Day 63 Wednesday 23 June – Aikido

A very tough lesson of Aikido today, especially the warming up. We did the same rolling exercise as on June 14, but I learned that they are more exercises to practice falling. This may be a good exercise to bring home, to help us fall better. Then followed a number of exercises with walking on the knees, back and forth on the tatami. We did a big number of sit ups. And when we finally began with the techniques, I was already out of breath and tired. The techniques involved yokomenuchi with shiho nage and kote gaeshi. We rounded up with koshi nage. I’m doing a lot of stuff here we didn’t do much at home. The students are not rolling here, almost all of them are falling. Just like me. I’m happy that I get this chance to see a whole new way of Aikido. After the practice, we did the torture of the legs again. My partner was pushing me pretty hard… It’s going to hurt tomorrow.
On Monday as well, we practiced a form of ushiro ryotori attack, which was more like a strangling attack. We never used this attack before. But it is interesting to work with.

Day 58 Friday 18 June – Going ahead

Today I talked to Leonore, one of the board members of Kallari. There may be a possibility for me to enter as a volunteer, but I they need to discuss this with all board members. Maybe they will talk about it on Monday, but most likely, it would be best for me to go to Tena myself next weekend. A minimum stay for volunteers is a month. Though I have the time, it is quite much. With the friends I have in the café, I should be able to come to an agreement.
I remain in contact with Alberto, my supervisor. Finishing my thesis before September 1 seems now like an impossible task. Of course there is a lot that can be written in Ecuador, but Alberto will be out of Dutchland much during august. More realistic would be to graduate before November 1. That will cost me a good deal of money, though. Studying one extra period and living without a job is expensive. Perhaps I should start looking for that dream job and start before graduating? Well, for now let's just focus on the task ahead in Ecuador.

Day 57 Thursday 17 June – Another goodbye

This night is a farewell party for Anne-Sylvie, so Sarah and I do some groceries at the supermaxi in the afternoon after having a lunch at the mall. Most of the malls in the big cities look very much the same. The same chains of stores and they all have a floor where a lot of fast-food chains are together. There are no ‘real’ restaurants to be found however. We both choose a different place to get our food and share a table (It’s like a square with tables, surrounded by fast-food companies). Sarah gets a fast salad and I a fast lasagne. We take an ice-cream afterwards.

In the evening, Mariela and I go to A.S.’ house. We want to take a bus, but at 8.30, there are none anymore, because of the centre filling with party-people. We take a taxi instead. Sarah is already there, but besides that, we are one of the first. There’s punch, food on the table and music. What else can we say about the party, besides that it was great.

Day 56 Wednesday 16 June – 2nd aikido in Quito

I’m having aikido practice now on Monday and Wednesday. Friday is a possibility as well, but I feel that 2 days a week is fine. This practice wasn’t entirely special or different. We learned one technique where the hand is locked when uke grabs the arm of tori, but I think we’ve done this before, without stopping and looking at the specific technique. After the training we followed up with stretching of the legs, like we normally do before the training. The stretching resembled a little the way we do it at home in duos.

I do notice that it is different to train at this altitude. I get more quickly out of breath. The positive thing is that we don’t get so sweaty like in Guayaquil.

Day 54 Monday 14 June – Changes

I decided to stay longer in Ecuador. But for this I need to arrange a lot. I decided to do this today. But in the morning Sarah asks me to have lunch with her in Parque Carolina. Plans change. I do some groceries and cook a nice almuerzo to take with me. By then, the sun has disappeared a bit and it starts to rain as soon as we find a place to sit down. When we find a place with a roof the sun comes back. The weather changes even more quickly. We have our lunch and talk a bit in the sun. I tell her about my change of plans and that I need to go to Quicentro shopping mall to ask about changing my ticket. That’s a good chance to have an ice-cream for dessert.

At the LAN airline office they tell me a whole different story than I heard from my travel agency. It would cost me around $ 435 to change the ticket. So I send an e-mail back to my travel agency when I get home to ask how this is. Of course, they all are asleep by the time I send it, so I have to wait for the next day.

I spend part of the afternoon at the café and then have to go to aikido practice. But Mariela gets angry with me, because I didn’t tell her and because I’m being careless going to the north of Quito all by myself. I try to make it right and eventually arrive just a few minutes late at the training.

Even within Ecuador, aikido is different. We start with the usual exercises, but they are different and we take more time. Then the rolling exercises, where 2 people lie flat on their bellies while the rest roll over them – without really touching though. The techniques we practice are familiar: irimi nage and kote gaeshi. My partner points me at my posture, which I then put more firmly. The nice thing about training in different dojo’s is that you learn different thing in each. While I learned the etiquette in Guayaquil, for example, it is not that much stressed here. One thing I am going to learn here though is to fall. It’s all a bit wilder here. But the exercise was rewarding.

At my return, a nice warm meal was waiting for me and we watched some tele.

Day 53 Sunday 13 June – Watching live soccer

Ah lazy Sunday. I spent the day with Mariela and friends in Cumbayá, watching soccer games between different groups on the terrain of the university (San Francisco?). The ladies lost, unfortunately. Perhaps because Mariela wasn’t playing. The guys won 4-2. Chess game also lost. And I also played some chess with Mary, but we didn’t finish because we were going to watch soccer. She’s good though…

The rest of the afternoon I spent like a lazy Sunday afternoon. Not much worth telling in my blog.

Day 48 Tuesday 8 June – Bye Bye Centro Cultural Aikido Guayaquil

Another productive day. First I did the rest of my interviews at the toaster. Then asked my last questions to Miguel and did one more interview. Almost done here!

In the evening I had my last Aikido practice. We skipped the meditation and went straight to exercises and leg torturing. The lesson today was a continuance of a day before, but I was able to follow it. We did a number of different forms of kokyo nage (katate dori en aihanmi). They were the usual forms but with irimi tenkan, ura, omote. Forms that look a little like Ikyo and forms that look like tenchi nage or pushing the chin up. A lot of them were new to me, and it is hard to remember them all. There were so many!

Meanwhile, I get a free lesson of Aikido Etiquette. When kneeling down with the students, first kneel right knee, sit down and put your hands – fingers closed – on your legs with your back straight. When bowing to Osensei or the sensei, left hand, then right hand on the ground and bow, saying “onegaishimasu, sensei”. Literally, this means “do me this favour (teacher)”, but could be translated as “let’s have a good game”. Then you get up, right leg first (right? It’s difficult writing this the day after).

At the end of the practice, Herbert address his thanks to me for training with them, and there were some pictures taken, which I will post here as soon as they arrive in my inbox.

Day 43 Thursday 3 June – 4th Aikido practice

The fourth Aikido practice in Guayaquil almost was in danger of non-existence. When I arrived at the dojo, there was nobody. I called Herbert (the sensei) and just as I was calling, the replacement teacher arrived to open the door. Herbert wasn’t coming today and this was for a number of students a reason not to show up. I don’t really understand why, because his replacement doesn’t wear a hakama for no reason, he is competent. Nevertheless, when a father showed up to bring his kid to practice and heard that Herbert wasn’t coming, they both left. Later I heard that he thought his child would be hurt or something. Remembering how the same boy was thrown around on Tuesday, I couldn’t imagine it any worse (even though he wasn’t harmed in any way on Tuesday).

Anyway, there we were, the two of us waiting for at least two others to show up, since a private lesson just wasn’t going to happen. Luckily for me, two others did show up. And this is still close to a private lesson. We started out like most days, but we skipped the torturing of the legs and we didn’t do any rolling either. I guess we skipped all that, because we weren’t going to use the legs that extensively today. We proceed after meditation with a form of kokyo ho, standing up. That is, a kokyo nage without the nage (throw), meant to relax.

We then continue with the basic techniques and spend quite some time on them. Ikyo was just a bit different then I’m used to. That, or it is explained differently. Starting with bringing uke out of balance by pushing the elbow up and walk forward, bringing the arm down. Here is where it really is different: you don’t continue the forward movement, but rather walk around uke and while turning him around, blending him with the mat (tatami). The Ura version is different in my memory as well. Pushing uke out of balance all the same, but by stepping into the back, doing an irimi tenkan, bringing him to the knees, kneel down with the knee closest to him in his armpit. At this point the hand of uke rests on my knee, and then kneel down entirely. This technique has been known to me before, but we never use it because it is slightly uncomfortable. Then move away, while still controlling the hand and let go.

Nikyo, as we do it everywhere, starts out the same, omote and ura. But when turning the hand in to the lock position, the arm of uke rests on the knee of tori, who is at that moment in a stable and relaxed position. This makes it that tori has all the time in the world to get the right grip. Now in omote, tori does the same as with ikyo: turn around uke and kneel down. Pushing uke’s arm down in a 45° angle and pushing the fingers to his face. The ura form is about walking out, pushing uke’s hand to your chest (not the shoulder), while holding the elbow down, and bend forward a little. This should hurt like hell, so Uke kneels down. Sensei shows us that if you wait too long with putting this lock on, uke can go down earlier and kick tori in the groin. And that would not be the desired effect. Anyway, after uke kneels down, you blend him with the mat and make the usual end control (pinky side in the elbow and turn.

The sankyo technique we did the hard way. Even with omote, grabbing the hand in a lock and pushing it to the face. Then hack down and step in front, pulling uke down on the way. The end control is done standing up. Ura is different. When the hand goes to the face, tori makes a tenkan, ending up on the other side of uke, but since this hurts, uke moves along. Then ‘push’ uke down and move in the opposite direction (standing in front of uke and moving towards him), dragging him down further.

When I tell sensei later that we do the basic techniques a little bit different in the Netherlands, he says I should teach next week. Being only 5th kyu, I’m not sure I wish to. Besides, I’m not even sure I still know the Dutch techniques that well…

Day 41 Tuesday 1 June – 3rd Aikido practice

I started doing my interviews today. The first one went quite alright. We didn’t have a really private place to sit, but I think it wasn’t stopping my interviewee from talking. We talked nearly 50 minutes and this gave me quite a good idea of how things go here. The other interview was with the general manager, but he had to go halfway, because something important came up.

After work I take a bus to the dojo. Stalyn joins me to show me the way. The busses still confuse me and I still don’t understand how the people who live here can make anything out of it.

We skip the meditation at the beginning and start right away with stretching. We stretch our upper bodies a bit more this time, but after that we torture our legs as well. When I get back, I may be able to do a full split… When we practice our rolls, we do a variety of them. Forward rolls while looking backwards, or with the legs together; or backwards while holding one foot.

There seems to be a preference for kokyo nage and irimi nage. Today we did a variety of these again. Including variances that are new to me. For example, holding the head of uke, making a turn and then throw. Or just simply pulling uke forward, turn him around and throw.

Lastly a technique where you step behind uke and grab him by the throat, turning around with one hand in his back, so he has to fall backward at some point, for lack of balance. We end with cracking our backs and the usual meditation and thanking.

Day 36 Thursday 27 May – 2nd Aikido practice

Thursday has become my typical Aikido day in Guayaquil. This time I go on my own to the main road to take a taxi. The traffic is pretty hectic, so it takes a while until we get to the college of architects, where I cross the road to the dojo. I am still a bit early so I wait a little while. We get dressed and sit on the mat on our knees. Each of us has a specific place, though the logic escapes me. We start with the meditation, which is longer than in Sankaku training. And then the stretching, which we do almost completely in a kneeling position. We don’t do any breathing exercises like we normally do at home, but we do a lot of stretching of the legs. Which explains why most of the others are more flexible than I am.

The rest of the lesson is more familiar than the week before. Irimi nage with different techniques, though at times it is not meant to let the uke* fall, but to let him stretch the back and breath out slowly, then pull him up again. The technique is a little bit different, where you put your knee in the back. But sensei tells me that this is exactly what Irimi means: to enter (your leg in the back of uke).

At other times, the lesson seems wilder. It seems only, because most of the times it is uke who decides whether to fall like a brick, or take a roll. Only one technique required me to take a drop forward, but the supervision was right and I dropped without hurting myself: a koshi nage, with dropping to the knees, a technique I hadn’t learned before.

At the end we did the familiar kokyo ho, but with the arms relaxed. The exercise here is more meant to relax, than as a real technique. We hold on to the wrists of the other and don’t let go. When tori *gets back into position, uke rolls back into position too. This way, we can go real fast. Then we close off with stretching each other’s backs, like I have done before. Hold each other’s hands, turn the back on one another and chicken kneel to lift the other with the bum. Stretch! Crack! I actually hear my spine crack and I wonder if that’s a good thing. But afterwards it feels good, so I stop worrying. My partner is a bit heavier than me, so I don’t really get it right with him.

We close off like last time: meditation; bowing and thanking; shaking each other’s hands. I pay Herbert $20. The actual price is $50 per month, but since I’m not staying that long and don’t take lessons every day, we agreed on 20. The normal price seems a bit on the high side, but for this money you can train every morning and every Monday to Thursday evening. I’m just going to train Tuesday and Thursday. One of my fellow students takes me and one of the sensei’s home, because it is on his way. On the way they explain me something about double meanings in the Spanish idiom. I think I will stop using words like bolsa and cola, and forget the other words they thought me (mojón).

*Uke is the attacker who undergoes the technique / Tori is the defender who uses the technique

Herbert Chock, Sensei
Sandan, Fukoshidoin
Centro Cultural Aikido Guayaquil
Nueva Kennedy Calle 1era Este y D esquina
Guayaquil Ecuador

Day 29: Thursday 20 May – A wild Aikido training in Guayaquil

Today we arrive a bit later than usual at the office. I start with the usual things I do when I get to connect my laptop to the web again and after that go upstairs to administration to do some surveys and ask for some information concerning the funds I’m working on here. When I go up to the general manager to confirm that the form is filled in correctly, some disagreement about the use of the funds between him and Miguel. So we go downstairs to the meeting room so he can explain what he wants. Halfway, however, they kick me out because they have another meeting.
After Lunch I work out the surveys I have already done and I agree to the plan for the coming weekend. With Sarah and Riwal, I’ll go to Cuenca on Saturday and after that through Guayaquil to Puerto Lopez. From where we will take a boat on Tuesday to Isla de la Plata to get a taste of the Galapagos. This means I won’t be posting anything for a while again. Later I go to a café nearby to have some juice and humitas.
Later in the evening I take a taxi south ways to have my first Ecuadorian Aikido training. Herbert is waiting for me at the corner and shows me where it is. It is a small dojo with one big blue (and dirty) mat spread all over the floor. The only thing that is familiar is the photo of Osensei on the wall. I take off my shoes and walk across the mat to the very small changing room. I notice there are showers, but forgot to take a towel with me. But later I see that nobody uses the showers here.
The training is in Spanish, but I master the language enough to be able to follow the lesson. We start off with a short meditation and continue with stretching exercises on our knees. Then we stretch our legs even more than we normally do in Wageningen. The sensei almost does a complete split. We skip any breathing exercises and start doing some basic techniques without the final control. Most of the techniques are slightly different than I’m used to and I feel a bit stupid when sensei has to explain things to me.
What’s new to me is defending a karate kick. In Wageningen we normally work with the hands, not with kicks, so this is more difficult for me. What follows after that, are some presentations of the others, because there is a presentation on Monday. They all have their specialties, but what strikes me most is how one guy is really excellent in defending knife attacks. All of it is a bit wilder than I’m used to. When thrown, the ukes don’t roll, but generally fall. The carefulness we know in Europe is not really present here.
After the training we meditate a while again, say ‘arigatogozaimasu’ (a polite thank you in Japanese) and shake each other’s hands. We change clothes again and one of the others goes with me in the bus to my house, just to show me how to get home.
At the house I’m hungry, but first call Mariela, because she couldn’t reach me while I was training. Half hour later I turn on the gas to boil some rice… no gas. The girls maintain that it’s the electric ignition that’s failing and that they need matches. They try – and fail. No gas. This needs some explanation: here in Ecuador there is no such thing as gas lines. Everything works with gas tanks. And so we need to buy a new one. I eat some fruit and crisps and read about Cuenca in the Rough Guide. Take a cold shower and get in bed.