One on One

Training one on one with The General is both good and bad. It's great if your doing a nage (throws), but if your practicing elbow locks, hijishime, like we did today, prepare to hurt. He trains and teaches hard. It's great encouragement to move properly as uke. And it also encourages you to try and do the technique with power when he's uke.

Today we practiced katamochi hijishime and ryotemotchi tenchinage. I started to feel pretty good about the hijishime, which is on my next test, but I need a lot more practice on the tenchinage. It's tough because the movements are quite subtle and both hands have to be in sync with each other and with the feet. Luckily this technique isn't on my next test, but will be on the 7th/8th kyu test.

So tomorrow is the first day of the beginner's course, should be interesting.