Dojo life vs Club life
Central London Shodokan is a dojo, a one venue, one instructor organization based at a central location, surrounded by a number of satellite clubs. This is totally different to a number of small clubs run by different instructors at various locations. Our learning structure is such that the instructor leads long term learning for a variety of students of varying capabilities and learning aims....
Read MoreNi dan kata student reference
Video courtesy Ian Box. Ian is an English Language teacher currently training at Shodokan Hombu in Osaka. Please note this video is for reference only. Training is essential, you can’t learn the finer details through video. Most important, check out Ian’s blog: Everything Japan, the window of a foreigner’s in Japan. Marty (Ian’s pen name) has also written a novel...
Read MoreDevelopmental Aikido, The Shodokan Way
Looking at the historical development of Japanese Martial arts, handed down through families, loyal students, the military and commercial ventures. Each bringing its own dynamics & interpretations of how skills should be taught and by default how to categorize learning. Some people refer to a wrist look ‘kote hineri’ as a ‘number one’, ‘number two’ or...
Read MoreYouthful Aikido/ Spirited Aikido
When visiting some martial dojo’s around the world you will notice a tense air of serious concentration during practice. At times this is necessary, definitely! Safety and concentration are very important. There are however positives in having a smile when you are learning, in my opinion people train more and learn more when they are enjoying themselves. You will train more also if you can...
Read MoreI read the whole book so I mastered it!?
I had a surreal conversation the other day with a math teacher, who saw teaching in a totally different way than I do as an aikido instructor. He believed that he could get students to ‘master’ topics by getting them to actually read their textbook fully from cover to cover. Not to go too far off topic, he himself has problems with getting teenaged students to read textbooks, so he...
Read MoreWrist twisting (Kotehineri) Set
Wrist twisting set from class practice. Not a technical how to do, only for CLSA student reference.
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