After demonstrating as part of the Kanagawa Aikido Federation dojo enbu last year, I was asked this year to demonstrate again, during the shidoin (instructor) enbu.
I was able to count on the support of my fellow Hombu Dojo practicioner Mihaly Dobroka for the ukemi, as well as that of Aurelien Yvart, who came all the way from France in order to participate in the event. As always, the pressure was on, knowing that close to 7,000 people are watching you in the Budokan, and substantially more as soon as the first upload is made online. But perhaps more than anything else, it is the presence of Doshu and my teachers from Hombu Dojo that is particularly significant since one does not want to disappoint his elders.
Unlike what people often think, those demonstrations are not necessarily well prepared and in this particular case, Mihaly and Aurelien had never met before the actual day and we obviously never got to rehearse anything together. Luckily I know them both so well through hours and hours of practice during classes and seminars that such demonstrations do not have to be rehearsed and in fact, the constitute the crystalization over two minutes of a lifetime of practice together. I believe that this is one of the essential aspects of Aikido demonstrations. For more on this, you can read an article I wrote about this some time ago.
