Ok... So It's Been A While

I haven't posted in a while. So much going on right now.

I've probably been to a dozen classes since my last post. Most at Salem and some at Beverly.

The classes that stick out in my mind are the choke class....

Yep. We spent one night just doing choke techniques where poor uke is getting choked. I actually don't mind these too much. A got a few good ones in. The biggest part of these chokes is to get that knuckle right on the neck in the right spot.

Another class that sticks out a bit was the recent Friday night class with Alan. I was lucky enough to get the kendo instructor for a partner. He's absolutely amazing, and his ukemi is so good you can really apply a technique and not have to worry about hurting him. We did some awesome iriminage. We had each other spinning around totally offbalanced the whole time. Some times you can miss things when you go fast. The couple things I was messing up he helped me with. At one point I had him so off balance there was no way for him to get out. In other words, I was doing the technique well at that moment. I also remember doing hip throws that night. I got Eric as a partner which is getting to be a good thing. His hip throws have been improving steadily, and his ukemi has been getting better as well. This particular hip throw was one of the easier ones for me. I spent the whole time trying to make it better.

Another class that sticks out was Monday's class in Beverly. In fact the past couple of Monday nights have been interesting. Lots of tae waza. Lots of otoshi and ogoshi. He's working us towards something. I believe it's called makikomi. I'm guessing that there are many ways to get there but you start off with a close body connection and come down on top of uke (leaving some space if you like their ribs intact) and you are in a dominant position on the ground. More judo than aikido I'm guessing but still fun to learn. Along the way are the slews of otoshi and ogoshi we've done. I can see how easy it is but somehow it isn't percolating 100%. I just don't get down low enough for most of these. I know it... and yet... I am still not fixing it. I'm wondering if this is a lack of concentration on my part. It's one thing when you don't see a problem. It's another when you see it, know what you should be doing, and don't anyway.

Sunday was interesting in that I had a new instructor called Ray (he's actually been around quite a while but hasn't taught in a bit). I haven't seen enough of his aikido yet to tell what his style is all about. I've seen him around a few times over the past couple of years but never on the mat. We were working on controls that day. He kept stressing that uke should never really be comfortable. I love this concept for controls. Particularly sankyo. Uke should feel the control at all times. Never let it loosen.

He kept things kind of light which was ok. It gave me time to work on some things. I'd like to see more of his classes.

My latest efforts are just spending 5 minutes or so on my knees before/after class. I want to be able to move more fluidly on the ground. It's funny. It's so not interesting to most people that you just don't see a lot of youtube video's on it. However, I saw one with a guy speaking Japanese (I think) showing a way of moving around. He was doing it slowly enough to see where he was putting his knees and more importantly, his balance. I've seen a few videos where someone is just cranking around on the floor but no one is showing you how they do it. Now... I can knee walk and tenkan fairly well but not move like that. So... I'm working on this a little. Does it have a practical purpose..... eh... not as much as other things. Still, it's something I've seen and want to learn. This is why I like Aikido, you can spend your life just picking one little thing after another trying to improve something.

After the past couple of Friday/Sunday classes I've been helping Eric still with his test. He actually asked me to uke for him. I'm trying to clear the decks so I can come on a Wednesday for the test.

Wednesday's are near impossible for me. Short of a special occassion, I can't escape for aikido. Lately, I've missed a slew of monday classes at Salem but I've been able to make it to Beverly's later class time. I usually like to do them back to back but I have to help out at home still. At least I'm able to hit the mat for the late class. There are days I wished I worked in town so I could hit Cambridge for a lunchtime class. Think of all the class time I'd get in then!!

Friday Night Freestyle

We worked on a few answers to a yokomen strike. One was a kotagaeshi, another was an iriminage, and the last was something I hadn't seen in over 2 years. I saw Bob do this once in Gloucester. I had lots of trouble with it back then but I had fewer problems now. What was it?

It's a direct entry. As uke comes in, you catch the yokomen arm early, almost spear hand to stop his arms movement and off balance him. You then use your other hand on his shoulder/chest area as a strike to push him the rest of the way. I did a few rounds of it with someone who then asked Alan a question about it. I'm so glad he asked a question, because at that point, Alan used me as uke and I got to feel it. It felt different from what I saw. I didn't realize how much that first arm was there to unbalance. At first I thought it was mostly to stop the strike. Feeling this difference I started doing it differently. I was able to really affect my uke with no need to batter him in any way. One time I even accidently managed to get him so off balance with that one hand that he fell before I could hit him with the other.

I definitely did this technique better than when I first saw it. One other interesting thing. On several occassions as uke I found myself automatically putting my other hand up to stop the atemi to the chest. I wouldn't even think about it, my hand just would come up. I had to actually stop myself from doing that so my partner could practice.

After practicing these three possibilities Alan asked the more experienced of us to move to one side of the dojo, form a circle around one nage and allow him to do a technique to each of us one at a time. He would make eye contact with you to let you know it was time for you to attack. So it wasn't a rondori practice.... but it was good in that you got multiple attacks in a row with no break in between. They came fast, one by one.

Overall I did well for this but my kotagaeshi which I did well earlier fell apart a bit. That direct entry technique was excellent. I did it to Eric who wasn't expecting it and he went down quickly. There was some laughter, and then I moved on.

After class I asked him what people were chuckling about. It turns out he really wasn't expecting that technique (even though it was one of the three we were supposed to do) and he was caught so unawares he was disoriented. Afterwards he made a face just to be funny. He said he was standing there one moment and found himself on the mat the next. All I saw was him taking a normal ukemi so I moved on the next guy.

Class ended with some kokyuho exercises.

I stayed after to help Eric study for his 4th kyu test. We did a few of the test techniques and then left the mat so the Friday night class could warm up. We moved to the karate dojo space and we worked on the sankyo portion of his test a bit. Usually, I do my best to just take ukemi and let people practice but when I can say something simple and it's not class time I try to give them something to think about.

I basically told him that once he has a good sankyo, keep it. Keep the pressure nice and consistent. Don't even let it up for the hand change. I did a sankyo to him and asked him if he felt me let the sankyo go loose for the hand change. He said "No!". He'll either get it or he won't but he may be mindful of it during a practice and figure it out. I'm not likely going to bring it up again as I'm sure he'll eventually get it.

Friday class and Monday

Couldn't go to Salem's first Monday class. I couldn't make the 6pm start time. Disappointing but out of my control.

I did make it to Monday night at Beverly. Since it is still fresh in my mind. Matt taught. We worked on kotagaeshi and nikkyo variations. We also did a kokyunage which I need work with more.

We also did a little yonkyo. Just a tiny, bit of yonkyo left in my arms today.

What a Great Monday Night

I managed to get two classes in Monday night. I like to get two in a row in whenever I can. Both classes were excellent.

First class in Salem was interesting. We did a good amount of suwari waza. I found the iriminage almost easy to do which means I'm probably not noticing my mistakes. I found doing the armbar easier on my leg. This is what was being taught. A couple of times I tried to do it across my center and bring it forward for the armbar. It seemed harder for me to do.

We actually had an injury in Salem. This is relatively rare. I mean, everyone gets a pulled muscle or bruise once in a while but it's not often a student has to sit down and rest something. This particular student had a history of hyperextending his knee. He tried to take an ukemi on the left when nage was throwing towards the right. He ended up passing left and partly over nage but his body was twisted a bit and he couldn't take the forward roll he was comfortable with. He fell kind of sideways. He had a look of discomfort on his face and when he tried to get up, it was with great pain and effort. A good number of people were watching him for a few seconds and sort of just stood there. I reacted first and moved to him to support his weight so he wouldn't have to fall or step with the injured leg. After that, people sort of snapped out of it and someone else came over to help me get him off the mat and into a chair. She may have been headed there anyway but I asked one of the other students to fetch an ice pack.

He sat there for the class just letting the knee and leg rest. I'm wondering how long it will be before he's able to come back to the mat. Something like that can be easily annoying for a couple weeks or longer depending on how much he tweaked it. I guess since he's done it before he's sort of used to that kind of injury at least.

After he was settled in I went back to the line to practice. The interesting part about that line though was that I could have used it later in Beverly. It was a 2 hand collar grab from the front, nage would do a tenkan on uke's forward foot while using your arm and move/extend forward. When Serge(our blind student) had his turn as nage, I grabbed him aggresively and he smiled. I told him it was me (so he knew he could throw harder if he liked). He did the technique so well, I had to do a breakfall. I landed fairly well and even was able to continue the ukemi after the fall to roll to my other side and come up in a ready posture.

Not related to aikido or anything but this reminds me of a story. While in college, my roomate had some friends come up. One friend was his partner for a landscaping business he ran at home. He and his friends were in our apartment for 10 minutes, cracked open their first beer when the landscaper friend decides he needs to sit down....... on our glass table. He of course falls right through and the glass cuts his leg pretty badly. They are all standing around scratching their heads thinking drinking more is the solution, so I go to my room and grab a small clean towel and bandage for him to apply pressure on it. It was soaking through the bandage... through the towel and it still didn't register to these guys that this needs stitches. So I tell the guy to keep pressure on it while I drive him to the local emergency room. As soon as they saw the amount of blood, he was fast-tracked, got a bunch of stictches and headed back to the apartment to continue where he left off. Certainly not life threatening but how much do you want to bleed.... really.

Come to think of it, I've also seen a knife wound to someones hand(nasty slice) because the place I worked at got robbed. I spent time applying pressure on that one too waiting for the ambulance to arrive. Interesting thing is... the local newspaper beat the police and the ambulance to our theater.

Anyway... enough of my mind wandering... back to aikido....

Also in Salem I had John for nikkyo practice. The problem I have with John is that he is a huge, strong, inflexible guy. he doesn't really do smooth ukemi. He just can't get to the ground easily.

So if you are trying to do a nikkyo ura. The first problem I had was that I would get the arm, do nikkyo and try to take him around in a tenkan. At this point he would straight arm you and turn his back to you. Now, I know that in a defense situation he's just offerring me lots of tempting targets but I really want to try and figure out how to move someone that resistant to where I want him to go. So I feel like I'm left with two choices. Either make due with what he gives me (apply pressue to the elbow, etc), or push, off balance him, and move fast enough so that he doesn't attempt to immediately regain balance. Of course if I do that, he will most likely take a hard, not so smooth fall. So, I've been making due rather than hurt him.

Later on we had a hip throw to practice. At one point he started resisting me just to mess with me. So, I put a light nikkyo on him to get him down just a bit, and then let him up. As he was coming up I used that up motion of his to do the hip throw. Definitely a tough guy to work with at times. I do like it once in a while. Someone has to keep you honest. One thing that was mentioned by Bob in this class that stuck with me. He spoke about leaving some space between you and uke so he is falling towards you for the hip through. I was aware I wanted that motion. It didn't occur to me that it's easier to get if you are not right next to uke. A little space is a good thing.

Afterwards, I headed off to Beverly for a class. We focused on rondori. This is actually only the second time I've ever specifically practiced this in Beverly. The first time was just one brief exercise.

Mike started us out just learning how to slip past attacks. We practiced getting past shomen, yokomen and tsuki strikes. He wanted us to start with the basics. Then we all got on the mat and one person in the middle tried to get past his attacker, staying in his blind spot and reengaging or moving on at a good clip away to face someone else.
After this he added the beginnings of a technique and had us practice this, with the suggestion that we use the first exercise if we get stuck at the edge of the mat or even worse, in a corner.

After this we moved on to trying to do techniques while trying to stay out of harms way. A few of us would have taken shots to the back or head had this been real. I cornered myself against the mat at one point. Salem has done rondori practice. For a while we were doing quite a bit of it and I even had a class or two where I felt I did ok at it. At Beverly, for some reason I was totally lost for a technique. I couldn't really think of anything to do at that pace so I mostly just slipped past people as best I could. There was one moment when Jim grabbed my collar with two hands from the front. Where the heck did that line technique go from 2 hours before I have no idea. I seemed to remember a class where you could wrap an arm around uke's two arms and throw him but I couldn't do it. I think I would have been better off to either do a kokyunage or ignore his second hand and go for a quick nikkyo. Easy to come up with ideas 2 days later.

I will say this for myself though. There were more people on the mat then I am used to having to keep track of and the pace was a little quicker than what I've done before. So, I'm not overly disappointed. I did well enough and I had fun.

The Mat Wasn't Hard

The weather is finally turning warmer. We've reached a point that the mat isn't hard from the cold. Sundays are really turning out to be interesting. Peter has stepped the class up a bit.

Today we worked on shihonage breakfalls again which was great. We also did breakfall practice during the ukemi practice.

We covered kaitenage which is great because even though this is a relatively simple technique, I need lots of practice with it. We did a lot of throws today. Not much in the way of controls. This made for a very dynamic class.

After class I took a look at Kim's ukemi for a bit. For some reason he said when he takes ukemi for a kotagaeshi it hurt his knee quite a bit. I was puzzled by this as I don't hit my knee at all. He said breakfalling was easier on his knee. So we looked at the ukemi for it for a few minutes after class. I had no idea what I did for just 'falling down' without a breakfall. Kim was coming straight down to one knee which is why it hurt his knees. We looked at what I was doing. I allow myself to be put off balance by the technique and apparently I do a sort of side break fall without the slap. I just roll down on my shin/leg/hip. No impact to the knee at all. So... for good or bad Kim was trying to do it that way. Then we spoke briefly about the breakfall version.

My wife's relatives are in town which gives me a break. Good chance I can make the first class in Salem tomorrow night.

The latest change in my classes... I noticed I started paying more attention to technique again instead of ukemi. Trying real hard to get kazushi.

Oohhh... That's What We're Doing

We started with a simple exercise of 2 hand grab, tenkan, j-step, atemi, go under the arm and project uke out and down. There is a guy who shows up now again. His name is ??Greg??. I haven't seen ??Greg?? for a while. He grabbed me after the demo and he really focused tons on moving me with his center.

One technique we did was ikkyo. My partner was one of the new folks. He was getting the ikkyo more or less right. He was messing up the beginning a bit. 2 hand grab, move uke around with a tenkan, j-step. Rather than dropping his elbow and moving me around. He was leaving the whole arm down and tried dragging me around. I was wondering if he'd pick it up from me. He didn't but after a few rounds, Alan came over and gave him a correction.

The last technique of the night, Alan asked me to help demo. I actually had no idea what he was going to do. 2 hand grab again. He brings me around does a j-step and before I realize what's going on I'm in the middle of a hip throw. Because I was caught off-guard I didn't think to put my hand on him to help myself. I did however do a textbook fall. It was quite comfortable. After that I started putting my arm where it belongs so he can pull me up at the end.

After the demo Kim made a beeline for me. I guess he prefers the known evil of my hip throws to someone random. This is mixed for sure. Kim has bad knees.... knows he has bad knees... knows he's supposed to keep his feet together but can't. As a result, Kim doesn't give you a hip to go over. He hauls you over his back. So the throw is higher. He also has a tendency to forget to let go of your slap hand. He hung on to it at least a half dozen times.

Great class. Nice to get back on the mat. I was disappointed class was over actually. I could have kept going.

After class I grabbed this guy Eric. Eric wants to go for his 4th kyu test soon. So we went through the whole test together. He remembered most of it which is good because I guess he's been away for a while.

Couldn't Go Sunday Morning. Probably Can't Go Monday Either

I had an unveiling to go to. After a relative dies you come back in a year and 'unveil' the headstone. There is a brief ceremony.... smack dab in the middle of Sunday's aikido class.

Priorities for this month have been killing my training schedule. It will get better I'm hoping. There is no hope of my getting to Monday's class in Salem. There is a chance I'd get to Beverly's late class but it's unlikely. My parents are in town for just a couple of more days and want to see me that night.

As I've said in previous posts.... family comittments are really hammering me right now.

What stinks the most about it is that Aikido is one of the things that de-stresses me. I am a generally calm person in general but practicing makes it such that I can stand a tornado of stress and just sit in the calm center.