We will be passing out test applications to those students that are eligible to test (have appropriate number of classes and time). If a student wishes to test, the application must be completed in full and returned with the appropriate test fee in the envelope provided no later than Tuesday June 10 (Ages 6-9) or Thursday June 12 (Ages 10-13). All details of test fees will be on the opposite side of the test application.

Please note if paying by cheque make payable to "Aikido Seikokan Canada".

There will be no make up tests. Next test date will be in August.

Please note testing is not mandatory, but necessary to advance in rank/belts.

All are welcome to attend even if it's for one night or more.

The Pinery Provincial Park is located just before Grand Bend on Lake Huron. It's about a 2 hour drive from Windsor. We have reserved two group camping sites this year and each has a capacity for 35 people. Sorry, tent camping only. No trailers allowed in the group sites.

The cost for the site will be $10 per person regardless of how many nights stay. However, there is also a fee for the vehicles as well as a nightly fee per person.

To reserve a space for your family and friends the camp site fee will be collected ahead of time. You will also be required to provide names of everyone in your group/family as well as the vehicle(s) make model, and licence plate number you plan on bringing Any extra money collected will be donated to firewood for everyone to use.

More information will be posted at the Dojo.

Seikokan Aikido now has a Facebook account. Anyone is welcome to join. Please feel free to post comments, pictures, and videos.

www.facebook.com

by Rob Bondy

Recently I attended a visitation for a young girl who had died in a car accident. Being a parent of two young girls, I found the experience particularly difficult. As I drove away from the funeral home, I became aware of a very strong appreciation for life that I am hit with immediately following such loss. It usually manifests as a deeper commitment to be a good father and husband. In that moment, I experienced a merging of two dualities, life and death. Duality is the great challenge in life. How do we reconcile life and death, strong and weak, hard and soft, or compassion and detachment?

In training, there are countless opportunities to encounter dualities. Hard and soft, or rather, tense and relaxed is a common one. Our goal is most definitely to be relaxed in our practice; but, with so much to be attentive to, this seems impossible. Robert Mustard Sensei noticed this in his past visits to our dojo, calling the lot of us a "bunch of gorillas". Showing some sympathy for this plight, Mustard Sensei also reminded us that without tense, we could never know relaxed. Although it was said in an almost off handed manner, that simple observation is the core teaching for anyone who seeks to study the way seriously.

In training, we will continually move between extremes. In our first attempts at Jiyu waza (freestyle) we will sometimes move too fast, and at other times not fast enough. As our pins develop we find a balance between a weak and ineffective pin and the arm wrenchers that test our training friendships. Most clearly we can see it in weapons practice. There it seems more difficult to get that correct distance. Close enough to breathe reality into the martial nature of the movement, but far enough to prevent injury. This interval is called Ma ai.

The translation of Ma ai is "proper distance". Ma means distance, and Ai means harmony. This is the same Ai as in Aikido (The way of harmony with energy). Harmony and balance seems to be the core goal of both budo and life. We want it now. That's our problem, fault, whatever. What we must keep in mind is that we need to know and experience both sides before we can ever have harmony. Fast and slow, hard and soft, or life and death are all part of the same reality. We should not begrudge either, or we will never have Ai.

"Everyday is a good Day" -Ummon

"There are only two things you can control in the universe; your actions, and your reactions." -Rob Bondy