Happy Halloween

To start the class, we did 15-20 minutes of kihon dosa (basic movements). My movements felt very jerky and not smooth at all. But that may have been a result of a lack of sleep. After kihon dosa, Drew and I did some techniques from his test, or at least we tried. He'll be testing for 2nd/3rd kyu, brown belt level, but he didn't really know the techniques. I wonder if the sensei will pass him if he's unsure on the techniques.

Are you ready for this

We did some basic jiyuwaza practice today, initially practicing pivoting, hiyaku ukemi, and then moving on to entering into techniques against a basic forward punch (not sure what the Yoshinkan name is for this strike). Right now I'm still thinking too much about my feet placement, when I need to concentrate on the uke and the fact that his fist is flying toward my body. Add to that a real lack of a working knowledge of the kihon waza (basic techniques). I'm not really too confident about jiyuwaza yet, and in truth it may be a bit early for me to be learning jiyuwaza, but it figure it can't really hurt.

Let's get back to it

This morning I felt a little off. I haven't been to class since last Friday morning, and even though it's only been four days, it feels like a long time. I felt I lost that "feeling" of Aikido, where you feel your movements are strong and economical. But despite this, Jason and I were able to work through a bunch of techniques at a pretty good pace. We did the techniques from my next test, as well as a bunch of techniques from dai ichi.

For the last fifteen minutes of class, we did shomen jiyuwaza (freestyle technique) practice. The two techniques I did were shihonage and ikkajo. We also did kotegaeshi, both left and right side. Oxford and I almost had our hand ripped off by The General doing hiyaku ukemi (flying forward flips) on the left side.

Bloody knees

Copious amounts of blood was spilled on the mat today, all of it mine. While doing shikko ho (knee walking), my almost healed blisters from last Saturday opened up and before I knew it, I had patches of blood on my dogi and spots of blood on left on the mat.

As soon as I noticed how bad the blood was, I asked The General if I could stop and he handed me a rag. I then cleaned the blood off the mat while the other students finished the shikko ho practice. There were a few strange looks from the other students, probably wondering why the hell I was bleeding.

I was thinking about going to class tonight, but I think I'll skip class for a few days and try to let my knees heal.
　

Just another day

I worked with Oxford on some dai ichi (first set) techniques. After getting through a handful of techniques, Big Drew showed up and Stumpy moved me over with the beginners so Oxford could work with Big Drew on his test techniques.

With the beginners, we worked on katatemochi sokumen iriminage. I tried to focus on the entry movement and locking the uke's arm as I move in. It didn't quite work as well as when Stumpy or The General do it, but I think I made some progress.

Woe is my knees

I had a couple of 2-person classes with The General over the weekend. It was really effective and I felt I improved my shihonage a lot on Friday night. Saturday night we did a lot of suwariwaza (kneeling techniques), and as a result, my knees got rubbed a bit raw. It's not pretty, but now I have a good excuse not to practice suwariwaza for a week.

I spent this morning's class practicing with Jason. He's a big guy, but I felt I was getting him to move around pretty well. I really noticed the shihonage work from last Friday and feel pretty in control on that technique. Next I'd like to work on the shomen iriminage more. When I did it this morning, it didn't feel strong at all.

Moving up the ladder

I trained with the beginner class today with The General teaching. There were 4 beginners, Jason (5th kyu) and then me. We did some kihon dosa, zenpo kaiten ukemi (forward rolls), shikko ho (walking on your knees), and three different techniques. It all amounted to a little bit of a workout.

The three techniques were katatemochi sokumen iriminage I, shomen uchi ikkajo osae I, and katatemochi nikajo osae II. A comment The General made was in the first movement of iriminage, don't pull your arm away from uke and pull their hand, but instead, lock the uke's elbow into their body by moving your arm with the pull and into the uke's hand. This takes away the uke's ability to resist when you raise your arms for the next movement.

Fixing the small things

Started off class today with kihon dosa (basic movements), with Stumpy giving some good pointers and refinements. I felt pretty clumsy this morning during shumatsu dosa and kept messing up the suriashi (sliding the feet along the mat).

After that worked on some 7th/8th kyu test techniques with Oxford. We did katatemochi shihonage I, yokomen uchi sankajo osae II, and suwariwaza ryote mochi kokyu ho I.

One great insight for the shihonage was a) hook the uke's wrist to keep it in place, don't try to lock it in place with power and b) during the pivot, of course use the hand on the uke's wrist to maintain contact with the "free" hand, but also push back toward the uke with that free hand. It's not necessary to extend the uke's arm out during th pivot as I previously thought.

For kokyu ho on the final movement, it seems it's ok to bend over a lot to get the uke to fall back.

Overall a good day with lots of minor corrections and hints to keep in mind for the future.

Taking on The General

Just me and The General last night, making for a very productive class. First we did some fluidity practice, then in the second half of class we practiced some techniques from my next test. We worked on ryotemochi tenchinage I and suwariwaza ryotemochi kokyuho I. Both are a bit tough with subtle movements, but I feel I understand kokyuho much better now.

Raggedy Andy

Sometimes, you have an Aikido lesson where you just feel like you're being thrown around like a rag doll. Today was one of those days.

In class, we did some basics first, tai no henko ichi (one of the basic forms) and some ukemi (falls). Then we did nikajo, second control, and to be specific, katatemochi nikajo osae II. In this technique, shite uses nikajo to spin the uke around by his wrist and pins him at the end. Not particularly difficult, but today I trained with The General. This caused me some discomfort.

Don't get me wrong, I like to train with intensity, and The General's training is always intense, but when we did a little hajime training, I felt, well, like a rag doll being manipulated by a particularly energetic toddler. Good times...

Jiyu-what?

The day I can execute techniques cleanly during jiyuwaza will be the day I consider myself competent at Aikido. Jiyuwaza is freestyle Aikido, where the uke (attacker or the person receiving the technique) is given a specific attack and the shite (defender or person executing the technique) reacts to the attack with their technique of choice, usually ending in a throw. The uke rolls out, gets up, and attacks again....and again....and again, until the Sensei calls "Yame!" (Stop!)

Today we did some basic jiyuwaza practice with shomen (forward) strikes. Initially we practiced pivoting, and then pivoting in response to a strike, going as far as the block and setting up the uke for a technique. This includes pivoting inside and outside the uke with either left or right foot forward, resulting in four different approaches. We then practiced ending with three different techniques, sankajo, nikajo, and shihonage.

All very interesting, but I can't execute techniques nearly automatic enough for jiyuwaza yet. Additionally, Stumpy said there are three ways to throw from sankajo. I know one, but what are the other two?

Ikkajo Jamboree

Today's class was divided into 2 groups, beginners and intermediate/advanced students. The beginners had their first nikajo class, and it looked like they were enjoying themselves. Nikajo is a difficult control, and the correct hand position is quite subtle. I still have trouble with it.

The other students, Sao-chan, Oxford, and Big Drew and I, worked on different ikkajo techniques from Sao-chan's shodan (1st degree blackbelt) test list. Some of them are quite difficult and unfamiliar to me, but I enjoyed practicing them. I'm just glad I'm not the one being tested on them.

Grab my shoulder, I dare you.

We practiced katamochi (shoulder grab) today. The techniques were katamochi ikkajo osae I, suwariwaza katamochi nikajo osae II, ushiro ryote katamochi sankajo osae I, and finally katamochi yonkajo osae I, respectively 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th control techniques. We had a good class size, six. Enough to keep it fresh, but not so many that the dojo felt crowded.

I still have trouble feeling whether or not I have yonkajo (4th control) effectively applied or not, but my uke was moving how I wanted him to, so it must have been somewhat effective. I'm also starting to really enjoy sankajo (3rd control). Once you lock the uke's wrist, you get so much control over him, it's great.

Oh yeah, and I passed the 9th kyu test on Saturday.