We reported previously about the first edition of the Aikido & Japanese Budo Festival (合気道と日本武道文化祭・夏) that was held in August 2021. While Guillaume was not able to participate due to his seminars in Europe last year, he was back on the roster this year and a group of Yokohama AikiDojo members went to Adachi-ku to support him.
The event was organized by Okawada Takamori from Riverside Aikidokai (東京リバーサイド合気道会) and it was susbtantially scaled up this year, running over three days instead of one. As before, Aikido classes were separated by koryu bujutsu demonstrations (Shinkageryū heihō, Ono-ha ittōryū, Shinmusō hayashizaki-ryū iai and Hekiryūinsaiha kyūjutsu) as well as workshops.
Due to the fact that our dojo runs its weekend class on Saturday mornings, Guillaume Sensei’s class was scheduled on Sunday morning. Six members of our dojo came from Yokohama to take part in the class. Before his class, a 30-minutes yoga class was offered by Okumura Miki and several of our members took the opportunity to participate.
The Yoga class offered a wonderful opportunity to get the bodies warmed-up before the first class.
Guillaume Sensei then stepped on the mat and followed up with a short and dynamic warm up. He insisted on the theme of the day, which was the mindfulness on the central axis of the body in order to move, power the technique, and also receive the technique.
Paying attention to central axis and body weight distribution even during the simplest warm-up exercises.
Guillaume Sensei made analogies with his subject of expertise, which is evolutionary biology, to explain that humans once had tails and like cats and monkeys, they would use it to keep balance. Now tailless bipeds, humans have to resort on lifting one leg up to accomplish the same feats. Understanding this helps one be more aware of one’s center of gravity, and the repartition of body weight on each foot, whether that is during warm up, dynamic practice, or even everyday life.
Using the back leg when receiving a technique is crucial to keep balance, a straight spine, and conserve energy.
Besides its obvious benefits in terms of freeing the hands so that the human being could manipulate its environment, the evolutionary cost of bipedalism is the widespread issue of back pain, which Aikido practice, like any other sport, can exacerbate, if practiced mindlessly. Moreover, paying attention to weight distribution can allow the practitioner to both generate and receive consequent amounts of physical force without compromising balance or causing injury.
Paying attention to weight distribution during the technique.
Guillaume Sensei then proceeded to demonstrate these concepts when applied to the most dynamic techniques of Aikido in order to maintain high levels of energy throughout and prevent injury.
The group from Yokohama AikiDojo
Once Guillaume Sensei’s class was over, everybody enjoyed a short lunch break and came back on the mat for Irie Yasuhito Sensei’s class. A close student of Tada Sensei, he started with a thorough warm up session consisting of Tada Sensei’s favorite breathing and mindfulness exercises. He then went on to demonstrate some of the elegant and ample techniques that are characteristic of this style.
Irie Yasuhito Sensei came all the way from Kyoto to teach on that day.
The last class was instructed by our friend and supporter, Takeda Daiyu Sensei, from Aikido Kenkyukai International. He demonstrated his very dynamic and subtle techniques, pointing our essential elements of distance and timing in order to maintain the connection with uke.
Takeda Daiyu Sensei
The level of attention and practice was very high throughout the day, especially considering the very demanding nature of the three Sensei’s Aikido in terms of practice as both tori and uke.
Everyone was extremely grateful to Okawada-san and his team for once again organizing the event so flawlessly. It is a real chance for practitioners of the Kanto area to be able to have access to so many teachers and so much information in one single weekend. This is to our knowledge the only independent event of its kind and we hope that it will continue in future, hopefully for BudoFes 2024!
Group photo after Guillaume Erard Sensei's class
