I set a goal at the start of the year to aim to attend 5 Aikido courses outside of our own clubs courses.
As a result of that I had been looking into some courses taking place around the country and earlier this week asked a friend if he was going.
He let me know he was going to something THIS WEEKEND and sent me a link.
I had a look into it and it looked interesting. It also seemed I had the weekend free to attend.
I bought a last minute flight and headed down to Bristol. Daren, who runs the Bristol South Aikido club was kind enough to let me stay at his Dojo (which is a great place to practise).
The course was being taken by Ole Kingston from Denmark. Ole is not an Aikido practitioner but is a teacher of an art called Daito Ryu Aiki Jujutsu. This is the parent art to Aikido and Morihei Ueshiba (founder of Aikido) was a teacher of Daito Ryu before creating Aikido.
Ole was supported by 3 of his students and co teachers that came along to the event and some other Daito Ryu practitioners from around England and Europe.
Something I had never seen before at a course was that they all cracked open a beer prior to training. They said it helped relax them.
Later on I found out that this was a habit of their late teacher Okamoto Sensei, though it sounds like it was a bad habit. Generally drinking alcohol or taking drugs would be strictly prohibited prior to training as it could be a major safety issue for those involved in training with someone that may not be in full control.
The main thing that impressed me was that we all got a chance to practise with Ole. In fact, he lined us all up at the start and allowed us all to feel his technique. This is quite rare in my experience with visiting teachers often preferring to train with their own ukes.
A lot of the training was from a kneeling position and involved various different techniques and throws.
The teachers were all different characters. Jan was funny to me as he had an air of nastiness about him. He would glower at you with a nasty look before throwing you but would just as quickly burst out into laughter. The second morning he was more than just a little drunk and was very jolly at least for the first few hours. He disappeared for the second half, perhaps not feeling so well.
I learned a few good tips and I enjoyed their style of training. Ole gave great explanations to their techniques and was a pleasure to learn from.
One thing I have not mentioned was that Ole is in a wheelchair. This did not hold him back in becoming the top teacher in Europe for the style. He is quite an inspiration.
Aikido For Glasgow 