Dan Harden Seminar 1/23 thru 1/25/2015

Dan Harden came down to Aikido of Palm Beach County for a seminar last weekend. It was awesome as usual.

I was only able to attend Saturday and Sunday afternoon because of family obligations. Family first.

Apparently Dan showed alot of above top secret stuff that I missed. Bummer.

Dan did seem to be in a real serious mood this time. He wasn’t his regular jovial self. I expect that is because he was teaching the more intense stuff.

Dan did say at the end of the seminar that he was showing our group more stuff because its the same regulars continually showing up. And that most of them are showing marked improvement.

I don’t think I made the cut this time however. I wasn’t doing much right this seminar.

I did take one important thing from Dan this time that I have not heard before. He said the point of practicing sword cuts is to get your dantian moving, its not to build your shoulders. Which means that your real strength and power comes from your insides, your center. Not from just your muscle.

THere was also another exercise Dan did that had to do with raising your arm/hand to meet your attackers oncoming grip. But the purpose of it was to learn how to connect to a different set of muscles instead of just using your shoulders. The idea is to get your shoulders rotating in their sockets and to have the muscle over your shoulder and down your back moving your opponent.

Nice to know after doing years and thousands of sword cuts. Needless to say, I will be changing my sword cuts to make sure this happens. I am also changing my solo practice to connect deeper with the internals.