Right back to it

No fanfare or balloons, no whistles or dancing clowns, just some good basic Aikido for the first class of the year. We had five students and first quickly went through the kihon dosa and shumatsu dosa. Of course there was a bit of rust, but not quite as bad as I expected.

R Sensei then had us practice katate mochi shihonage ichi, then shomen uchi ikkajo osae ni. On the ikkajo technique, I discovered the importance of slightly rotating the blocking arm, like a subtle hiriki no yosei ichi, to move the uke's arm upward, making the movement into ikkajo much easier and more effective.