Torrance Aikido Club at 2015 Bunka Sai Festival

On April 26, 2015, seven of our members gathered on the Torrance Cultural Arts Center stage to demonstrate Ki Aikido at the Bunka Sai Sister City Festival .

We discussed several fundamental aspects of Aikido, such as keeping one point and extending ki, and executed a wide variety of techniques to demonstrate principles such as rolling and falling, moving up and down, trading places with our partner, putting ourselves in our partner’s place, and leading the mind.

A new addition to the program was Veronica and Paul’s demonstration of Aikido responses to an attacker on the street, especially the attempted theft of a handbag! Finally we demonstrated tanto, jo and bokken techniques, and two person attacks.

This year our children’s class has been growing quite a bit, and so we were fortunate to have three children with us on stage at the event. They did a fine job demonstrating their techniques.

The crowd showed genuine interest and we were thanked afterwards for the clarity and depth of the presentation. We look forward to participating in the Bunka Sai festivities again next year! Many thanks to the City of Torrance and Lori Eurich for their continued support.

Thanks also to the many friends and members who showed up to support the Club. Special thanks to Butch Allen, Chan-Chuan Wang, and Russell Ono for taking so many lovely pictures. A few of them are included below.