Tai Sai 2018 – Pat Hendricks Shihan – Aikido of Arlington

We attended the Aikido of Arlington 2018 Tai Sai Seminar this last weekend.  The seminar was graciously hosted at the Northern Virginia Ki Aikido  dojo in Merrifield, Virginia.  Pat Hendricks Shihan taught for two fantastic days, and it was great to both see old friends and meet new friends over the weekend.  This was the first full weekend seminar we’ve both attended in a few years, and we were both moving a little slowly on Monday morning!

We were sent home with some beautiful and very meaningful calligraphy for the new dojo (Thanks go to Scott and, of course, to Hendricks Sensei!) and we’re both excited about the future of the dojo!

Hendricks Sensei focused Taijutsu practice on blending.  She also did some techniques from Ushiro attacks, and of course lots of weapons practice.  She updated folks a bit on the 31-Kumijo, 1st-4th Kumitachi, and 1st/2nd Ken-Tai-Jo.  In general, all weapons practice, has become “larger” vs. a historically more linear approach.   Lots to work on!   I tried to practice quite a bit with Liz so that we could both bring home what we learned, but seminars are always like trying to drink from a firehose!

Testing was on Saturday afternoon!   Antonio Palo, dojo-cho of Aikido of Virginia Beach, tested successfully for Nidan along side his son, Indy (testing for Nikkyu).  They both did a great job!

I’ll be posting notes from the seminar in a day or so!