Pat, Malory Sensei, Faith and I headed to San Francisco last weekend for the annual San Francisco Aikikai Winter Seminar. Yamada Sensei was teaching several classes, and looked in very good health.
Joel Posluns Sensei, Spiros Koyanis Sensei, and Malory Graham Sensei taught classes as well. Testing also happened, and Pat and about 8 others were awarded Shodan. There were also three (I think) Nidan tests and one Sandan.
I was wearing my hakama for the seminar, and was told to keep on wearing it. Which leads to this week's deshi assignment: To observe how the hakama changes your movement, what the pressure of the hakama does to your center, and how the sound and movement of the hakama can inform you about your movement.
I wore a hakama since about 1993 or so, so my default experience has been wearing one. When I returned ~two years ago, to a somewhat different scene. Hakama are worn only by shodan in USAF now. When I was coming up, they were worn by 4th kyu and above (I can't remember if it was just women or what), and later at ASU as 3rd kyu. So I have always had the proprioceptive feedback that the hakama offers.
So the long and short of it is that basically now I feel normal again. My center is supported, I can listen to the feedback of the fabric, visualize my movement with the flare of the legs in the air, and generally *make* the fabric do my bidding. My ukemi is instantly more fluid and quieter, I feel like I am more able to lower my center of gravity, and there's just a more acute awareness of my core and where it is in space. I feel like once I put it on again, my aikido got 100x better at once. Maybe some of it is psychological -- Sensei remarked that I look more confident, and maybe confident people stand up straighter and have better movement. I don't know, but I do know I'm glad to have it back again.
It's starting to smurf less, which is also good. Now Pat can smurf happily in his new hakama! Congratulations, Pat!
