We received visit yesterday from Karwan’s brother, Bazyan Resh, and his great camera and skills to capture quite a few of nice moments from a normal practice!
I wish he will come back again maybe during some of the Spring seminars!!!
Pictures that we are willing to “pay back” with.. food at Aiki-dinners!!
Thanks a lot, Bazyan!!
Happy new Aikido year 2009 to everybody!!
Finally the Aikido seminar season has restarted also in Stavanger, at Jūshinkan Aikido dojo, with Lucas Icasatti, 3.dan, from Aikidojo Aikido in Oslo.
A very interesting weekend: we had a good chance to practice an Aikido slightly different from what we are used to, and we had a lot of very good ukemi instructions! A nice and huge group of people from Haugesund Aikidoklubb, lead by their instructor Kim, visited us, and it was an unexpected surprise that I hope we will be able to pay back soon!
On Saturday we also had Aikikai grading, and I want to send my best congratulations to all the peopel that got their grades: Vårin, Thomas, Thomas Andre’, Nevzet & Tommy got their first kyu grading, 6.kyu and Jacqueline consolidated her Aiki-mama position with her 5.kyu grading!! 
Lucas, Kim, Bob and myself (Andrea), in the graduation committee, had no doubts about the outcome of the graduation. On the other hand, we also all agreed that more work must be done on ukemi!!! I admit that I was a bit disappointed about the quite messy falling technique, but the graduations were not bad! Good to know also where it is necessary to work more!
Positive aspects of the seminar were that Lucas himself enjoyed his first experience as weekend instructor, enjoyed the MMA hat-sweater we gave him as present, all the people had good time on the mats, and out off the tatami too, nobody got injured and I hope everybody learned something new too!
Welcome back from the holidays! How about a healthy way to kickstart the year after the holidays… An aikido seminar! with graduation!
JuShinKan is hosting a seminar with Lucas Icasatti, 3. dan from Argentina and long-time student of Yamada Sensei (8th dan) and Waite Sensei (7th dan). Icasatti is now living in Norway, running his own dojo in Oslo: Aikidojo Aikido Klubb.
JuShinKan will provide private accomodation for all travelling aikidokas - but please tell us ahead of time!
For details, contact info and directions (on p. 2)to the dojo , check out the seminar poster
There are now quite a few members ready to graduate, and there will be an occasion to graduate to 6th and 5th kyu during the seminar. To help prepare properly, JuShinKan is opening Tuesdays for all members in Decembre and January until the seminar, during which time we will be concentrating on the techniques needed for 6th and 5th kyu, which you can find right here: NAF Aikikai syllabus (pensum).
So please, mark your calendar and plan to roll off the Christmas sofa right unto the mats!
T'is the season to unfold...
Aikido being known amongst some as ‘the gentle art of people folding’, JuShinKan understands fully the need to take a few days off to ’unfold’ properly.
The last dojo-training before the holidays is therefore Monday 22 December.
Should you be tempted, during this break, to indulge in the practice of the traditional JuLe-kata, which includes techniques such as wearing out the sofa, testing the limits of stomach-stretching, beefing up the waistline, reacquainting with the family, consuming obscene amounts of Jule-food, rekindling friendships outside the dojo and of course, the ever so popular JuLe-Birru-kokkyu-ho-ho-ho…
We’ll be ready to welcome you back on Monday January 5th, and help you back into shape in time for the seminar 17-18 january.
This small present might help alleviate a little bit of the folding-withdrawal: downloadable zoris
All in jest, of course, and may your 2009 be filled with happy ukemi!
When you attend a seminar or a camp, you’ll see that most people turn in a little black book when they register, and pick it up again before they leave.
That would be their aikido passport, a little book that documents which federation and which dojo you belong to, whether your membership is up to date, keeps a record of your service as an officer and of your gradings.
But its most common use is to record the seminars you’ve attended, both in your own dojo and at other dojos, as well as seminar and camps both domestic and abroad.
Stavanger JuShinKan is not yet affilitated to any federation as a club. However, several of our members are individual members of NAF (Norges Aikido Forbund), the Norwegian Aikido Federation. This costs NOK 50,- pr semester, and NAF will provide you with your own little black book. 
With a seminar and graduation coming up in January in our own dojo, it’s perhaps a good idea to get your own little black book?
If you’re interested to get your own passport, please contact the secretary/treasurer who will help your with the easy procedure. Think about it, it’s a good way to keep track of what you’ve done in your aikido career, even if the career has just begun!
Vestlandet is the Norwegian word for ”the West”, i.e. the South-West coast of Norway. Vestlandet now rooms 3 aikido dojos: for a long time only Bergen Aikido and Stavanger Aikido (now JuShinKan Aikido) were around, but this Fall, Haugesund Aikidoklubb saw the light of day. This newest addition to the aikido map started from scratch only 2 months ago, but HAK already made its mark by taking the initiative to organize the first Vestlandet Aikido Festival (21-23 November 2008). The aim, according to the Head Instructor there, Kim A. Tinderholt, is to get to know each other better, train with others than we are used to, learn from each other, and so that it will be easier to stop by in each other dojos. An opening of doors on new horizons, if you will.
JuShinKan Aikido and Bergen Aikidoklubb joined in and showed up with troops of students. We all had the opportunity of experiencing a total of 6 instructors from all the 3 clubs, as well as a couple of visitors from Oslo. JuShinKan was represented by Andrea and Bob, as well as Tommy, Flurin and Jacqueline.
Each of the instructors had a session in which there chose a particular focus, giving us a wide series of themes and addressing techniques from several points of view. The most memorable sessions (for me): Bob Johnson (SJA) demonstrating balance-taking techniques and applications from Tomiki-style’s Dai Yon Kata, emphasizing the aim of finding the similarities between styles rather than the differences. Andrea Raviglione (SJA) following up with what one could call the “power of the elbow-less rabbit”, in which tori’s bent wrist, rabbit style, manifolds the powerfulness of the technique, as long as it’s kept close to the body, because, as every knows, “rabbits don’t have elbows” (but they do have a hips and a centre, which, when paired with those rabbit-wrists… most effective!). And Kristian Haugland’s (BAK) humourfull session in which the ante was up’ed with every technique until we were wrapping ourselves koshinage-style around our tori, klinging to him like an al dente spaghetti, and actually could land slowly and safely from a high fall, all the while tori got to practice position, balance and control.
The dojo, by the way, is a beauty with good mats and exactly wide enough to execute throws across. Had we been more people, it would have been possible to use the adjoining hall as well, which was bigger. It’s close to the centre of town and just a couple of minutes from the bus station. Perhaps the only aber was that he subzero weather outside had its effect on the temperature inside. But what does that matter when the hospitality was great, new friendships warmed the hearts and future relations between the clubs look bright!
Thanks to Kim for starting the Vestlandet Aikido Festival, which is meant to rotate between the clubs of the West in the future. JuShinKan is looking forward to more festivals along the West Coast! - Jacqueline
Jacqueline and Andrea represented Stavanger Jūshinkan Aikido dojo at last weekend seminar in Oslo, at Aikikan Oslo, with Philippe Orban, 6.dan from Leipzig.
An extremely interesting seminar with a lot of valuable inputs. Philippe is a very clever instructor whose personal view in the way to execute the basic techniques is always adding new elements to every day practice! And, of course, new questions!! This is what makes valuable a seminar!
So Philippe was already able to fix a date for next seminar in Oslo in May 2009 (check our seminar page), a seminar strongly recommended!!
Since I have mentioned several times Endo Seishiro, 遠藤征四郎, sensei at practice, as my biggest source of fun, ideas, motivations, challenges, inspiration in my Aikido practice, I think it is about time to post one of the new released videos available on the net:
Now many videos are officially released by “The Way of Mastery“, and from his official DVD page it is possible to purchase his teaching videos. I strongly recommend the first one, “Kihon no Kata”, especially as long as you have not joined one of sensei seminars!
In the other DVDs in fact there are much more advanced concepts and ideas, that I hope you will be able to appreciate in the future!
Since we are affiliated to Budovideos.com, I could recommend to buy the videos from their homepage too:
Kihon no Kata DVD by Seishiro Endo #12772
Atari & Musubi DVD by Seishiro Endo #12773
Sabaki and Tsukai DVD by Seishiro Endo #13121
..or just check the main link at the bottom of the page!
I leave you with another video from a major demo in Japan:
Finally I have uploaded all the pictures that both Geir Håkon and me took during the seminar with Ulli Kubetzek here at Jūshinkan Stavanger Aikido!!
Hope you enjoy watching them as we enjoyed practicing during this very nice weekend!!!
Stavanger Jūshinkan Aikido dojo wants to thank all the participants to the weekend seminar with Ulli Kubetzek, 5.dan from Frankfurt Aikido club. Our thanks go to the people that visited us from Frankfurt, Trondheim, Bergen, Oslo, Haugesund and of course all the local practitioners from stavanger! Thanks to all of you and all the help from our Jūshinkan Aikido dojo board: Ulli was indeed very happy and he also enjoyed very much the seminar!
Soon there will be more pictures posted, but for now we get a starter with the group photo:
Very special thanks to our good friend, Sverre from Trondheim Aikido dojo, that gave us a wonderful present: the Japanese calligraphy of Jūshinkan, in three different versions. as shown below.
