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.

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.

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.

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.

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!).

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!

Happy New Year

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

Yudansha night

Sensei had all the yudansha teach, tonight. It's fun to see the different takes on things. We get a taste of the differences (and similarities) when we work with each of them on one or two techniques a night. When they get to teach the whole class, however, we get a more comprehensive view. T.G. sensei started us off with the shomenuchi taisabaki series. K.M. sensei showed us some blending kokyunage things (I still shy away from the koshinage, though, and I was pooped about then). Sensei lead us through jo tsuki suburi (T. loved that! She really likes the weapons.) and ended with munetsuki jodori.

Fancy Footwork

T. and I arrived late for warm-ups. After just a little time we were doing suwariwaza (techniques done when both uke and nage start from seiza) shomenuchi ikkyo. Next, we worked on some swoopy (technical term) ryotetori and munetsuki attacks. Proper footwork was very important for these techniques to work. We ended with more suwariwaza and kokyudosa. I only ran out of steam once or twice.

Three New Rokkyus

Sensei awarded all three of Tuesday's testers the rank of rokkyu! He complimented each one on doing a good job.

Then he turned the class over to K.W. sensei for the evening. He emphasized the circle in two very different ways. First, nage encloses uke in a circle and, second, nage attaches uke to the peripheral of a circle. In both cases nage is in control of the circle.