Halcyon
20th February 2007, 11:08 PM
I had the pleasure yesterday of practicing with Satoru Harada sensei, winner of the 2005 AJKC. He came to our dojo in New York (Shidogakuin), after attending the Detroit taikai over the weekend. He's scheduled to visit a couple of other dojos in NYC area today and tomorrow. Just wanted to share some thoughts and invite others who had/have a chance to do keiko with him to share their thoughts, too.
As you can imagine, we had a pretty large turnout, even though it wasn't our normal practice night. Harada sensei conducted about a 40-minute workshop on suburi, men-uchi, kote-uchi, and kote-men. Then we did mawari-geiko for about 2 minutes each, so that everyone would have an opportunity to do jigeiko with him.
I found him to be a good communicator, which is not always the case with people who are naturally gifted. But then again, as someone who entered the AJKC about 10 times before finally clinching the title, I also got the sense that he has had to give a lot of thought to what exactly he is doing, which is perhaps why he is good at communicating his teaching points.
I also found it inspiring that he is actually not that physically imposing, contrary to the impression I got watching him on video. I'd say he's about 5'-7". But boy can he move. And his fumikomi is pretty damn amazing. In fact, during the workshop, he was said how a good fumikomi can convince judges to award ippon even if you miss your target a little bit. He also was kind enough to share his tokui waza -- a certain variation of kote. I'll keep that under wraps for now, since I don't want to spoil the fun for others who have yet to practice with him.
All in all, very humble guy and a good communicator.
As you can imagine, we had a pretty large turnout, even though it wasn't our normal practice night. Harada sensei conducted about a 40-minute workshop on suburi, men-uchi, kote-uchi, and kote-men. Then we did mawari-geiko for about 2 minutes each, so that everyone would have an opportunity to do jigeiko with him.
I found him to be a good communicator, which is not always the case with people who are naturally gifted. But then again, as someone who entered the AJKC about 10 times before finally clinching the title, I also got the sense that he has had to give a lot of thought to what exactly he is doing, which is perhaps why he is good at communicating his teaching points.
I also found it inspiring that he is actually not that physically imposing, contrary to the impression I got watching him on video. I'd say he's about 5'-7". But boy can he move. And his fumikomi is pretty damn amazing. In fact, during the workshop, he was said how a good fumikomi can convince judges to award ippon even if you miss your target a little bit. He also was kind enough to share his tokui waza -- a certain variation of kote. I'll keep that under wraps for now, since I don't want to spoil the fun for others who have yet to practice with him.
All in all, very humble guy and a good communicator.