to bee or not to bee, the eternal question.

I hate baseball.  The highschool I went to was a baseball mecca.  I wasn't good at it.  I was afraid of the ball.  If you ever have gotten hit in the head with a baseball, it hurts like hell.  If you have ever struck out at the bottom of the last inning that hurts a lot worse.  Being judged by your peers by fourth grade hurts a whole hell of a lot worse than that.

    

Here's an Okie word puzzle/mandala

iSHitODontAkNow.   

Its a cosmic yinyang mixture of "I dont know shit." and shodan.   Not to sound like Morty Youshiba, but Aikido exists in there as well.  

I've labeled our super 8, and super 17, and Grande 10 as shit work.  The material definition of shitwork:  trivial, unrewarding, tedious, dirty, and disagreeable chores.  If I label our basic Katas as shitwork, I'm really meaning "I don't know shitwork."   Not knowing shit is often unrewarding, trivial, and tedious, until you are cool with not knowing shit.  Then you enter a higher state of take it or leave it.  or "I'm ok and you are ok." of 1970s speak. 

When I explain Maai to someone, I bring up baseball.  The distance between a pitcher and his catcher.  The distance where baseball tends to work.

   

This is the distance where you can either strikeout, get hit, or knock a home run.  here is another OKIE KOAN for you.  " there are no base hits in Aikido. 

 some branches of Tomiki aikido are known for tanto randori. 

 

  

The super 17 with a tanto. a lot of home runs because its coach pitch.

 

heres another version of the 17.  machine pitch. some basehits

 

 

this is bee tanto randori. the bees dont give a shit about homeruns, or  whether its a soccer match. rules get in the way for the bees. they just like flowers.   a lot of our aikido "rules" are based on what someone is supposed to do. and this may sound a little bit like Morty Youshiba but maybe we should ask, " what is a bee supposed to do?"  Then maybe we should go back to our I dont know shitwork and try to figure it out for ourselves.  

iSHitODontAkNow.

 

 

 

zanshin traps/ or Attention traps

                                                                 

I gotta go into the desert and get Han Solo out of carbonite.  Also, known as going to Oklahoma for a Holiday.


Anyway, this is for you zanshin buffs.  I aint a japanese lingo tech, but someone told me that zanshin means "remaining mind."   or in in OKIE, "pay attention dipshit, this place is plain eat up with copperheads"    

   

  

   

Eventually I think that a guy needs to define the aiki in aikido.

Feeling like #2 doing #2.

Sometimes you learn best when  you stand around with your hands in your pockets and look at the world with a friendly take it or leave it attitude.

aigamae ate ( i got an arm in the way- strike)

Mr. Clean does a damn good job at showing the variations of this thing.  The kid in the stripes couldnt give a shit.  evidently, hes in take or leave it mode with a strong preference for leave it. You won't ever see this forty two year old uke taking that kind of  falls.   If I want that kind of experience I'll lay over a motor scooter.  But like I said, this guy covers it with ranch dressing  while dazzling the children. 

the first couple of moves in this picture show some variations in non-testosterone mode. 

Lets look at the windsong dojo version. 

Here's an Irimi nage

                                                    

Lot of big falls in that, but somehow it seemed non testosterone mode to me.  The soothing background music helps. 

Back to what Nick Lowry said about the elbow control being the central feature.  Watch what Iain Abernathy does with arm in the way striking mainly from the inside.  

                                                                                                 

Here is a daito ryu dude.  I think its somewhere around 3:30 range.  but you'll see a hand on the elbow and a hand on the face.  I got an arm in the way style.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZA8e--Yb-4

OKIE-DO #1

I do Aikido.  A branch of  Tommy Key Aikido.  What I want to do with this blog