I’ve also found, after almost a year here, that Lakewood’s YMCA has a aikido/taihojutsu class. Their schedule isn’t as bad, but still has far fewer classes than Cleveland Aikikai, and no weekend classes in particular.

After about a year of sometimes spotty attendence (scheduling reasons rather than lack of interest; I really want to do more aikido), I’m actually flowing with aikido technique a bit better. I haven’t done a kyu test there yet, but will probably do a 4th kyu test in the next testing period in October.

I’m not “worried” about style differences. I actually find them fascinating: why are you doing this instead of that? Does it help? That sort of thing. It’s also illuminating, because you can sometimes see what affect relatively small variations in technique have, in terms of specific effectiveness, in terms of how nage/tori has to move because things are done a little differently, in terms of philosophy, in terms of how the technique works.

(I had an interesting experience the other day grabbing one of the shodans and then moving like a judoka doing randori while he tried to do aiki-waza. He actually did throw me once, though I suppose I could have thrown him multiple times if I were actually fully commiting to the judo throws (he’s older and I’m not convinced he could have taken the hard ukemi). One thing this exercise pointed out is the importance of aikido proper distance in getting their techniques to work. It’s not just a matter of being far enough away so that uke has to step to attack: uke has to be far enough away so that an effective attack has to have enough energy for the aikidoka to work with. Entering as a judoka, without being committed in any particular grip, really screwed up the aiki-waza, because I wasn’t providing much energy to work with, and, when I did get my grip and starting working for a throw, I was too close to do effective aiki-waza, given that I was following lead and countering. You can also see that judo is a sport constrained by particular rules: I wouldn’t be able to enter like that in, say, a fight, because I would be kept back by strikes.)

Still, jujitsu-style technique comes out frequently, mainly because muscle memory is so built in.

Shannon

Example: When we practice iriminage, we often take Uke in a full 360 degree move.
They also mention though that in a real situation you might only do the initial part of iriminage, bringing Uke to the ground in a forceful manner. If you do it quickly they may hit the concrete (or whatever surface) with their knees or face and they won’t get up to finish the move.

In Aikido I’ve noticed that certain activities seem more like an exercise in dynamics so that you can understand proper footwork and all that. (I wish I worded that better.) See what I mean?