Giveway

My blog will be 1 year old on January 15th! Would you be interested in a GIVEWAY? I think it would be a nice way to celebrate that my blog turned one.

Picture source http://mitsuko-m-chan.deviantart.com

I would for sure include skincare items, jewelry and make-up but am wondering how to pair it with aikido. Any ideas? Or should I make two separate packages to be given away?
Thanks for letting me know what you think!

スーパーかわいい Su-pa- kawaii!

I totally like kawaii stuff and am not afraid to wear them. 

In Europe it is not that common and accepted if one wears cute, childish stuff as it is in Asia, but I keep ignoring this.   

In fact one of my super secret plans is to make an online shop of kawaii stuff and jewelry for the Hungarian market some day and maybe also aikido equipment, books. Until then, I am trying out my online selling skills on different websites as you already saw in some previous posts.

So what about some kawaiiness in this post, right here right now!

Beauty and Aikido © 

Kawaii iPhone 4 Case with bunny rabbit ears and tail HERE

And much more cuteness coming up on my current online shop.

Coming up:

Do you owe kawaii items? 

What do you think of the jewelry I showed you above?

Aikido Journey- Conclusions after the Training Camp

Beauty and Aikido ©

As one of the purposes of this blog is to show you  and document the journey I am going through with aikido, I decided to go for this post. Even thought it is hard to admit it, during almost every training camp, I tend to lose confidence in myself.  So here is a post for everyone who ever lost confidence in practicing aikido for various reasons:

Busted body parts during free fall (I thought I knew how to do that already- feeling)

No technique name rings a bell

Requested to do all the techniques you know from shomenuchi and you blank out

Forgetting the jo katas

Bad body coordination (which one was the left again?)

etc. etc. etc.

Most of the problems come from comparing yourself to others...which is something one theoretically should not do, but cannot avoid doing. 

The duality of the following thought amuses me the most. Could be that both of these occur at the same time, as in my case:

1. You are taking your practice and yourself too seriously

2. You are not taking it seriously enough

What I mean by that is that I train as many times as I can, and I do get involved with aikido outside the dojo also, but at the same time, I cannot set my mind to seriously focusing on it. There are so many other distractions that stop me from concentrating.

So what should one do at this stage? What I did was Googleing for how others felt about this on forums and blogs. I really liked the following idea.

Anyone attempting to master anything goes through 4 phases: 

1. Unconscious incompetence

2. Conscious incompetence

3. Unconscious competence

4. Conscious competence 

This explanations sound like a great excuse...

So that's that... But did I ever attempt to really master aikido? I think I do it just for the fun of it and sometimes hit the wall of remorse when I see how seriously others take it and how quickly they leave me behind.

My Hello Kitty Stuff

A short haul of all the Hello Kitty stuff that I have. Enjoy watching!

Beauty and Aikido ©

Comment here if you are a Hello Kitty fan also and share with us which is your most beloved Hello Kitty item!

Interesting Thumb Grab- Kokyunage Sankyo

Yesterday at training we did an interesting grab. I have been searching the internet for it but seemed to find no pictures or posts about it, so I decided to post one for you. I also made a picture with the cooperation of my boyfriend as an uke. Attack comes from shomenuchi, is reduced by leading it along its trajectory as the nage steps back and immediately grabs the thumb with the other hand:

I really had a lot of fun on yesterday's training and laughed a lot, among others also because one of the senpai was explaining me that I have to grab the hand just as I would grab a joystick...haha...fire!fire!fire!

You have to push the thumb back and slightly to the side. Then it is just as any normal sankyo kokyunage.

Hope you found this post useful.

 Do let me know in a comment if you ever tried this technique. I think it is an interesting grab! Stay tuned for other posts!

Weekend Discounts with JOY Magazine

JOY Magazine arranged a lot of discounts its readers this weekend. November 11-12-13 are the JOY DAYS in Hungary. In this blog post I am presenting you my bargains. I shopped at HUMANIC and Müller for things I really needed and am proud of myself for not going over the top with the shopping craze.

I bought some comfy brown boots and a brown bag that fits to well with it. In the end the price of the two was lower than the price of the boots themselves would have been. Loved that 25% discount!!!! YAY!

In Müller, which is a German drugstore that extended to Hungary also, I bought the Neutrogena cream and the fluffy socks. Here's a close up.

Love those fluffy socks. I am wearing them right now as I write the blog post. The black bow kept the three pair of socks together, but I used it to accessorize :P

What did you buy on the Joy Days? Do you like hunting for discounts and coupons?

Reaching out to the Aikidoka

A big hello to all the aikidoka out there!

I find it preatty hard to reach out to the aikidoka out there from around the world, but I keep on trying. I do it with this blog, I do it with my Facebook page, my YouTube, even with direct mails to people and sometimes I succeed! And when I succeed, it feels really good because I get to have meaningful conversations. The best in all is it that it is always unexpected. The conversation always starts with my thanking the person for liking my Facebook page or commenting on my blog or videos. Most of the time the conversation stops here or advances to them writing me a short feedback. But sometimes, meaningful moments are born when I get to know cops who practice aikido for their job but who are family mothers at the same time, aikidoka who have a huge heart and praise and share my blog with all their friends, longer or briefer encounters, one time or recurring encounters, short but meaningful encounters. I just had one of the letter a few minutes ago, that made me write this blog post. It is partly also to thank him for taking the time to tell me the story of how he evolved in aikido. 

my first sensei was Fiordineve Cozzi

Now he is 5° Dan. 

He is very good.

His first sensei was Kurihara Kaoru in the 1992 K 

was 5° Dan

after Fiordineve had Hosokawasensei and Fujimoto sensei

Hosokawa had an ictus

years ago

and now we have only Fujimoto

our shihan is Hiroshi Tada

9° Dan

until 2 years ago

i studied for 4 years with Alessio Autuori, his sensei is Christian Tissier 7° Dan Aikikai de France

i say u

if u love aikido

u need train a lot

with all

good and bad aikidoka

cos

u learn more fast

if u have chance to train in any stage

i suggest u

any sensei:

Tada

Tissier

Fujimoto

Asai

Osawa

Thanks again Giuseppe! Hope that pizza was a good one!