Harvey Konigsberg Aikido Seminar 6/13/2015

Konigsberg Sensei came down for a seminar. I can’t remember how many of his seminars I have been to over the years. They are always awesome.

An aikido friend of mine once referred to Konigsberg Sensei as a “burning ember”. This always stuck with me and made sense. He is such because his movements are explosive. He stays in stasis until something causes him to respond. Just like an ember that can ignite into flame.

The teaching I took away from this seminar was to keep my shoulders down and move from your hips. Access your body centrally and in a unified way. This is the dominant theme in my martial arts life.

Konigsberg Sensei was stressing the point that you must engage and move from your center and also engage and move your opponents center. You must enter the dynamic sphere.

Crandall Sensei I have never met before until this seminar. He taught the first hour class.

Crandall Sensei was very good. He is a physically powerful guy who used small movements. His style is similar to Konigsberg Sensei.

Crandall Sensei stressed movement to center and demonstrated a real nice technique of aiming your thumb towards your own center from a wrist grab.This completely destabilizes the strongest opponent. It catches you off guard without a doubt.

Its like when you reach for a closed door and someone on the other side happens to be opening it at the exact moment you are opening it. You get that feeling of falling off a cliff. Your balance is falling forward and you are gone.

I already knew of this technique, but it was nice to be reminded of it again. And his version was quite effective.