Ki Aikido NSW

Due to my bad knee (hopefully, I'll be getting a new one soon), my plans to return to live in the UK and the cost of hiring a hall now that I'm retired I have closed the Ki Aikido NSW club. I plan on closing this Facebook profile in the next month or 2.
Such is the eternal change of life.
Thanks to everyone who has posted here in the past.

Regards,
Wayne

From a young age we're taught that all sports are competitive. It's on the TV, the radio and every child is taught to believe it. But what if you're not into competing and don't care about whether you win or lose so you haven't developed the muscles and skills to play football or cricket? Then, like me, from a young age you may be rejected and publicly humiliated by other children and sometimes even by teachers. You may give up on exercising and everything to do with sport. It happened to me when I was a very young age.

But there are alternatives. I was lucky enough in my late 20s to find Ki Aikido! I didn't have to compete or be aggressive or be violent. It was fun, there was no competition and I became fit, strong, better balanced, more confident in my body and much happier in life.

So if, like me you don't want to fight or compete look around for non-competitive sports and get the health benefits of exercise. It doesn't have to be Ki Aikido, but it is a good option. Your body will thank you.

Hmmmm. I get likes and followers from all over the world but none from within range of the club and no new members. Even when I pay Facebook for advertising it never seems to encourage anyone to try it. I'd love to hear any comments on this from other aikidoka.

And happy birthday from NSW, Sensei.

Happy 89th Birthday Sensei Williams!
Thank you for all of the Ki, magic and forward breakfalls.

Difficult times for all of us. Keep doing whatever you can. I've been doing the Ki development exercises with students on zoom. It seems having someone else to do it with is important. Aikido is a shared discipline.

May 2020 Aikido News - Ki Federation of Great Britain Here is the May 2020 aikido news for the Ki Federation of Great Britain. This is a message from Sensei Margaret... Dear Members, I hope you and all your families are doing well and keeping safe in this very difficult time. Sadly, we are cancelling all the June and July courses along with the Summer....

I keep forgetting to update you all on my hakama experiment. I'm afraid it was a failure. It was just as hard to iron it without the threads. In fact they kept getting in the way and I still ended up with creases on the opposite side of the leg I was ironing that I had to fix. All the effort was not worthy of the results so it's back to normal washing and ironing.

Does anyone else have a better way of ironing a hakama?

For my students especially, here's a video to encourage you to do the ki exercises that we use at the start of the class. You can use these to create a sense of being in a class. Don't treat these as instructions on how to do the exercises as you need a teacher to guide you through the ki development.

Ki Development Sensei Aitkenhead has made a short video of the Ki Development exercises to encourage students to practice at home during these times.

More pictures sowing how I've attached my hakama to the ironing t board (see previous post) I'll show more as I go.

Okay, since I'm stuck at home, can't do any aikido with other people and my weapons are locked in a cupboard at the church where I teach I've decided to experiment with how to iron my hakama. I've never been happy with how it looks when I iron it. I'm trying to get that super sharp pleats look when it arrives new. I've been thinking on how it arrives from the manufacturer and the stitches in the pleats are probably the key to it all so I'm doing the obvious.
First of all I found it much easier to hang my hakamas from the ironing board than lay them on a table. That way the pleats tend to fall right as I see them.
I tried to put some stitches in and quickly discovered that I needed to hold the pleats in place while I was sewing the stitches. Have a look at the picture and you'll see how I did it with paperclips and safety pins.
I've also experimented with 2 ways to keep the pleats flat. On one hakama I sewed the front pleats onto the back, so that my thread goes through 3 layers of material. On another hakama I sewed just the front pleat in place through 2 layers of material and then turned it inside out and sewed reinforcing thread next to the seam of the pleat.
I then washed and dried my hakamas.

I haven't actually tried ironing it yet. I'll let you know whether it works.

You may have seen some out all of these before

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