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Posts Tagged ‘bokken’

Aikido Bokken Jiyu Waza

Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009

This video was taken from a seminar I did in Torino, Italy, in October, 2008. It is from a class on “Bokken Jiyu waza” (free techniques of sword) and includes exercises on “form transcendence”, body/ ken integration, applied techniques and applied principles.This aspect of weapons work comes at the end of the weapons system we practice and is based on the foundation of the complete aiki-ken system. Bokken Jiyu waza should be considered the fruit of the practice as it is the peak of “applications” training and is “beyond form”. For a reference of our more form based practices check out these videos from an earlier post.

Watching the two videos in comparison should show the different expressions of the practices while at the same time recognizing the thread of unity that runs through both. It is all the same aikido.

“A wise man will understand the need to use a boat to cross the river. Only a fool will continue to carry the boat with him once the river has been crossed.“

~ Wan Shu~

So, here’s the Aikido Bokken Jiyu Waza.

Tags: aiki-ken, bokken, integral aikido, jiyu waza, Miles Kessler
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Aikido Weapons on Youtube

Tuesday, January 27th, 2009

Just a quick note to all of you aikido weapon’s enthusiasts. Last fall I did some filming for a martial arts “Akban” organization. They are putting together a “martial arts wiki” and it is their goal to video document the main techniques from the different martial traditions. I was asked to be part of this project and so far we’ve filmed the basic jo and bokken weapons practices from the Iwama aikido tradition. You can see a sample of the videos below that we filmed on the Tel Aviv beach with my student Nadav Solomon as my training partner.

The weapons of aikido are beautiful practices that develop important principles such as center, timing, precision, “awase” (blending), “maai” (distance), “shisei” (posture), and “zanshin” (sustained presence), to name a few. Even if you don’t practice the weapons arts of ken and jo you can get a taste of these principles by watching the video’s below.

Here is the link to the Aikido page on the akban wiki. You can also go to my personal page on the akban web site. The info on my page on this site is in Hebrew but there are about 10 videos there to watch. And if you like you can go to youtube to see the whole series of 48 video clips on Akban’s channel (however, the videos have been posted there in random order).

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