1st Aikido Shoshinkan Annual Demonstration Report
The day started with a cold -2 degrees on a clear day but there was a great buzz in the venue from the morning. 9:30am the venue was packed full of people practicing for the demo, and by 11am, the venue was full of juniors and seniors all practicing on the mat and bleachers full of audience.
The demonstration started off with the seniors doing the “Kihon Dosa Renzoku & Karenwaza” to set the tone for the demonstration, and then came the 80 juniors from all the afterschool clubs, Nottingham and Derby dojos. All demonstrating their “Ukemi”. Finishing off with the brown and black belts juniors jumping over 4 people to show off their falling skills!
The demonstration ran over 3 hours with full of events. Inter-school championship, where all the participating schools were in competition with each other for the best after school club. And there was the “Dojo Cup”, where the juniors from Derby and Nottingham dojo were battling for the best dojo performance. And to show off the precision and shapness of the aikido skills seniors and juniors were paired up to compete in the “Kihon Waza Competition”
The demonstration started to heat up when the instructors from around the world started to show their all round demonstration with sharp and fast jiyuwaza and self defence performance. But the highlight came from our headline act with Joe Thambu shihan giving us a total demonstration showing his wealth of martial art knowledge that spans over 40 years and counting. It was a truely inspiring and thrilling demonstration.
This was our first annual demonstration, and we hope to make this an annual event that will carry on and make this a bigger and better event every year. Thank you for all the parents and juniors who have supported this event in a cold venue for over 3 hours. And truely great honour for having so many instructors from around the world to come to our event.
