission impossible, who the hell are we to try to eat something at 19h! at that time all the village was completely dead! the only thing we got was a warm cup of tea from a vending machine (god bless that machine).

Seeing that there were nothing to eat we decided to get a couple of taxis (for 9 people) and head to Takaragawa. This was an odyssey as the only one that spoke a bit of japanese (almost nothing yet) was me… at least I learnt how to count taxis.

When we got to the onsen I was feeling anxious about starting with my ninja gestures…

So I chose the ninja gesture of the sleeping dragon dressed in a smooth Japanese Yukata. After the ninja gestures and the compulsory pictures, I realized the amount of people we were there:

Well, time to splash the ass! Step 1: Previous general shower.

It’s not me being bad taking pictures (I am) but the steam in my camera’s lens on entering the room… As the onsen tradition reminds, before entering rotenburo (thermal exterior bath), it’s needed to have a shower, sat on that mini chair and splashing water over the body with a small bucket. For the first time I felt like Shin-Chan

Once cleaned, we were heading to the first natural pool when suddenly… Oh nooo! to get to the pool we must pass the first test! Zamburgers! Straigt from Takeshi’s Castle!

At least we weren’t being pursued by the chinese Kudeiro (くでいろさん).

It was a dark night so I couldn’t take any good picture of the pools, only say that I went to bed at 3 a.m. cooked like a sprawn.

To be continue…

Yes… tonight after the Japanese Lesson I’ll go to Takaragawa Onsen:

I’ll be like Shin-Chan!

I open a new kind of flash posts not to leave the blog without updates for so long. Today’s topic is a weird card that I came across in the street the other day while walking to the KAI Academy.

Time for a quick post just to communicate you the honor that I had today at the Hombu Dojo of practising the whooooole lesson with the oldest Uchi Deshi in the dojo, a dutch called Gunter. Really good man, the truth is that today’s lesson was really entertaining. I’m sure I’ll meet him again there as he is a Uchi Deshi, a student of Aikido that lives in the Dojo (literally) and is always there to serve his Master.

I’m really sorry for these last posts talking only about Aikido, I promise that the next one will be about a different topic and I’ll include some pictures as well. I haven’t told you about my trip to Nikko past weekend.

またね!

Today it was my first lesson with the Doshu of Aikikai. Doshu is the name of the headmaster of the Dojo. If you remember the article I wrote some days ago about the Hombu Dojo (I think you don’t) or if you love Aikido and you think yourselves as Aikiholics, you’ll know that the current Doshu is Moriteru Ueshiba, this man:

Moriteru Ueshiba

It was an interesting lesson today, because of this man considered as a leyend in Aikido, like his predecessors:  Kisshomaru Ueshiba y O-Sensei Morihei Ueshiba, founder of Aikido. Another reason why today’s was an interesting lesson is that the mate I practiced with was an old woman (in her 60’s) whom… I must say, she kicked my ass! Not only followed my rythm but she made me sweat a lot. In my defense I must say she ended completely red of tiredness. However, it surprised me a lot was to see how fit people keep in the Dojo, specially old people that practices every day.

When I went out of the Dojo I saw a lot of people with cameras, which made me thought that there is no problem on taking pictures during the lessons (My japanese speaking skills are not well enought to ask it), so further on I’ll ask a friend to take some pictures during a lesson while I practice. I expect to have a new SLR Reflex Digital Camera as my compact one wouldn’t work well there as there are no good light and flashing people is not a good way of making friends.

Time to finish, I’d like to take this opportunity to say hello to all my Aikido-mates in Galicia even if they don’t read this blog in the English version… Hi guys!

It’s been a long time that I don’t update this blog so take this as a fast post just to keep you informed of where I’m going next month:

http://www.takaragawa.com/english.html

I know it’s tough, but someone has to do it… wish me good luck.

I got it! I’m member of the Aikikai Hombu Dojo!

For those of you who doesn’t know it, Hombu Dojo is the headquarters of Aikido in the world. At the Hombu Dojo are held the lessons from the direct descendents of the creator of this martial art, O-Sensei (Great Master) Morihei Ueshiba. Who currently owns the title of Doshu (”Master of the Way”) is Moriteru Ueshiba.

We can see him in action in this next video:

The truth is that this dojo is relatively hard to find as it is not located in a main street but in a residential alley. This is the address:

I didn’t realized of taking a picture of the street, but this is one of the front:

And this is a picture of the main gate closer:

These pictures have not the best quality as it was late and the camera performs really bad with so weak light. Other day I’ll try to take better ones. This is what I got there:

And this is the schedule for the classes I can take (except the ones for women):

I don’t know, I don’t know… there are so many lessons I don’t know which ones to choose! … That’s true, ALL OF THEM!

This is my super-carnet of super-aikidoka (hahahaha):

The other way round will show my progress:

This is all for today. Have a good night!

I’ve arrived at Japan! and I’m still alive!

This two first days have been really intense. The first one was a true odyssey, going from one subway/train stop to another where no one speaks english and everything is written in Japanese. After arriving at Narita Airport and after passing all the routine controls, we got to get the exit by taking Keisei Line and linking with another one I can’t remember now. There were moments in which I found myself completely lost, I couldn’t differ between the ads or the information panels as everything is mixed and written in Japanese. Even though, with the invaluable support of Esther, we got to our apartments.

Right now I’m writing from my apartment/miniapartment/minimansion of 23 square meters. I have taken no pictures of the apartment yet, but I have some of the city:

The typical Karaoke (カラオケ)

It’s time to finish today as right now is late and tomorrow is another paperwork day. It happened to me a lot of things… I’ve just killed a cat-size cockroach! but that is another story.

Tomorrow more! (if I have time enough)