South Of The River Seminar – Pictures
The Zen Eikoku Tomiki Aikido Renmei held its annual summer school at the Saga Pavilion Folkestone Kent.
The Saga Pavilion is set in award winning gardens and overlooks the English Channel and is a fantastic setting for teaching Budo.
The instructors for this summer school or better known as the South of the River Seminar were Shaun Hoddy 6th Dan Tomiki Aikido, Greg Barton 5th Dan Tomiki Aikido, Jim Dempster 3rd Dan Tomiki Aikido ZETAR, Julian Goldsmith 3rd Dan UK Shimwakai and Mark Hayes Watkins Daito Ryu.
The morning sessions of the seminar was taken by Shaun Hoddy 6th Dan who taught the Koryu Dai Roku Kata. This kata is not very widely practiced and was the last kata that Hideo Ohba formulated before his death. Sensei Hoddy’s teacher Dr Lee Ah Loi Shihan was studying in Japan at the time with Ohba and assisted him with this kata. The thought behind this kata is to practice it slowly in a very controlled manner.
Mark Hayes Watkins taught techniques from Daito Ryu and showed the link the some of the Tomiki Koryu No Kata have. Much of Kenji Tomiki’s Aiki practice took place in the early part of the 20th century and was Daito Ryu Aiki-Jutsu and Aikibudo.
Greg Barton 5th Dan taught the Tachi tai tachi sword to sword section of the Koryu Dai San. This section of the Kata is closely linked to the Kendo No Kata with Greg explaining how Ohba Sensei weapons background influenced this Kata.
Julian Goldsmith taught kuzushi (breaking balance). This session allowed students to try techniques from various distances and attacks. The theme behind this section was the importance of posture and body allignment.
Jim Dempster taught a very interesting session on Kumi Jo. Although this is not a part of the Tomiki syllabus it was a good tool for training the student in the use of distance and good movement.
Congratulations to both Jim Dempster & Lis Jepson who passed their Dan grading Jim was graded to 3rd Dan and Lis was graded to 1st Dan.
Here are some pictures of the events, the entire gallery is available here.
