Thursday, January 26, 2006

T's Birthday Rolls

Since Saturday is T's 17th birthday she got her first set of birthday rolls tonight. Sensei asked her to be his uke in almost every demonstration. At the end of class he reiterated all the throws (with her as uke) and then everyone got to throw her once except yudansha (and father-of-the-birthday-person -- a new custom) who can throw her as many times as they want. She was exhausted but was thrilled. Afterward, a bunch of us went out for sushi at our favorite place, Kikuya.

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Ukemi practice

There isn't much more basic a practice in Aikido than ukemi, the ability to take a fall safely. We do it on every attack throughout a class. We worked on some basic falling starting with the exercise koho tento undo. We worked from katatetori most of the evening, nage concentrating on blending, uke concentrating to ukemi and both concentrating on staying connected.

Thursday, January 19, 2006

Katatetori and Munetsuki

T. had a meeting so I went by myself, tonight. We worked on more ki and balance - the "inner bow" - to elongate our spines and let us relax into our proper shape. We worked with several variations of katatetori iriminage and then some munetsuki sumiotoshi. We finished up with kokyudosa.

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Katatekosatori

Katatekosatori is a basic attack and allows you to do almost all the basic techniques. T. and I enjoyed the fun palm-over-uke's-wrist blend leading into ikkyo ura and omote. The kokyunage variation took me a bit to do - I was going ura instead of omote which worked but was a bit awkward. Fun!

Another new person joined us this evening. The mat is crowded but everyone is careful and we haven't had any crashes.

Thursday, January 12, 2006

Kihon Waza

T. had a meeting tonight so I went alone. We had one new student, a visitor and one of the new people from Tuesday was back, too. We had a full mat, tonight!

First, we worked on basic aikitaiso and ki techniques. Then we worked on blending and maintaining balance when uke does katatetori. I still use too much shoulder and arm strength. I will always have to work on that (and much more!).

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Beginner's Mind

T. and I were tired but we went anyway. We were glad we did. We started a new session tonight. We had two new people and one that came back after 10 years. We did very basic stuff which gives us an opportunity to polish up a bit. Since P.H.'s birthday was Saturday, we all got to throw him. He's got a *lot* of stamina!

Thursday, January 05, 2006

Happy New Year

T. and I went back to Aikido tonight. We worked with the jo all evening. Good fun.