Poxbox's Aikido Blog

Happy Day

2011-12-11T20:59:00.003-05:00

Peter had a great class this morning. Did more henka waza.... even mixed it up with some kaeshi waza.
eg... I attack with a shomen, 'uke' responds with ikkyo, I reverse it and come up with nikkyo or kotagaeshi and then move to another technique. We did a bunch of these. Most of them were pretty easy to find. One was tough for me. The transition didn't seem natural to me.

One of the partners I had was complaining that he was uncomfortable when we work on kaitenage (the past couple of classes). All I'm doing is getting his arm straight up.... at that position I can really control my uke because his arm is locked up and I have a nice lever. Maybe other instructors do it this way as well but in particular, Rob over at North Shore Aikikai really stretches you out in this way. I always felt the control he had over me when I was uke. So... I started practicing this to see how it felt. It felt really good.... to me as nage. My (very experienced) uke however, was so nervous about it he complained that he was afraid his shoulder would break. The thing is though.... you can roll out as soon as the pressure gets bad. The only way of getting hurt is if you just stood there bent over like a hulk and didn't move. I tend to discount his complaining.

This is the same person that will never truly establish a control. When he goes for nikkyo.... he doesn't quite complete it. He backs off. Sankyo.... he puts his hand in the right place but leaves me standing there flatfooted. He never applies the control. Pretty much all his controls are like this. He drives me nuts because he practices without ever getting kazushi. It's totally intentional on his part. He thinks that actually applying controls to someone would be mean.

Today I just stood there flatfooted and looked at Peter hoping he would say something to him. We are doing henka waza.... I stand there where he doesn't apply the first control.... then he switches to the next control and I stand there waiting for him to affect my posture throughout the whole procedure. Nothing.

Worst still.... I asked him about the kaitenage and how he thinks I should be practicing it. He wanted me to bring the arm around in an armlock like manner closer to the hip. There is no pressure on uke whatsoever to move. In fact... on one of his last throws, I stood there bent over waiting for him to throw me. So basically, he is recommending something that to me seems wholly ineffective. He wants me to establish no kazushi just like him.

If I were teaching I would have a class on the enjoyment of controls. Establish a control and make uke dance like a monkey for you. No reason to be in a hurry. Move uke around. To this guy.... the class would be pure torture. He desperately needs it though.

I'm not advocating trashing your uke.... just get kazushi.

Now keep in mind, if this were a beginner I would just go with the flow. It's hard as a beginner to even know where to put your feet, hands and so forth. So for new people you just go and let them pick things up a little at a time. This guy is a shodan for craps sake. So I have no problem messing with him a little bit (ie. not just falling over for him).

After class I told him I would appreciate it if he could tell me when I am not being effective. That he shouldn't just fall down because I am doing a technique. I told him we are far enough along that we need to help each other find problems. I don't know if he took the hint.

I heard a good rumor today. The rumor is that my long awaited 3rd kyu certificate for the test I took 2 1/2 years back is actually lost in the office somewhere. I told that person.... I'll believe it when it's in my hand. I really appreciate the senior students who looked into the matter. This was becoming a major problem in my ability to progress. Maybe in a few months someone will search for it.

Maybe if I'm lucky I'll see some 2nd kyu stuff in classes once in a while. I need the practice.

Nice Trip

2011-12-11T00:16:00.002-05:00

I went away for a long weekend to visit a friend of mine down in Maryland. Went to his dojo while I was down there. They primarily do taekwando. We went early and worked a bit on the mat. He was very interested to see what we do for controls, joint locks and so forth. He showed me what they practice in their classes for that kind of stuff. I went over some basic controls with him, explained ukemi and took some rolls and falls on their less than cushy puzzlemats. We even covered a hip throw he had learned somewhere along the way. It was all pretty fun. One of the more interesting things we learned was how effective our aikido response to chokes were. I can easily get out of most of the headlocks he tried on me. The only one I had a problem slipping was one where his arms were in front of and also behind the neck. I've seen that hold before but never had it put on me.

Since I've been home I've been hiting class as normal.

To cover the past couple classes..... Monday night at North Shore Aikikai... Matt had us do a nikkyo night. There was even one particular aspect of nikkyo that clicked. There is a way to do it at the shoulder that I never thought about much. Now I understand why that works so well. I thought I was done learning about nikkyo. Guess not.

Friday night Mulligan had us doing tons of sword disarms. Because we did them in a line the class went kind of slow. One of the disarms consisted of moving in on the open side, getting your hand in between uke's. Raising it some and turning. You go basically for two nikkyos here. Most of the class was missing the point of the second hand grip being a nikkyo. No one(aside from Sam and I) was aware that they were supposed to get a nikkyo not just with the one hand... but also with the second hand.

There is going to be a nice gathering after class this week coming on Friday night. My first incliniation was to go of course. Then I thought about the clingy odor of 10 cent cigars. I think I'll pass after all. Since class time will be shortened that night (although I'm not sure why) I may blow the night off entirely. Let my wife go somewhere for a change on a Friday night.

Still Busy

2011-11-24T00:42:00.002-05:00

I've been to a bunch of classes since my last post. The last one I took was with North Shore Aikikai. Jim had us doing stuff on the open side again. Uke does a yokomen strike, nage enters with his back to uke and picks the arm up on the other side. Then we did a few different techniques with the same opening.

Previous to this was Sunday's class with Peter. Excellent class doing henka waza again. I screwed up the kotagaeshi to nikkyo sequence and went straight to nikkyo. Peter liked it enough to have us all try doing my mistake for a while. Similar to the 5th kyu version of kotagaeshi... take uke around but instead of doing the kotagaeshi, you keep moving in the same direction, stay sticky and bring ukes hand down in a circle to get the nikkyo. Feels very natural for me to do it this way.

After class Peter asked if I was planning on testing at the end of December. I had no idea there was even a test scheduled. My answer was a resounding no. My biggest concern is that I'll keep testing, end up getting to 1st kyu, Mulligan will retire.... then I'll want to test for shodan so I'll have to find a shihan somewhere to test me. When he sends the paperwork in, USAF won't be able to process it because all my kyu paperwork wouldn't have been put in. That will be fun.

This leaves me with two choices.... keep progressing and don't bother testing (this is becoming increasingly less palatable). Or.... Just leave the dojo and go to one that will be more responsible and respectful. I explained this to Peter. I also told him that I volunteered to do the paperwork (for everyone who tested) at one point and was told no.

Usually the certificate is handed to the student in class in front of the class. I find this situation so embarassing that I'd be much happier just having it handed to me privately. I took that test about 2 years and 7 months ago.

Merry Go Round From Hell

2011-11-08T21:50:00.003-05:00

Ya... That was what went through my mind Monday night.

I went to North Shore Aikikai's class Monday night. They are getting a brand new mat surface installed so we had to practice in a room upstairs. That particular room has a solid rubber floor of some kind. It doesn't really give at all.

We practiced some ukemi anyway. We did a few rolls. People with better ukemi obviously had an easier time of it. The breakfall practice roll that we do looked uncomfortable. I cheated some by doing something similar to a wobble roll. Basically... rather than lying flat and slapping my hand on a hard surface, I continued the motion to the other side.

We then went on to do a bunch of nikkyo, yonkyo, sankyo.

Where did the title of this post come from? Well.. we were doing yonkyo and one of the instructors (who was not teaching that night) got a great yonkyo on me and I was forced to go up and down and around. Merry Go ROund From Hell was what popped into my head at the time.

It was great working on some basic controls for a change. Espsecially with someone who can resist quit a bit of nikkyo/yonkyo.

Kids In Tow

2011-11-06T19:54:00.003-05:00

Another Sunday morning at Shodokan I had to bring the kids with me. As usual they complained about the stale cigar smell that permeates the dojo before we were halfway up the stairs. Both kids watched the Arnis group that was practicing as much as they watched us. Of course the bulk of their time they spent sitting and quietly reading. At one point my young daughter pulled out her knitting and worked on that for a while. Oh wait..... this is a blog about aikido right?? My kids are the center point of my life, and it's easy for me to go off on a tangent.

Peter taught today. We had a great class. For the most part we did henka waza. Started out with a kotagaeshi, from there we took it to a bunch of different techniques. Of course one of them was taiotoshi. Now being paranoid about what happened Wednesday night, I dialed back a bit. Even though I know Tony can take a throw the last few weeks he's complained that his back has been a bit touchy lately. It's not worth hurting anyone over so I took it easy.

One of the oddest moments was when I realized that I was going from a nikkyo to sankyo different than what Peter had been teaching today. I knew I was doing it wrong but couldn't remember exactly what I had seen when he demo'd it. I ended up doing a version that he's done a lot in the past and apparently I've internalized a bit. After a round I got myself all fixed up and starting doing it correctly.

Anyway.... had a great practice. Grabbed the kids and left.

Less Magic More Choking

2011-11-04T20:26:00.003-05:00

Often times we do some crazy subtle stuff on Friday nights. Something surrounding our centers, ki, body position or one thing or another. Tonight was a different kind of night.

We did several different chokes. One of my favorites. Reach across front of uke with left hand grab gi edge thumb inside. Move around back of uke, grab front left shoulder of gi from behind. Now scissor your elbows to create pressure. If you are feeling particularly mean you can hang them by pulling backwards and having them off their feet. They hang by the choke. Their weight help cinch it in.

We even did one I hadn't seen before. This one has us start off with maybe a shihonage like response. Get uke to turn and down. One arm goes about the neck and one below. The upper hand pulls the lower hand up. The point I missed in the initial demo was the location of the neck in that structure. I was doing it on the forearms. Mulligan grabbed me and did it and I immediately felt that he had me much closer to his hands. Tough choke for me to get.

We did some interesting armbars. A couple I had seen before. One or two were new for me so it was interesting to practice them.

Later on we were doing a yokomenuchi attack, get the arm down and across (similar to shihonage)step in, armbar the elbow on your shoulder to raise uke. Now take arm and do taiotoshi. During this practice, Mulligan was admonishing another student for taking it easy on one of our more experienced people. So.. when I take my turn with her, I do a normal taiotoshi. She sat out for a few minutes after that throw. I talked to her after class. She said she was fine but said that right after that throw her heart was going very fast. It sounds to me like she got an adreneline dump. She hasn't been around on the mat very much lately. I'm thinking she wasn't used to taking that throw done at half speed. I'll have to keep that in mind. Despite what sensei said.... she needs to build herself back up to where she was. Assuming she doesn't avoid the heck out of me, I'll have to tone it down a bit when I work with her. Her technique was excellent as usual. She's just not up to the harder throws yet.

Towards the end of class I got Tony as a partner. He was a riot. Everything we did turned into some kind of hip-throw. We are doing some kind of soft kokyuho kind of thing from a standing position. Tony slowly turns me and hip throws me.

So, I had a nice workout tonight.

Flying The Unfriendly Skies

2011-11-04T20:14:00.004-05:00

Wednesday night I managed to get to Shodokan. Bob taught that night. All I remember was that my partner for a part of the evening was someone who had been around for about 6 months or so. Not really a beginner but still working out a lot of stuff.

So Bob has us do a koshinage. The first version is a simple... ushiro attack, take a sankyo, turn and run uke across your back at the belt line. She kept throwing me at odd angles. At times I was over her shoulder, high on her back. A few times she threw me over her head. It's a good thing I can take that ukemi. I tried to help her out, Bob was keeping a good eye on her and trying to help as well. She didn't seem to be getting it. So... mercifully (at least for me) he changed the technique to Ogoshi.

After one comment from me about how to load someone on the hip better.... she was cranking out hip throws like she'd been doing them for a while. They were excellent.

Her falls too were excellent. She didn't seem apprehensive or anything. We kept a nice easy pace. I'm guessing she's a fast learner. I hope to work with her again some time.

Scary Night

2011-10-31T22:55:00.002-05:00

Shodokan was closed for Halloween so I went to....

North Shore Aikikai.

Small class as expected but still had a good class. We did some sumi otoshi. Some other stuff. Then Jim was kind enough to go over some of the tougher 2nd kyu requirements for me. I'm so out of practice that I need it. Don't get me wrong, I've done lots of aikido. I just haven't been doing the test requirements. They don't usually get taught in the normal classes.

Friday Night

2011-10-29T20:58:00.002-05:00

Went to class at Shodokan. Mulligan taught the class. Did some unusual attacks where someone grabs the back of your collar and sometimes pulls or grabs and strikes.

Other attack was a punch to the face. I can't get enough of this attack. Why? Cause it's the most likely thing you're going to see.

Did some ikkyo, kokyunage, udekiminage, kaitenage as responses. The kaitenage was an uchi version. So... you go under the arm. The tricky part is the magic hand rotation at the bottom so you come up with your hand in the right position. Ever since working on that one night at North Shore Aikikai I usually can get it.

We also did some aiki-otoshi. I do this regularly. I work with Tony on the mat on Sundays. When in doubt, he does this technique.

Funny.

Terrible....

2011-10-24T21:59:00.002-05:00

Took two classes tonight.

Got to Shodokan. Mulligan was teaching. Dave warmed us up and grabbed a jo. He started us off with some ukemi

A real strange group of techniques. One was where nage was on the ground. Hook the back of uke's ankle, use the other foot against the hooked legs knee to send them off to the side.

Another one on the ground is where uke is reaching down. You grab the reaching arm, use your foot to flip them off to the side.

We did something that looked a lot like gokyo.

The least favorite technique of the night for me was an I don't know what.... uke can do a tsuki. Rather than doing a tenkan taiotoshi which would feel natural to me we step in and turn on the open side(which doesn't seem safe to me) take the arm and come down and back to the inside knee. I was trying to get some float out and some projection for uke. It was still ten times harder than a simple taiotoshi.

Class ended.... I booked out and went to

North Shore Aikikai.

Jim taught this class. He also had us going in on the open side. The techniques we did were interesting. One was grab uke's wrist... pull him around for a j-step and udekiminage. Another was grab the wrist... grab the elbow with the other hand, bring them to your center pretty much hugging it to your chest and turn.

Later in class was the terrible part. He did what I think were two 2nd kyu requirements. It's been SO long since I did anything resembling a test technique. I was beyond rusty one these.

I need to have that discussion with Mulligan about the paperwork someday soon. It would be nice to be able to test again someday. I probably have over 300 hours built up since my last test. I think I only needed 200 hours to take the next one.

Quiet Morning

2011-10-23T18:30:00.002-05:00

Sunday mornings at Shodokan usually involve a fair bit of noise. The arnis folks practice on the wood floor behind us. It's not just the clacking of sticks or talking that you hear. You usually hear some really odd(eclectic) selection of music accompanied by incense. I actually don't mind either. I don't even hear their music most of the time or them practicing. I've screened it out. As for the incense... I don't mind it at all. It smells nice. It's way better than the fetid cigar stench from sensei that lingers in the place for days at a time. Friday night I had to dump all clothing immediately into the laundry and take a shower as soon as I got home to get the stench off. Kind of like dealing with toxic waste. Actually, I had my kids in a couple of times a full day or two after the cigar smoking occurs and my kids complained about the bad smell. I told them what it was and that I can't take a full breath in the place at times.

Anyway.... The arnis folks weren't around that day. It was too quiet for a Sunday morning. A newer student showed up who I hadn't seen in a bit. She seems to be about where she left off when I saw her last. I'm guessing she hasn't been able to come regularly. Kim, who usually does arnis, took a class with us. It was nice seeing him again. He and I started together. At one point Peter had us doing a koshinage. Kim asked me to throw him instead of doing lifts. So we tossed each other around for a bit. I had to make adjustments in position because some of his technique was a little off. He doesn't do aikido regularly any more I think. Alos, some of it is from a bad shoulder. He can't put his arm in a certain position without pain.

Anyway.... a nice laid back class.

Cool Kaitenage

2011-10-21T12:19:00.002-05:00

Went to North Shore Aikikai's Wednesday night's class. Did a bunch of jo disarming stuff, That was interesting. The last thing of the night though was really cool. It was a kaitenage. Uke does a yokomen strike. Nage enters in. While entering... instead of a normal atemi you might do, you grab the neck/shoulder area of the attacking side. So, if uke strikes in his right arm, you step in, deal with the strike with your left hand. At the same time your right hand goes to uke's right neck/shoulder area. From here you can step across in front if him bring his attacking arm up in a kaitenage like motion and throw.

I really liked the technique a lot. There is a bit of fun you can have trying to get uke off balance right after the strike. You can lead them forward just a bit. As they fall forward into the hole you create you can do the kaitenage.

This looks similar but I specifically remember the hand going on the opposite shoulder.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujzuA-kvoms

I could have played with this one for a while.

Got To a Double Monday

2011-10-18T20:29:00.002-05:00

I don't often get to the early class at Shodokan during the school year. Life is too busy. I got there last night though.

Serge was out with a pulled muscle so Mr. Mulligan taught instead. Class was fine. I was able to make some corrections when Mr. Mulligan mentioned them to me. For the most part I did ok.

After that class I went off to North Shore Aikikai for their Monday night class. Jim taught. We did a number of techniques. A couple strange ones where you need to grab someone's head, step in front of them, past them a bit and pivot. The first time I did this to Kevin he went flying. It looked ugly. There were hands, arms, elbows and so forth everywhere. He's a young guy and really relaxed so even though he took a tough fall he didn't get hurt by it. After that I took it more step by step with him and we worked on his ukemi for that technique. He has a good natural ukemi most of the time. It didn't occur to me he would have a problem with this one.

We did other techniques including a knife take-away with kotagaeshi.

It was a good night.

Well..... Nobody Died

2011-10-16T09:25:00.002-05:00

Peter wasn't around to teach today. The above title was a quote from Chris who did teach.

For the most part the attack was a punch to the face today. We did an entry where you enter, as you deflect or capture the attacking arm. Responses were udekimenage, some kind of kokyunage, iriminage, kotagaeshi, shihonage, a choke, and so forth.

We did one technique that was a little less aiki then the others.
You enter, block by smashing at the inside of the elbow with the opposite hand (make him think you are going to break his elbow), then enter by getting one foot under the attackers arm, step behind the attacker with the other foot and as you are turning give uke the elbow to the face. All of this is all very good.... however, at the end I experimented instead with bringing my arm up high and sliding forward for a kokyunage like finish(instead of elbowing the face).

Relatively mellow class. Felt good to move around in the morning.

Class 4 Of The Week - Friday Night

2011-10-14T21:17:00.002-05:00

Well... Somehow I got to 4 classes this week. Tonight Bob taught. We did some sumiotoshi, ushiro jujinage, kaitenage, sankyo, and more. We did most of the techniques in a line all night. The line was short enough to keep things moving. The advanced class only had about 6 people tonight.

At the end of the night we did some freestyle practice. I feel as though I did much better for this one then the last time. I was aware of where people were, generally threw my uke at someone to tie them up, and adjusted my position on the mat when necessary to keep my ukes lined up. I only did one 'surprise' technique. Usually for this exercise to keep people safe they limit the attacks and responses to things we did that night. At times I am all over the place just doing whatever. Tonight I managed to keep it to what we were doing in class. The only 'new' technique I did was udekimenage when someone attacked very quickly and I just reacted. His energy/line of attack/whatever just fell right into it. I paused a short moment to let my uke get his bearings before I completed the technique.

Had a good class overall.

Class 3 of the week....Wednesday Night

2011-10-14T21:08:00.002-05:00

Mike taught. Hadn't seen one of his classes in a while. He used to teach Monday nights but as long as it's football season I doubt I'll see him for a class very often.

Anyway... we had a great class. Did some great throws. I took some throws for some demos which was nice because I got to feel the technique.

The variant of taiotoshi was harder for me. If I did a direct throw I had no problem. But Mike was showing a version where you turn 270 degrees. Uke gets thrown 90 degrees from his position. I did it successfully but I wasn't consistent.

Yay Yonkyo

2011-10-10T22:15:00.002-05:00

I managed a kidsitter tonight so I got to North Shore Aikikai for a class tonight.

We practiced certain types of ukemi tonight. Going over a jo, doing a few line techniques to practice.

The last thing of the night was a grab attack, step off to the side a bit taking uke's balance, do a one handed nikkyo, as uke comes up tenkan and change into a one handed yonkyo. The nikkyo wasn't too hard to get but one handed yonkyo is real hard to get effectively.

We had a couple partners for this one. When I got one of the less experienced members of our group he was totally missing the yonkyo. I spent about 10 seconds with him so he would get the gist of it. He's amazing. He got a reasonable yonkyo right away. Awesome.

That Was Different

2011-10-09T19:29:00.002-05:00

As usual, Peter had an interesting class. He started us out holding a bokken, attempting to swing it while balancing on one foot. We did both sides a couple of times and then moved on.

He has us doing a different opening. The class was all jodan tsuki. The reply was either a deflect enter, or tenkan pull-around or a hand snatch tenkan kind of thing.

We did kotagaeshi, iriminage, koshinage, nikkyo, udekiminage, kaitenage, kokyunage. I think the kotagaeshi was the most interesting for me. Normally we don't want to attempt to snatch a hand because you may miss. Peter had us snatching at the attacking hand to slap it down as you tenkan, keep hold of it and you do a nice kotagaeshi. I was trying to not just slap but pay attention to making contact and sliding down to where I needed to be.

The nikkyo was a natural for me. No surprise there.

The koshinage was a garume type. For that one I was attempting to keep uke moving in a particular direction be in a good place so uke has a little float and just falls into the correct position. While practicing, even though it wasn't shown that way... after a few turns of doing it normally, I did the thing where you shift your weight from one side to the other and then just as uke gets to the other side, pull that foot back. Predictably, Tony fell like a stone. I looked up at Peter after I did it and he spotted it and was smiling at me. I held my finger up to my lips.... ssshhhhhhh.

Here is a video where someone is doing the foot pull away for this koshi. Look at the first two throws for the variation we were doing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7E_nJn8nu30

Monday Night Double Header

2011-09-28T21:11:00.002-05:00

Due to family, I haven't been able to do a double monday class for the past few weeks. I was able to this week.

I got to Shodokan and Serge was teaching. Serge had an interesting opening he was having us focus on. For whatever reason, he asked me to take ukemi for him for demonstrations for the whole class (which is fine by me).

Anyway... the opening was interesting. I'm not sure someone would have kazushi using it but if somehow you ended up in this position there were many... many responses you could use.

So we went through a whole bunch. Serge moved around and worked with each of us. This is necessary since he's blind and can only give corrections by working with you. I noticed he was able to figure out who was working with whom by listening to their ukemi. I guess some of us are louder than others.

After this I headed off to North Shore Aikikai for another class. A good number of folks showed up for class. We ended up switching partners around a bit. In general I tried to pick the newer people to work with. Some people learn faster when they work with more experienced people. I took ukemi for demos a few times here.

I keep reminding myself to grab a camara and bring it in. I have no idea what I look like.

Had an Awesome Seminar

2011-09-28T21:05:00.002-05:00

3 hours of aikido followed by a good meal at a local place. What could be better?

The seminar I went to was a blast. At one point I was paired with someone I didn't know or recall ever seeing. We were doing a simple koshinage, He was excellent to work with. I walked up to him, he looked at me and said.... "So, this is the first time you've done this breakfall?". I replied "No". Instantly he came back with "well then..." and does the technique. His technique felt really good. When I see more pictures from the dojo, I'm going to pick him out and ask who he was. His ukemi was solid too. He was very comfortable taking throws.

That night I slept like a rock. Excellent.

Great Seminar Coming

2011-09-13T21:48:00.003-05:00

As answered in the previous post I will be going to NSA's seminar they are holding on September 18th.

http://www.northshoreaikido.com/News_%26_Events.html

Still Here

2011-08-30T21:03:00.003-05:00

I haven't posted in a while but nothings changed much. Still practicing on a regular basis. Having mostly good classes. Had an interesting one last night.

I've been away on vacation for a while. I hit the mat and there is a newer student talking to someone who has been kicking around for a year or so(not real sure).

They look at me and say....

Them: "Give us some wisdom"
Me: "Never....ever... cut the red wire"

Later on I paired off with someone who has only been around for a few weeks. He's this younger guy, still in school, who has lots of martial arts experience in other arts (mostly tkd). He does the usual stuff you'd expect from someone starting out with the normal questions about why something does or does not work.

He surprised me however when he started attempting breakfalls for something just because he wanted to try. After his second try Jim came over and gave him some tips. I repeated Jims tips at times to remind him what to do and he started breakfalling. It wasn't perfect ukemi but it looked darn good for someone who just started out. If this kid keeps putting effort into his classes he'll learn fast.

Did She Just Say "Sixes"?

2011-06-16T12:33:00.003-05:00

Been having lots of good classes. Sunday mornings with Peter have been exceptional.

Last week Shira taught another class at North Shore Aikikai. We focused on three techniques mostly from tsuki. sumiotoshi, kotagaeshi, and kaitenage. There were varying levels of experience in the class so Shira kept me paired up with one of the more experienced students. We usually take turns. You do 2 then I do 2. Shira comes up to us and tells us to do 6's. Uhh... ok. So I do 6 and then he does 6.

So we start off doing the sumiotoshi. Then Shira has us add the next technique and then the next one. By the end of class, Chris and I were tossing each other with any of the three techniques.

It was a fun class because I was able to let go more than I usually do. My partners ukemi was up to the speed up and the repeated techniques. There aren't too many fellow students in either dojo where I practice that can handle going half speed.

I'm not usually concerned with going fast as I am more interested in doing things correctly however, at the pace we set (and going in 6's) I got a nice workout for a change.

My partner was tiring a bit toward the end. We talked a bit after class. He told me something interesting. He says he feels a knot in his center when he's practicing and doing well. I'm the opposite. If anything, I have to say that I feel energy just flowing through me. Like it was going from one place to another and I just happen to be in between.

Looking For The Float

2011-03-31T09:55:00.003-05:00

Went to NSA last night for a class. Rob taught. We focused a bit on a couple of reponses to a yokomen strike. As usual there was a lot of focus on getting kazushi.

I had a problem with my atemi. Apparently, I was not delivering my atemi with enough real intent. I thought I was past this but I guess not. I still don't want to hit people. I have to trust my partners to move. It's not like we are moving real fast and it would hurt or anything. Maybe I'm just subconciously being overly cautious because I poked Rob in the eye a month or so ago.

One of the techniques had me fighting muscle memory. Rob had us doing a version of udekimenage that was interesting. Rather than taking the step he had us square off our stance and push the hand as we moved uke forward.

At the end of class we did a few minutes of freestyle. For whatever reason I wasn't being overally careful about allowing people to get behind me. I just wasn't even trying to treat it as a freestyle. Not sure how I got into that mindset. I was at one point purposely throwing multiple uke's at Matt. Just as an exercise. There may be a time where you just don't want to deal with one particular person. I didn't get stuck with one technique which is fine but it was less flowy than I usually manage.

Jim helped me add up hours. Just at NSA alone I had about 85 hours built up. I have twice that many at Shodokan. So, although I have plenty of hours for the second kyu test(you need 200), it's not quite as bad as I thought. I could have tested about 5 months ago. I thought it was worse. Still not sure what to do about testing. I took my last test 2 years back before Shodokan moved to Beverly and the paperwork still hasn't been submitted. I have doubts that it ever will. However, if I don't test than the clock won't start ticking for 1st kyu. Bummer.

Class At NSA

2011-03-29T10:56:00.002-05:00

Went to North Shore Aikikai last night. Matt taught. Good class. We focused practice around doing a proper tenkan. So the techniques we worked on had a tenkan in them. Had a lot of fun. Towards the end of class Matt had us doing those techniques for a freestyle practice. We also practiced controlling an uke with a sankyo.

What I found was that the first techniques and the last were my best ones. Somewhere in the middle I was not doing a full tenkan. This kind of thing happens with freestyle. Even at the easy pace we kept, it was harder to focus on proper technique in that environment. So that means I need more practice.

Fun Morning

2011-03-27T13:11:00.003-05:00

Really wished I got to see the tests Friday night. It would have been nice. In any case, I got to class this morning. Peter had us working on wrong sided attacks. Since you never really know how you will be attacked he wanted us to practice dealing with attacks from the 'wrong' side when you are in a particular hanmi. It focused for the most part on possibilities you may want to do during randori. Later on you could attack on any side you liked.

I usually do fine on wrong sided attacks. I just deal with it. I do have to say though that at one point I lost focus and just reacted to an incoming attack. Rather than doing the prescribed response, I just started going into nikkyo, changed it to sankyo and then did a throw all the while muttering out loud about how this is not what we are doing. Peter was smiling at me. What I did was fine for a response but it wasn't what I should have done. I stayed more focused and got it right the rest of the time. This kind of random response from me is only ok because I know my uke is very experienced and can follow it fine.

We were doing kotagaeshi at one point. I extended the arm of my uke out before doing the throw because I wanted to throw him in a particular direction. My uke just stood there and when I threw he was letting me know that his wrist was too tight. I told him I was sorry if I hurt him but I expected him to actually move and not just stay there. Sometimes for some of these throws you have to take a step or slide a bit to get into a better position to take the ukemi. Standing there like an ox is not always the best bet. So after that I loosened up on him a bit. Maybe when I get a chance I can talk to him about how to take the ukemi better(if he's interested).

I Missed Class Tonight

2011-03-21T21:33:00.002-05:00

I was so exhausted from the night before that I felt like crap. I decided it was best for me to stay home tonight and rest. I feel much better now. Bummer missing class but I think it was necessary.

Mixed Class Sunday

2011-03-21T21:26:00.002-05:00

One of our newer students came to Sunday morning. So, Peter broke us up and had us rotating in and out with him. For the most part he worked on ikkyo, nikkyo, sankyo, and shihonage. He had us working on kaeshiwaza. We did a bunch of reversals off of shomenuchi ikkyo.

The newer guy I believe is in his 60's with a background in karate. During my turns with him I tried to get him to loosen up and tried to get him to work on his ukemi. In my mind he needs that more than the technique. He's really stiff and was resisting some. I talked to him about it and suggested that he may not want to resist yet because that means that someone has to overcome it or do something else to him. I told him the resistance is good practice for later after you've had a good chunk of time on the mat and your ukemi is better. My goal was to get him to take care of himself so he doesn't get hurt. He was much improved by the end of class. A little looser and less resistant. If he keeps it up he'll be less likely to injure himself.

Yonkyo Night

2011-03-21T21:19:00.002-05:00

Friday night was yonkyo night..... All night. Mr. Mulligan had us doing yonkyo techiques all night. This was one of the first classes where I was pretty much getting it every time. Big improvement on my yonkyo.

Unfortunately, I went through an uke or two on these. Everyone has different levels of tolerance for this. I had Buddy as my first uke. We were both doing a good job at getting the yonkyo. After 30 minutes or so he says to sensei. "How about a break?" "Can we do something else?" Sensei responded with... "Oh... we're just getting started." You change partners. So I was assigned a different partner. The thing with yonkyo is that you get sensitized to it. If you get a few good ones then you feel everything. I was getting good ones on her. After a while she moved on and changed partners. Then I got Tony. We worked together. I got him to start finding the yonkyo spot. By the end of class he was getting good ones on me.

This is 3 days later and although the bruising was worse yesterday, I still have a bruise on my left wrist from that class. Almost nothing on my right side.

That was a great class. Really got to work on something that needed it.

If You Go Into a Pool, You're Going To Get Wet

2011-03-15T08:12:00.005-05:00

Forgive the writing mess. Mostly it's a mind dump with no particular order.

I'm so jazzed today! I hadn't managed to get to an early Monday night class in a while. Last night I was free so I got to go to two classes. I went to the Shodokan early class. Mr. Mulligan taught. We were doing exercises that required us to make nice round aikido circles. Some were easy. Some less so. I worked with a few people.

My hip throws needed work. I was doing ukigosh instead of ogosh for the technique. It was nice and smooth and fit well but wasn't what Mr. Mulligan showed us. I was half aware that I was doing something different but couldn't put my finger on it. After Mr. Mulligan was kind enough to give me a correction I did ogosh for the last few throws.

Chris really has improved quite a bit(he's 3rd kyu, I think). He was doing some very nice koshinage. I think he was floating me too far off to the side instead of forward but he still made it work. One side was perfect. The other side he never got me lined up right and although the throw was done, I was high on his back for that side on a consistent basis.

I got the concept of floating reinforced mostly by Rob at North Shore Aikikai. He's very focused in keeping uke off balance. Actually, I haven't seen him since I poked his eye a few weeks ago. We were practicing and I was reminded to do an atemi, as I started I brought my hand up and accidently tocuhed his eye. I knew what I did immediately and stopped the technique. The thing is.... when I started doing aikido, I couldn't give an effective attack. I had no intent. I'm quite passive by nature(even now). It took a lot of training for me to be able to actually understand enough to trust my partner and attack properly. Along the same lines, I was one of those people who was constantly apologizing. Do a technique wrong... apologize, step on someone... apologize, make light contact with an atemi to the face... apologize, etc. Again, after much training I beat the habit out of me. My partners understand that accidents happen on the mat. It's not intentional. We occasionally get a face hit or get stepped on. Short of causing some bleeding I don't react to these things the same way any more. I'm certainly concerned for my partners safety and may ask if they are ok but I rarely apologize nowadays. My mindset has changed. This is what happened when I poked Rob. I think he was a little surprised I didn't apologize. Although I expressed and felt much concern it didn't occur to me at the time to do anything else. Well... I know you read this blog Rob. Sorry about hitting your eye.

So, anyway, I had a lot of fun in Mulligan's class. At one point I had to work with Gary again. It's not that I dislike the guy. He's just odd. We are doing something like iriminage and he feels the need to drive me into the ground at the end. In fact, he accelerates the throw at the end. It's a little rough but I wouldn't call it abusive. Unnecessary perhaps, but not abusive. A lot of his techniques are unecessarily rough. So later on we are doing taiotoshi. I have a bad(good?) habit of planting uke for this technique. I tend to drive my ukes down rather than throw them out. I've been working on being more mindful so I think about it more, however, last night I was not thinking about it I guess. So I plant Gary nad he actually complains about it. So..... it's ok for him to plant people with techniques on purpose but not ok when people plant him(even by accident)? Gary... make up your mind what kind of aikido you want to practice.

He has a shodan test coming up at the end of the month. He was looking for practice partners after class and most people evaporated. Truth be told, lots of people in the class don't like taking ukemi for him. I wish I could watch the test but test night is my birthday. I plan to be out with my wife somewhere. If it weren't birthday night, I don't think I'd be too keen taking ukemi for him during the test anyway. I'm guessing his natural tendency to be rough will get exacerbated by the stress of the test. Nothing I want to subject myself to.

Now in contrast. Last night I also took a class at North Shore Aikikai. Jim taught. Had a great class. At one point we were doing katemenuchi shinonage. We change partners a lot and eventually I got paired up with a younger student. He's also a beginner. The first time he did shihonage he did what I call 'evil' shihonage. There's nice shihonage where you return the hand back to the shoulder. And... there is evil shihonage where you have the hand out from the body in more of a dislocating/breaking position. I don't mind practicing either. However, usually beginners are taught to return the hand to the shoulder at first. It's safer when they go after each other. I was caught a little by surprise that he had me really extended and I had to breakfall to release the pressure. After that I took a few throws the same way. Uke can either breakfall, or if they know it's coming can sort of backwards tenkan to get your hand back to your shoulder yourself. After a few of those I showed him the difference between evil and nice shihonage and suggested that he learn how to do nice shihonage first. I will say this, considering how few classes he's been to so far, he was doing excellent.

Recent Practices and A Long Ago Test

2011-03-14T10:22:00.007-05:00

A week ago Sunday was Peter's class. He had us doing kotagaeshi from every attack. This was a fun class. It seems as though we have been devoting Sundays to lots of 1st kyu practice in general. No one that comes Sunday morning is ready for 1st kyu, shodan or nidan test. Still. It's excellent practice.

Friday night at Shodokan. We started with some easy iriminage. I had a beginner as a partner. He's a much older, stiffer, individual. I tried to make sure I never pushed him beyond his limit. Later on I saw someone else had him as a partner and he had to leave the mat. I never found out why. I'm thinking that person overestimated his ukemi.

We did aiki-otoshi after that. I don't usually like this technique but I had one of the more flexible students as a partner. Actually, she sort of grabbed me for a partner. We settled into a nice rhythm of practice. Both of us taking ukemi. I'm in the habit for that technique to either use my hand to slide down uke's back, or to put it back for an easy ukemi. What she was doing in addition though was interesting. She had a grip on my gi and put her hand back for the ukemi. The result was an ukemi with very little impact. Very cool. I tried it.

At some point I had Joanna as a partner. We were doing a technique to unbalance uke and pull them by the inside of the elbow forward so that they are past your center. Your other arm/hand is in their face so when they get drawn towards you they bend back to avoid getting a hand in the face. Then you can treat it as iriminage. So we do a bunch of rounds and sure enough she starts resisting. She's fun that way. Once in a while she will do something unexpected. I still tried to do the technique but her force was applied in direct opposition. Since in a real situation I wouldn't keep fighting with her I just did something else. The attack for uke was katemenuchi so I just took the grab hand and did a nikkyo. At one point she did the strike suddenly and I reacted. That was pretty good.

Sunday morning Peter had us doing knife disarms. Great class.

This practice had me thinking. Here is a general question regarding shihonage technique. I have been told in the past that for a yokomen strike you want to use only one hand to bring the strike down. During knife disarms, I have been told to use two hands on the striking arm. I have also been told on other occassions that the reason you practice a particular technique a certain way is that you want to have the response be automatic(muscle memory). So.... if you want to practice such that you always respond the same way to a yokomen attack (knife or no knife) why would you only use one hand. That means that when you are attacked with a knife in that manner that you'll have to think about your response or worse you may do the wrong thing and end up getting cut up.

I'm overdue for a 2nd kyu test. Although there shouldn't be issues surrounding this.... there are. I have to decide where to take it. I actually took my 3rd kyu test a full two years ago and have yet to have my paperwork sent in. I'm not hung up on rank(if I were I'd be testing more often) but this is beyond ridiculous. I've reminded sensei about this on three(perhaps four) occassions over the years. At one point I even volunteered to send everyone's paperwork in.

I have a concern that my 'time in grade' will get messed up by all this and some day when I am ready to test I will have a problem. I've read about such cases. I'd rather test at Shodokan, however, I'm concerned that the next set of paperwork(2nd kyu) will not be sent in either. I'm worried that if the paperwork isn't sent in and Sensei retires that it will NEVER get done. The last person at Shodokan to test elsewhere was thrown out of the dojo. She was a serious, and very talented student. Losing her, diminished the dojo. Her testing elsewhere touched on a sensitive spot so she was thrown out. Is this still a sensitive issue? I have no idea.

Still, what are my choices? Never test again? Test and not have the paperwork ever sent in or test elsewhere? Terrific. They say in aikido that you should be aware and not get into bad situations. How was I thrust into this position? How could I have avoided this?

To those of you who think that even mentioning this in a 'public' forum is disrespectful (although in reality only about 8-10 people will read this and they already know what's going on). Perhaps it is, and I apologize to any that might be offended but the message being sent and received is that responsibilities to the students don't matter. After two full years, what else am I supposed to think? Some people have left the dojo in the past over this very issue. It seems silly to me that this should even be happening.

Sunday Was a Humbling Experience

2011-02-22T16:32:00.002-05:00

Peter taught Sunday morning at Shodokan. For a change of pace he decided to do knife disarms. However, after a few run throughs, he had us doing it with just a little bit of resistance. It was brutal. Now... of course uke knows what's coming so he knows exactly how to counter but even still it was just rough. I instantly found about a half dozen possible holes in my technique.

For a yokomen strike I wasn't letting the strike develop and used my (heavy)hand to block, cut down and off balance uke. However, if I didn't off balance, because I didn't have anything, uke can just take the knife and slice you.

We moved on for disarming bokken which had similar but results but not quite as bad. By the time we hit the jo disarms, I was settled in better. I was able to take what I was given and change to something else.

This was an essential class. Just when you think that you have a 50/50 shot at disarming someone if you really had to, you find that percentage less likely to occur without some kind of injury.

There is one thing however, we had to be concerned about not actually breaking uke's elbows and so forth. We were trying to do the disarms with straight technique. Very good class.

Lots of Grabs

2011-02-08T16:27:00.002-05:00

I missed a few classes this week taking care of the family. I managed to get to class late last night.

Matt taught. We had a bunch of wrist grab attacks. Good class. There was a lot of kazushi to look at. At one point we did a one handed nikkyo into a yonkyo. I had a little trouble clearing my hand to get the nikkyo. The solution was to bring the hand out before bringing it up for the nikkyo. That way you get your hand in the correct position without a bunch of friction of scraping your hand across uke's. The yonkyo I was concentrating on the center of the arm. When I moved over to the side, I started to get a decent yonkyo.

More Fun On Sunday

2011-01-31T11:02:00.002-05:00

No idea why more people don't take the Sunday morning class. The past few classes has pretty much just been Chris and I so Peter had us working on Kaeshiwaza.

The last time was reversing shihonage and turning it into kotagaeshi, nikkyo, sankyo...etc. At one point he asked us to noodle around with it some and I of course couldn't resist trying out a taiotoshi. I found a cool way of getting there. Very early on as you are reversing the shihonage, you tenkan, get a grip and extend uke forward so he is floating forward, step in front of him at an angle and throw. Peter wanted to feel it so he worked in. He was curious how 'real' it was. It seemed a valid way to get there. From your partners perspective, you feel like you have him and then as he tenkans(fivekan maybe) some and leads you forward, you have to let go and you have nothing and your partner is behind you. Then you are being floated forward for the throw. It was working pretty well.

Last Sunday we moved on to henkawaza. We were doing a lot of shomenuchi attack, starting with nikkyo and going to various other techniques. Sankyo, udekimenage, kotagaeshi, iriminage, shihonage...etc. It was a lot of fun.

Hey! My Elbow Isn't Popped

2011-01-31T09:39:00.004-05:00

Hadn't put an entry in for quite a while. I've been attending class regularly. During that time I've gotten to work with new people and experienced. Dawn from Oregon came by again for her yearly visit to Shodokan. They asked her to warm up the class. There were a good number of interesting stretches. More interesting was her ukemi warmup. Most of it was pretty normal. One of the exercises though was pretty tough. You need a partner. You start facing one another and keep eye contact as you both do a roll to the side. The tough part is maintaining spacing with your partner. Very interesting.

I actually had to speak to someone after class the other night. During class we were doing something such as kotagaeshi. I did a necessary breakfall and ended up on my side. Rather than turning me over by putting my hand in my face and turning the elbow or by grabbing the hand/wrist and turn it as you sort of dip it, this person held on to my wrist with one hand and was just pushing on my elbow with the other hand.

This was his way of attempting to turn me over. The problem was that he had my wrist at a fixed place and he was just pushing on the elbow. I felt no push/pull sideways to turn me over. What I felt was me being pinned/pushed into the mat with an armbar. Because I didn't move right away(I couldn't), he increased the pressure on the elbow which just pressed me into the mat harder. At this point I started tapping quickly. He ignored my tap and increased the pressure. I tapped very urgently. There was a still a hesitation and then he let go. Afterwards a couple people who has seen this asked me about it. They pretty much never see me tap with such urgency (most people have more control).

I wasn't mad about the incident but safety is involved so after class I went to talk to my nage about two different things. One was what I was feeling as uke and why using an armbar in that manner not only does NOT turn someone over but makes it impossible for someone to do so(maybe it would have worked if the wrist wasn't fixed and he pulled it). The other topic was why he didn't release me after the first tap.

The question about tapping was just replied with a repeated apology. That was fine. I wasn't interested in an apology. I was hoping to hear something like, "I'll be more attentive in the future" or "I'll let go quicker next time", or more to the point "I'll let go instead of attempting to continue forcing something that isn't working but I think should".

For the other issue. I described to him what I was feeling(being 'stuck' to the mat) and why I believed that this is not ever going to work as a turnover and that maybe he should try a different way of turning someone over. He told me then (and in the past) that the way he practices, he likes to think in terms of all techniques and controls as breaks.

So, ikkyo is for breaking the elbow, nikkyo for breaking the wrist, udekimenage breaks the elbow...etc. While we are all aware that the potential for breaks exist most of us don't practice with this on the forefront of our minds (at least as nage). This guy does. He does every technique with this in mind and as a result, working with him can be very uncomfortable. He is very hard on people's joints and takes some people to their limit. After class that day, several students came to me (totally unsolicited) and complained about him.

Although I have no problem with discomfort and don't mind being uke while someone explores some technique, I do have a problem with someone not respecting a tap. When someone doesn't respond to a tap, that tells me they aren't trustworthy as a partner. At this point I don't think I could ever be a good uke for him. I can never trust him and as a result would be very defensive of my joints, possibly appearing to resist in his mind.

He told me that "aikido is all about the breaks". Somewhere along the line, this guy lost sight of what aikido is about and is practicing aikijitsu instead. All the technique with none of the philosophy.

When I practice, I would like things to 'work'. However, my first thought would be for me to be try and take my opponent(uke)'s balance. I would only consider breaking someone's joint if it became necessary. It wouldn't be my first choice.

Class at North Shore Aikikai has been fine. We have some newer people so we started a quick review with ikkyo, nikkyo, sankyo...etc. The more experienced people at times were asked to add a throw at the end or something like that.

Great Monday Class

2010-11-23T09:36:00.004-05:00

Had a great class at North Shore Aikikai last night. Mike had us doing sumi-otoshi, udekiminage, some kind of kokyunage(the one where you step out after a tsuki, you take your right on his right hand and rotate his arm up and back and undercut as you take a knee), shihonage, kotagaeshi, wakigatme, taiotoshi, and some kind of mystery throw. I think he called it haraigoshi.

Check out the mystery throw here. It's in the list.
http://judoinfo.com/animate1.htm

I was pitiful at it. But I may be having an 'a-ha' moment in what it looks like. Once I'm in that position I have to fight to not do a koshinage. Hearing Mike talk about it last night put it in a different light for me. Doesn't mean I'll be able to do it but I think my understanding of the throw is better now.

Why do I remember most of the throws where normally I forget? Because Matt wasn't in last night so I got to take ukemi for Mike's demos. I like feeling his aikido. He should mix in more.

The wakagitame was ridiculous. When Mike had that on me I had to move like heck and tap out fast.

Very sweet. Fun techniques.

So Close, She Can Almost Roll

2010-11-22T11:35:00.003-05:00

The last beginners group at Shodokan started mixing in with the regular classes. For the first time I can remember the new students are coming to the Sunday morning class. So Peter has adjusted the class for them. This past sunday was really interesting. He described 3 different footwork patterns for them. He chose techniques to use a tanshin step, a tenkan, and a tenkan with a j-step. The j-step was really puzzling them.

I asked one of the students if I could help her a bit after class. Out of all the new folks she is the one person with a nice unbendable arm. The only reason she isn't rolling well is simply because of how she is aiming her body. The foot was aimed off to the side and the hands were going down to the side as well. I had her aim herself forward and put her hands down for the roll directly in front of her and she did a couple of excellent rolls. Then we called it quits. I doubt if that one session will mean that she will roll correctly from now on but at least now she has something to think about. She was very happy to get a couple of good rolls in. I myself was having flashbacks of Jim telling me to do some of these things when he taught the Sunday class. They made no sense to me back then. They do now.

We had a weapons night Friday at Shodokan. More precisely, a weapons disarming night. The end of the night culminated in a 3 on 1 session of disarming. Ukes had a tanto, bokken and a jo. I found myself mostly worried about what the jo guy was doing. It has quite a bit of range. For my turn of the 3 on 1 there was one moment where I had one person on their way down and the other two were not pressing me. As a result, I paused for a second waiting to see who was going to move to me first. Maybe next time I should just move in towards one of them. If they were really trying to nail me I doubt they'd just be standing there though. Sometimes I don't think the uke's pressure people enough. Depends on the ukes I guess.

Here is a question. Am I being a tool? One of my partners at Shodokan this week is a 1st kyu who tends to trash people some. In the past he's done everyhing from not giving me my slap hand back to holding on to my arm after a throw and pressuring or pulling out the elbow and shoulder joint. At one point we were doing an iriminage and he specifically choose to do a clothesline version. Worse still he was driving me right into the ground. The force of it was strong enough that I actually bumped my head a little(the first time as I was not expecting it). So, on my turn, I do it his way so he could feel it and plow him into the ground(at maybe half strength) and say.... 'that is what I'm feeling'. He was overjoyed as if I had learned something and said 'yes!'. Ok.... I'm not a strong guy and although some things work better with strength, you really shouldn't need any. I don't want to practice that way. I'd rather practice getting uke's balance. This guy will sooner or later understand that I have no interest in doing things his way.

For the rest of the practice, I gave him honest reactions as uke. If he pushed me down and planted me I didn't make up for that. In fact, in one instance he was telling me to float more except he was planting me. I told him he was planting me and he said nothing after that. My thought was if you want me to float.... float me. What I found was that for almost every throw he was relying on me just falling down or adjusting for him. I was surprised. He was annoyed.

During kotagaeshi he was giving me very tight ones and I had to breakfall very quickly to get out of one of them. I was fine with that. Got up smiling as usual. So I do the same with him and he complains. Why? Because he didn't want to breakfall to protect himself and it was a very tight kotagaeshi. So after that I had to baby him some for those. The difference is that these were tight because of proper technique, not because I was just using strength or hyperextending a joint after the technique was over.

I'm guessing he won't be picking me as a partner much in the future after a couple more classes. I have no interest in being unecessarily beaten on so this is fine with me. He can practice his style of aikido with someone else. To date, he is the only person I met that I really ever wanted to avoid on the mat. This guy is the same one that was rough with me a while back because he disagreed on how an ukemi should be done.

Looks like I missed out on a seminar. New England Aikikai had a fund raising seminar and dinner I would have liked to have gone to. I had other committments.

Further back in the week, last Monday, North Shore Aikikai had a guest instructor. Some gentleman from France who studied under Tamura Sensei. The class was excellent.

Ghassssaskkk

2010-11-08T09:47:00.002-05:00

Yep... that sound of my uke choking. I intended a blood choke and got windpipe instead. I slapped it on fairly quick because we were doing knife disarms.

Sunday morning Peter had us doing all sort of knife disarms but we spent a portion of the class working on a different situation. How to do a disarm when the knife is reversed. Usually we practice so that the knife is held outward so it can stab or slash. This time we held it reversed so that the length of the blade ran along the forearm. This is obviously really good for getting in close and slashing.

It leads to difficulties. Because of the position of the blade some of the usual hand/wrist grabs that we do to control the knife hand don't work. So Peter opened it up and asked us to see what we could come up with. There were a few different ways the students came up with.

One was to stop the knife by almost catching the hand. After that you could do whatever you liked. I didn't like that very much becuase it was too easy to miss the catch and end up with a sliced hand.

One way I first tried was to wait for the slash to complete and then quickly enter and make sure that I had one hand on the back of the elbow. That was so that he couldn't swing the knife back at me. At that point you can do whatever. I opted for the choke I described above. One hand controlling the knife hand wrist(back of the wrist, the other hand on the neck using the thumb to push the head. The whole body is brought backwards so they are relying on you for their balance. You can kneel and hyperextend the elbow or just choke em at this point. The problem with doing all of this is that you are forced to wait for a good opportunity to get in.

Next I tried something totally different. I matched the attack. If the attacker was right handed, they would be slashing from right to left from their perspective. I would enter to their open side and tenkan 90 degrees. Sort of like what Alan likes to do for yokomenunchi shihonage. I atemi as I enter with my right hand. Oddly enough the left hand is in a great position to block and grab the knife hand. You are inside the range of the attack. So at this point you can do whatever.

Peter seemed to like this idea the best. As uke you are keeping out of range of the knife and entering at the same time. It's also very easy to do that block without needing perfect timing.

Last Friday Hip-fest

2010-10-29T13:01:00.002-05:00

So Friday night at Shodokan we have a fairly full mat. For whatever reason, Mr. Mulligan decides to do an entire night of hip throws. What's worse about it is that we are just supposed to lift and not throw. For whatever reason the partners I end up getting all have trouble judging and I have to work extra hard to not fall. Frequently I ended up taking my free hand and pushing against uke's hip.

By the time the class was over I noticed that my hip joint seemed a little worked. Never had that happen before. Must be a sign of age.
It feels ok today, a week later. Although frankly I'd like to do something not involving the hip tonight. Otoshi.... controls... whatever. We shall see.

Speaking of controls..... Monday night Matt at North Shore Aikikai had a great class with us doing a 1 handed nikkyo. Very tough to get.

Show Me When You are Nage Please

2010-10-29T12:25:00.004-05:00

A couple of weeks back I had an interesting difference of opinion on a set of techniques with one of the other students.

A very experienced 1st kyu and I were taking the Sunday class. Peter had us doing henkawaza. So we are moving from one technique to the next.

For one set of exercises uke eventually ends up bent over. From there we are supposed to let uke up while taking them into sankyo. So, I get a sankyo and I let uke up. He doesn't try to rise. I say to him..... don't you want to get up? He says no. I attempt to encourage him to get up by showing him that I can atemi with my knee to his face (no I don't actually hit him). Still no reaction. So I use my sankyo control to get him up(which he can't ignore) and continue the technique.

On his turn he then attempts to show me his way of thinking. I was basically, brought down, not let up at all and was forced to move around quite a bit to keep up with him. From there he takes the sankyo and finishes. After which he gives me an extremely respectful bow. It wasn't abusive but it was very uncomfortable. Luckily, I was able to keep up as he mopped the floor with me some.

Interesting thought by him. I have a few thoughts of my own on that one though. I like to see how other people do their techniques because things can vary so much. His background was from the Chiba line I believe and they don't typically let uke up from this position I guess.

However, if he perceives a hole in my technique such as letting him up then I would rather he get up and show me by touching, tapping, gently hitting me somewhere. You should be a realistic uke. If I let you up(intentional or otherwise) you should get up. His opportunity to show how he would do the techniques can come on his turn. In my mind he is being a bad uke.

Overall, I've come to dislike his aikido. It's full of positive grabs and strength and relies less on his center and on kazushi. I guess the best way to say it is that he's not very flowy. I'm not saying his aikido is bad or wrong or anything. Just not my style.

Kazushi Is King

2010-10-05T10:00:00.002-05:00

Went to North Shore Aikido's class. Matt taught. We did taiotoshi, ukiotoshi and something I believe he called kasagarume. I love all three of these. I've done them before. The focus however was different for this practice.

Instead of trying to quickly pound uke into the mat. The idea was to try and grab uke with just a couple of fingers for each hand as an exercise. See how much you can get with just a light gentle grip. Very cool idea because it allows you to really focus on the kazushi. I was a lot more focused on floating uke higher before the throw and so forth. I would love to try this again some time. At the very least if we do normal taiotoshi, I'll be focusing on moving uke for better kazushi.

A few posts ago I mentioned someone threw me on his leg for taiotoshi. I got to see him during this class and I can see why it happened. In fact he threw someone else on his knee but it was minor(no damage). He's aware of the problem as are the instructors. He's having trouble making the correction. I think I see why he's doing it. What you normally might do at the end is sort of blast your foot back as you drop. What he does instead is take a step with that foot and tries to throw uke using his whole body. He sort of attempts to throw uke as if he is hauling a sack of potatos around in a circle. Trying to throw uke to the mat as hard as possible. So after the step if his foot was square at all, it becomes slanted because he turns his whole body including his hips(reminiscent of a hip throw). I think he'd do better if he concentrated on which direction he's really supposed to be throwing uke.

It's an interesting thing. A student can feel a large amount of force coming from his partner and not interpet it correctly. Sometimes it feels harder because the technique is correct. It's not harder because someone is physically throwing you harder.

Friday Night and Sunday Pete Classes

2010-10-04T12:37:00.003-05:00

Mr. Mulligan was off on his yearly scaring of the fish this weekend. So Peter was kind enough to come in and teach the Friday night class.

Darned if I remember exactly what we did. If I remember I'll edit this post. I do remember enjoying the class quite a bit. I think we did some kaeshi-waza.

As for Sunday morning. Most of the attacks were shomenuchi. We did a series of techniques, udekiminage, koshinage, iriminage, shihonage, kotagaeshi..etc. The focus was going from one technique to the next and to not worry about hanmi.

Chris M. showed up on for the Sunday class which is unusual. It's really funny working with him and the other Chris at the same time. This Chris is always fighting, resisting and pushing. Whether he is nage or uke, lots of muscle being used. The other Chris is very soft. Sometimes too soft. Actually I had a talk with him about that. I expressed to him that he should trust my ukemi. That he should do a technique to completion and not ease up at the end. I'm not 100% sure but I started getting a little more effort from him. At one point he immediately put me down to the mat with a great nikkyo. I hit the mat with some speed because he was doing it correctly. Then he looked at me and apologized. Sigh.... dude... that's exactly what you should be doing. No apology needed. It's good for both of us when you do techniques correctly all the way through.

Some Beginners

2010-09-21T10:22:00.002-05:00

We had a couple people from day one on the mat. We did some basic movement exercises. We did some shihonage variation which I liked. It reminded me of the kotagaeshi where uke is travelling in a line and you continue it. This was similar for this shihonage. Uke travels in a line and you allow him to continue it. We did some shihonage breakfalls. Interestingly enough, when Matt did his demo and I uke'd I felt him float me for this as well. So, as I'm breakfalling over, I feel him slide forward a bit which floated me out as I fell. Excellent.

The very last thing he had the advanced folks working on was a relatively simple taiotoshi. For some odd reason I was having problems last night getting this down. I also have the tendency to throw uke down for this. This is fine but the instructor was throwing people out and not down.

Someone came in with a bad knee last night. I asked him about it and he said that I landed on it last week. Someone else asked and again he said that I came down on his knee. Like somehow this was my fault. Dude.... I went where you threw me for taiotoshi. Straight down on top of your own leg. You got hurt because you didn't turn as far as you were supposed to. Instead of my maybe landing on the back of your leg with a bent knee. I got to land on the side of a leg that was extended out sideways. Any contact we had, stressed your knee joint. I have sympathy but that injury was self inflicted. I always say that 95% of the injuries I've seen in aikido have been self inflicted (not taking ukemi properly is the main reason). So take ownership of the mistake and move on.

As a side note I suggested to him that if it doesn't get better soon that he may need to have someone look at it to make sure there is no real damage there. Ligament/tendon damage takes lots longer to heal up then muscle.

One of the new people who took a class was a younger kid. Doing shihonage with him I had to get 'unreasonably low'.

Options

2010-09-20T14:07:00.002-05:00

Peter was stressing not making a committment when starting a technique. Lots of people want to grab and whatever right away, Peter had us taking ukes tsuki, doin a tanshin step and grab the hand underside with your other hand on top. From here we could shihonage, kotagaeshi and udekiminage and so forth.

I noticed a cake in the lounge. Looks like they had a gathering Friday night to celebrate our new shodan. Wish I could have come but the jewish holiday had that as a non-starter. I'm still waiting for the requisite trip on the hakima but nothing as yet.

Tonight I have a parent teacher conference. If I go straight to NSA I can catch their late class if my wife is able to gather the kids from two different households and put them to bed.

Got To a Late Class Last Night

2010-09-16T08:30:00.002-05:00

I won't be able to get to class on Friday so I went to the late class last night instead.

Matt taught. We did a series of line techniques. A couple involved getting uke to move past you while you straightened his arm out so you could throw him by driving that straight arm one way or another.

Next up we moved to a similar start but did a nikkyo and after uke comes up you take a yonkyo and throw. I was having trouble getting the yonkyo and Rob was kind enough to give me some feedback so I can practice that again some day.

At the end we did a shomenuchi attack. Nage is supposed to intercept this early so he can raise uke a bit, then lead ukes arm down as you kneel down, do a hip push and throw.

Watched Some Video

2010-09-16T08:26:00.002-05:00

Can't always benefit from watching a video but I think I know why I was having such a tough time doing tai otoshi on a larger somewhat non-compliant uke. I think I was coming around too far. It was described as sort of being like a hinge. Well... if I'm the door, I think I swing open too far. I was swinging so far, I think that's the equivalent of leaving uke behind. If Mike repeats the class as he intends and I can make it I'm going to watch where he stops more carefully.

Monday Favorite

2010-09-14T14:06:00.002-05:00

Mike decided out of the blue that we needed more practice for tai otoshi. Normally I do pretty well at this however last night I had a lot of trouble. My partner for most of it is a big relatively heavy guy. The technique called for us to set up in a typical judo style where we grab opposite elbow and lapel. From this static position I'm supposed to get someone moving. I was doing ok but my weight distribution was way off and I couldn't get my leg stuck out early enough. At the end I had more success as I slowed the technique down. I think my uke wasn't too happy with the falls. On his first throw as nage he was off balance, fell and somehow hurt his own knee. Although not badly. He said he thought it would be fine overnight.

Mike was going to continue this for another class. I'm going to see if I can grab a different partner to see if I get different results. I was throwing him but it wasn't a pretty fall.

My knee is somewhat better for some reason. I thought for sure I did some permanent damage in there but either I didn't or I did and tissue is building up and keeping everything in place or something. The knee feels fine every moment of the day. Only hurts when I put my full weight on it and turn. So backwards rolls or tenkans from the knees bother me. It's a lot less sensitive then it used to be. Who knows.... could be that in a year or so it will be all healed up.

Ushiro Attacks

2010-09-14T14:00:00.003-05:00

Bob taught Friday night. He had us responding with kotagaeshi, kokyunage, and sankyo. I came a bit late so I missed the first technique. At the end of class Bob had us take turns with 3 ukes. They would do an ushiro atack and nage had to respond with one of the three responses. I did mediocre on it. It's still very hard for me to limit my responses. If the energy of uke is moving in a particular direction I then have to force myself into one of the three responses. In any event, I sure could use more practice.

Someone Actually Noticed

2010-09-06T20:03:00.003-05:00

Friday's class was interesting. At times people say... hey.. great breakfall. This however was a different comment. We were doing a series of throws in a line. At one point it was Buddy's turn. He goes to throw, I felt him change his position and adjusted my ukemi to both take his lead (and be safe). I made this change mid way through the throw because he changed things midway through the throw.

So... He threw me and after had this surprised look on his face and he was telling me over and over how he felt me change my ukemi mid technique. I said... of course I changed, to adjust for what you were doing. He said.... yes but you changed in the middle of the throw..... I felt it.

Was kind of funny. It's not like it was a big deal. Nice to know he's far enough along to feel it though.

Some Things Just Shouldn't Be Done

2010-08-31T10:23:00.003-05:00

Had a great class with Peter on Sunday morning. We worked on henka waza. For the most part things were fine. However.... going from sankyo directly to kotagaeshi is just not a natural transition. Give it a try some time and you'll see what I mean.
No cheating.... go directly from one to the other.

Good Class at NSA

2010-08-31T10:12:00.002-05:00

Went to North Shore Aikikai last night. Had a great class with Mike teaching. To remember Sugano Sensei we did some weapons practice and did some techniques with lots of hand changes.

My favorite was at the end. It was a yokomen attack. Bring it down to your center, bring it back up and over into ikkyo, change to a sankyo, bring uke up, bring uke around behind you to the other side and finish with a tai otoshi. My timing for this was really good. I was having a blast with it. I was doing some fairly good throws with no strength. It helps to have an uke who isn't afraid of falling too.

Great class, wish it could have been longer.

Results of Test Night

2010-08-30T09:48:00.003-05:00

No idea. I assume that Mulligan will pass everyone regardless. We had a 4th kyu test, two 2nd kyu tests and a shodan test.

The 4th kyu test was interesting to watch. Out of all of the tests in some sense, it was the best. Why? Because I could see the improvement in this individual's practice. It was also obvious that he worked extra outside of classes on his test. Did he do everything 100% right. Nah. But he did well enough and certainly did well for him. The biggest surprise was they had him do some ukemi. This guy's ukemi was always pretty bad. He'd been practicing for quite a long while and never could do a forward roll. I've offerred to help him in the past a few times but he always refused. For his test he did a few passable forward rolls. It was excellent to see.

For one 2nd kyu tester I saw some good test techniques and a marginal randori. She's done a randori better in the past and she didn't just stand there fumbling or anything so she did fine. The other 2nd kyu tester's techiniques looked so so but he had a pretty good randori. What didn't I like about his techniques? By the time you hit 2nd kyu there should be a certain fluidity of movement. Techniques should be done without stop/starts in them. That doesn't mean you have to go fast, just continuously. I could almost see his mind working... click...click... foot goes there.... arms go there.

One thing that occurred to me. I was wondering if we quit the practice of doing a pretest before the exams.

EDIT: Someone asked..... The pretests are good because it proves that someone is ready for a test but also if there is a tweak that can be made it gives the tester plenty of time to work on issues.

Test Night Tonight

2010-08-27T13:23:00.003-05:00

I'm going to try and make it tonight. So far so good. Despite my knee problem I should be able to help out and be an uke. Should be an interesting mix of testers. I know in one case the hours are at a bare minimum at best. For myself, I think I'd need 200 hours and since I tested about 16 months ago, without looking that's a possibility of around 204 hours if I went 3x week. I'm pretty sure I've missed a class or two at some point(I mean... we did have holidays). No reason to add 'em up. I wouldn't be testing anyway even if I had it. I'm still in no particular hurry. The practice matters more.

Lots of Resistance Lately

2010-08-14T13:52:00.002-05:00

I've had a couple partners doing the resistance thing lately. It's actually good practice. One of them was interesting. After something like a kotagaeshi he will attempt to spin around and get up right after he hits the floor. I've been ignoring it but I think I'll gently show him why turning his back to me isn't such a hot idea. So far I've done things like let him get up because I have his hand and immediately do another kotagaeshi or something but he's not taking the hint. During class last time I actally did pin his shoulder down to stop the rolling around business.

In class last night we did some sensitivity training. Basically when uke comes in with a push or pull to react with one or two techniques. I frequently find it hard to limit my responses to just the 'expected' ones. Sensei kept saying to not worry so much about the technique. He was wanting us to just feel and react. However, forcing me into a particular movement actually is harder than just sticking me there and saying, just react. Still.... we are supposed to be able to control ourselves so I did my best to keep it to sensei's responses.

I have an interesting new injury. For whatever reason, when I'm down on my left knee at an angle I get what feels like nerve pain right in the knee. Sort of below the kneecap. Doesn't hurt at any other time. So basically, backwards rolls on one side will hurt it or when I get up off the floor from a technique and my body is not squared up.

True Story About the Nature of Practice

2010-08-03T08:39:00.004-05:00

A few years back a friend of mine related this story to me. I see this friend a couple times a year. We head off and flyfish every year. Anyway.... He's a black belt in Taekwondo and has been for many years. He told me that they occasionally do sparring practice in class. During these practices they tended to hold back some. Full strength contact isn't necessary. During one of these sessions he was paired off with a very talented woman. She was known in the dojo as being rough on her partners. During the session she predictably was using more strength then was needed for the practice. My friend was tired of this and pulled her aside after class to have a chat with her. What he basically told her was that she's good, everyone knows she's good and that she has nothing to prove to anyone. That she doesn't have to beat the crap out of her fellow students to prove anything. Well, after that she seemed to calm down. She still sparred and still did well but held back so as not to unduly hurt her partners. People stopped avoiding her and got the benefit of working with a skilled person.

During an aikido practice when you have someone in a control or in a position where you have kazushi it isn't necessary to abuse your partner. I'm all for a vigorous workout. I'm happy to do a smooth (even fast) ukemi to keep up with my nage. It is a different matter however when nage takes uke into a position attained through uke's trust and abuses his position.

An example of this would be if someone pins uke and then after uke taps out, nage continues to apply perhaps even more pressure. This would be one example of abusing uke's trust.

Another and more recent event would be when you take uke into shihonage, stop the technique at the point where nage has kazushi. Uke is bent over with arm curled back to his shoulder for a tanto takeaway. At this static position, after a few moments of nage talking, that is not the time to suddenly (and at speed) wrench uke's arm away from his shoulder and outward in an obvious (and successful) attempt to cause discomfort.

If you really want to show me that you know aikido, show me that you can do the technique with some control.

What Was That?

2010-07-27T12:06:00.003-05:00

On Sunday mornings the Arnis class runs at the same time on the wood floor. Usually, I hear music and smell incense burning and so forth. Last Sunday I am warming up doing ukemi practice when out of the blue I hear....

"Grab that weapon like a naughty circus monkey"

What are they doing back there?

The rest of sunday's class was good stuff. Peter had us do some kaeshi waza (reversals). Although in the past I remembered doing these before but for some reason I was really stiff as I did the reversal. I tried to soften up a bit.

Monday night I went to North Shore Aikikai. We started with our ukemi practice. We did some tsuki sumi-otoshi. Then we moved on to other things. My favorite of which was a cross between a tae waza and a kokyunage. Yokomen attack. Nage matches uke by stepping in at an angle. Your hands go to the inside of uke's elbow and arm. Allowing uke to complete the swing you encourage the attacking arm to continue in the same direction. Then you bring the arm down and back (you go to one knee and slide back on it). This forms the circle that uke will follow. I love this technique.

From there we did kotagaeshi, iriminage, and other things. All of them flowy and effortless.... at least if you do them like Mike is showing them.

Pulling The Rug Out

2010-07-19T14:41:00.002-05:00

Sunday, Peter did a really interesting class. We did a bunch of techniques from two different entries. Eventually we came to koshinage. He had us doing the garume version where uke goes across your belt line and your lined up pretty much perpendicular. We've done this lots before. What was different? Somewhere in the middle of the throw you start moving your weight from one foot to the other. Before that totally happens you withdraw the foot.
The affect on uke is that you go straight down. The ukemi feels more like something you'd take from an uki-gosh. Nage just disappears.

Deja Vu..... Or Maybe Not

2010-07-15T15:05:00.002-05:00

Ok... so Monday was amusing. I went to Shodokan. We started off with some backstretches, went to iriminage and then moved to aikio toshi. Had a good class.

After that I went to North Shore Aikikai. We did backstretches, iriminage, and then we did sumi-otoshi. Ok... so it wasn't exactly the same but it was.... and yet... it wasn't.

This is the best part of seeing other instructors points of view on a given technique. You can have the same exact technique but when I see it done a couple of different ways it will at times get you to thinking, what part of this works and what part doesn't for you.

Rob taught the class at NSA. For the sumiotoshi I tend to take the arm and move someone at that point with my whole body. It can feel clunky in some ways but since I have extension, and am using my whole body and not arm strength I always regarded it as the way to do it. Somewhere after feeling Robs version I realized that there is another way. You lead uke more which requires less effort (even if it's minimal effort using ones body) by offbalancing uke more. It's definitely softer. Just as I threw Rob on one occassion I realized how jarring that was to uke in comparison. I didn't quite know why. When Rob made the rounds again he demonstrated the difference and this time I picked up on it and used more unbalancing. Now.... there is nothing particularly wrong with how I was doing it before but it lacked a certain amount of subtlety or softness.

Resistance is Futile

2010-07-06T13:24:00.003-05:00

Went to class Tues, Wednesday, and Friday this week.

Wednesday night at North Shore Aikikai I caught most of Rob's class. He apparently was looking at some old footage of a sensei who used to visit every year from Japan. The exercises/techniques stressed flexibility and strength of your core. Getting ridiculously low was a requirement.

On Friday night I paired myself off with one of the new folks. I was curious how he was coming along. It was excellent practice for me. I had to keep the techniques at a pace he could follow. He didn't seem overly comfortable taking even basic ukemi. For nikkyo when he would go to the ground there was quite a bit of grunting going on. He wanted to resist everything which oddly enough I didn't notice right away. I pulled him aside after class. I suggested to him that at this stage its hard enough for someone to just remember where to put your feet and hands and so forth without worrying about what to do if someone is fighting a technique they know is coming. Then I had him do an ikkyo to me and showed him the difference. The first time I offerred some resistance. The second time I just blended with him like butter.

For those of you just starting out. Your best bet is to offer no resistance at this stage. There isn't a lot of benefit to it right now for uke or nage.

The second class Friday night was a sharp contrast. Mr. Mulligan had us doing some koshinage. I had Tony and Sam for partners. Tony was doing his usual, tossing me around like crazy. Sam too. By the end of the night I was pretty well cooked.

I'm Back

2010-06-28T09:28:00.002-05:00

I went away on a trip to Colorado recently. Went flyfishing and canyoneering. Very fun to do both. Once upon a time I used to rock climb. Forgot how fun it is to rappel.

http://www.moabdesertadventures.com/canyoneering.htm

I did the "Hidden Splendor" tour. And... yes.... there was chest deep water we had to wade through at times.

I went to Friday night's first class. Mr. Mulligan had us doing wrist grab attacks. We did some kokyunage, Some form of koshinage (garume) and a host of other stuff. I had two partners for about half the class. One was a very experienced person and the other has been around maybe 6 months or so. Big difference in how they react to me. The more inexperienced person gave me excellent feedback with his body as he 'didn't go where he was supposed to'. He was actually turning too much putting himself off balance making the prescribed technique more difficult. I still worked out how to adjust for it. However, in a real situation, I would more likely just take advantage of his imbalance and do something else.

At one point I had Sam as a partner for an ogoshi hip throw. After a few cycles he switches to ukigoshi. I recognized it immediately. I think I surprised him. When it was my turn I slid in and did a nice ukigoshi for him as well. After I got that out of my system I went back to the hip throw that was being taught.

I saw an interesting pair for this class. Serge was paired up with this really big guy with not so good ukemi. I've actually seen him improve the past 6 months. He's really working on it but it's obvious he has a ways to go. Serge is excellent and has wonderful sensitivity. He was throwing him pretty well. Some of the ukemi he was taking wasn't too bad where others obviously caused rough landings. He was told that if he is experiencing pain on ukemi he should take a break. I've heard this from multiple instructors. The thought is that as you are learning you aren't supposed to associate ukemi with pain.

I made it to the Sunday morning class. Peter had us busy with some knife disarms. One bit of practice that was very challenging was starting out with insufficient mai. There may be a time that someone is standing right in front of you, has a knife, and chooses to use it. It was very difficult to get the body out of the way and your hands on the incoming thrust so that you could do something with it. Anyone learning knife disarming techniques... don't fool yourself. Getting involved in a knife fight is just bad.

After class I had an interesting conversation with one of the students. He was talking about how he thought of techniques in terms of their ability to break joints and do major damage. That he doesn't think in terms of pain or mechanical compliance. I was surprised to hear that from someone so experienced. He certainly isn't abusive on the mat or anything. While it is true that the techniques we do do have the potential for damage (I've seen it), most people are taught to think in terms of the aiki philosophy. The idea that you'd rather stop your attacker without actually harming them if possible. Now, there may be situations where you have no choice but to break a wrist or an elbow. Breaking joints shouldn't usually be the first goal. Maybe it's a leftover from his military background.

Worked With Gary Some

2010-06-17T09:23:00.003-05:00

As usual, I missed blogging here for a few classes. I did however recently skip a class or two. I didn't go to Sunday morning or 1st class Monday.

On Friday at Shodokan, Sam ran a nice session for us. We got to play with a tai otoshi which I always loved. After class Mr. Mulligan noted how hard I planted Sam. I told him it was because he has great ukemi and could take it and.... more importantly his attack was so strong I took that as a signal to go ahead and throw. Truth be told, I didn't use really any strength at all. I had the timing down well. For everyone else in line I tend to hold back and only give them what they indicate on their attack and since I know them all... never push them to the limit of their ukemi.

After class Gary asked me to stay for a little bit so he could work on some suwari waza. Most of it was ushiro. So I'd run around, grab the shoulders and he'd come up with something.... then I'd come around again.... and again.... I was getting up quickly and giving him constant attacks. Nice workout for me. Gary was psyched he got some extra practice in.

Monday night I went to North Shore Aikikai. Jim taught his brand of practical aikido. We are so used to people moving certain ways. I had one of the newer folks. The attack called for nage to tenkan and pull uke around. New people frequently won't turn to face you. If this happens in real life then you are good to go. You can do any number of things to him while his back is turned or just run away real fast.

However, if you are trying to do a technique with or without uke's active coorperation then you need to do a little more work. Jim had us trying out a different way to pull uke around. Pulling closer to the upper arm then the lower. Keeping your bodies close to each other. This way you can really yank him around. When we did taiotoshi we focused more on throwing out and letting uke trip over that extended foot. It was hard for me to throw out instead of down.

I asked them about pinning while I was there. The fact of the matter is that I probably never changed how I pin people. It's just that I became aware of what I thought was a hole in the process. If you have a hole during a pin then you give uke an oppourtunity to get up. Always analyzing something.

Practice Feels Good

2010-06-07T09:42:00.003-05:00

Short class Friday night. Mr. Mulligan said he wanted to move us to a summer schedule where the 1st class ends a little early and the 2nd class would be cut short as well. I'm guessing it's a permanent change however.

Seems as though we have a New England Aikikai transplant. I've seen him around before at other dojos. He lives in the area and wants to go to a closer dojo so he's joining Shodokan. I spoke to him after class. He wants to work on his shodan test. We were doing lots of that practice on the second Friday night class. I'm guessing with him around that this will continue.

Friday night was a lot of wrist grab attacks. We did some sankyo, nikkyo and so forth.

Sunday morning was fun. Peter had us doing a nice range of techniques. There was one that I used to have trouble with and now it's no problem for some reason. That's how it is sometimes. I will have trouble with a technique and then some time passes and all of a sudden I can do it at speed with no problems. The new guy is super tall. At one point I had him as a partner for koshinage. he would get down to a point, then lower himself for a moment just to load me and then come back up some before he did the throw.

There has been one thing nagging me the past couple months. The transition for my vertical pin needs work. The moment where you move the arm from one hand to the other is sloppy. I'll have to watch this carefully next chance I get.

Sunday, Monday.... Didgeridoo

2010-05-25T13:02:00.007-05:00

Sunday Morning at Shodokan
Sunday was a great class. Peter taught as usual. We did a lot of knife disarming techniques. The more interesting ones where uke has the knife up at your throat. The important part was to get the knife away without slicing your own throat. So you move away from the knife as you are pushing the knife away. You do this all in an instant. Now, once you have the knife away you can play around with whatever you like. Since I had Tony as a partner it wasn't long before he found a way to do some koshinage. We tried a few different types. Of course I tried doing a taiotoshi. It wasn't as solid as I would have liked. The throw was good but I didn't like it with the knife. I think you are better off doing a control more than a throw. It's a lot more predictable.

Monday at Shodokan
Mr. Mulligan taught the first class. He had us working on blending a bit. The attack was a push or grab at the shoulder. We move back off the line as the attack comes in. Timing the attack and response was important.

We started simple with an ikkyo ura response. From the same attack we also did shihonage and others. The class was told at one point to see what you can get. My partner and I played around with it a bit and got nikkyo, sankyo, udekiminage, udegarami, wakagatami, kaitenage, shihonage and so forth. Then later on I tried an ukigosh and got fantastic results. My uke just looked up at me and said.... "what was that?". I gave him a two second lesson and he started doing it to me. I did many excellent ones in a row and the one time sensei came over to watch is the one I screwed up. Isn't that always the way. Well.... that just goes to show I don't have it down 100% yet. Still, they were way better than they used to be the last time I tried it.

At some point Mr. Mulligan had us working on a couple different versions of tenchinage. I've seen so many versions of this I'm at a loss as to which to focus on when I have free time. During class time I just do what they are teaching of course.

I had a thought go through my head too. On Friday night I was helping the new folks sort out their nikkyo. It appeared from their expressions that they were both getting it. However, I'd really like to feel what they've got to see if they are really doing as well as think they are. Of course many days have gone by and they may not have internalized it enough to repeat it but I regret not jumping in. I think I'd know a lot more of where they were on it if I got to feel the technique.

Monday 2nd Class at North Shore Aikikai
Mike concluded his koshinage run. What he wanted to do is have us drill koshinage and receiving koshinage as uke. He did this for a few classes. To give us something different to do we've been working on what to do if uke holds on and everyone goes to the ground. We learned a couple of hold downs. including a scarf hold and a nice escape so you can get up safely.

The scarf hold was amazing. When properly applied it felt like a ton of weight was placed on your chest. Mike covered ways of controlling uke as he attempts to move including what to do if he pops.

The first time someone tried the scarf hold on me it was funny. Instead of a scrape across the face to turn the head it was more like an elbow to my face. It was a strong enough hit that it was jarring and I noticed it but really, it didn't hurt.

I can say this. My koshinage got better overall. Even my ukigosh got better which at times confounded me. I found the rolling about on the mat enjoyable. I have no problem getting squished and pinned in uncomfortable positions. It was also a fun challenge to do the same to others.

Weird thing of the night?? One of the newer folks couldn't make it to class but swung by to pick up his girlfriend. Did he come up to pick her up? Nah.... he serenaded us from the parking lot with a didgeridoo. During class I recognized the sound but I was like..... wtf is that sound doing coming from a parking lot outside the dojo in Beverly.

In case you haven't seen one....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NWg2kku0WA

Summer Is Here

2010-05-21T21:52:00.002-05:00

I got to the dojo tonight. I hang about..... and no other regular students show up for first class. So it's just me and the two people currently moving through our beginners program. This is unusual for a Friday night. I figure it's just too nice out or something. People make plans.

So for the first class I helped with the beginners here and there. I warmed them up and started some forward rolls. Mr. Mulligan worked with them to try and get their rolls to be a little better. After a while he moved them on to nikkyo. Then Mr. Mulligan asked me to work with them some and see if I can get their nikkyo going.

One of the hardest things for nikkyo when you are just starting out is getting the angles just right. So for now I kept it simple for them. I tried to get them to get the familiar Z in the arm but I also tried to get them to keep that arm parallel to the floor. When the whole mess is parallel no adjustments have to be made. The nikkyo is easier to get. At least, this is what I have them doing as beginners. When they have a feel for it them they can adjust the angles as need be. They were nailing it each other pretty good. Each one was feeling pain and needed to tap. Cool. I gave some instruction on how to take ukemi to relieve the pressure and reminded them to tap when necessary.

Second class was better attended. We did irimi entry where we move in with arms raised and unbendable. We went through ikkyo, nikkyo, and so forth.... did wakagatami, shihonage and kotagaeshi. The wakagatami was interesting. I had Alan as a partner. He was taking multiple steps. I moved like crazy when taking ukemi to make sure I didn't get a lot of pressure.

We did other stuff and ended with a kokyunage.

Rolling Around On The Mat Is Fun

2010-05-18T13:52:00.003-05:00

So we do our stretching and a short version of ukemi. We then start in on last weeks thought. Basically we did ogoshi. We paid particular attention to different aspects. Off-balancing uke, sliding in and down in one motion. Making sure we don't leave our hands behind and then completing the throw.

After some fine tuning we moved on with another thought. What if in the process of the throw uke were to grab at you and pull you down with them?

Mike had us learning a move where we sprawl and attempt to land flat and on top of uke. From there we pin uke's face to the mat by scraping the arm/elbow across it and pinning it down. You then rotate around and end up on top of uke's upper body with uke on his back. Your sort of in a N-S position I guess. You rotate to the point where you are squishing uke's head some. Your arms them go above uke's arm and on each side of his body so you can control him.

I had a blast doing this. Since I have exactly zero judo experience I'll try and mess around with anything. On one run my nage sprawled on top of me but I could feel his weight distributed to one side so I took advantage of it and rolled us over so I could be on top. My judo familiar nage instantly slapped some kind of odd hold on my head. Between my roll and his reaction I actually lost track of up and down for a moment. Still.... it was a blast.

On another run I had a larger, very inexperienced nage. He pulled me down but when he went to do the hold down part was being way nicer than he should have been. My head wasn't squished much at all. I heard Mike told me to try and move around a bit. My nage was able to control when I went left or right. At one point I was able to roll up and get my hip rotated over but all I think that would lead to is nage on my back if he knew what he was doing. Not exactly an improvement. Still.... I know nothing about judo and I wanted to experiment with seeing what was possible.

Seems to me that you need to have a certain body awareness for judo. Not just your own but sensing the balance in your partner as well.

Anyway.... this was all very fun. Between the two dojos I go to I see judo stuff maybe a few times a year. Anything resembling a grappling chess match is uber fun. Hopefully we do this again.

Sunday Morning Breakfall Practice

2010-05-17T11:48:00.003-05:00

A couple Sunday's ago one of the regulars who attends classes during the week started coming on Sunday mornings. It seems that at every opportunity he attempts to breakfall. It's obvious that it's something he really wants to work on.

So this week when Peter had us doing different techniques, this guy chose to attempt breakfalls for them all again. Usually I keep my mouth shut but I couldn't help myself and gave him some things to think about. At one point I stop the throw, adjust his body position a little bit and then finish. He did a pretty good break fall that time.

He's at a point that he's not afraid of the fall. He just doesn't know how to move his body correctly as yet.

Nage Didn't Need That Skin Anyway

2010-05-17T11:25:00.002-05:00

Friday night at Shodokan. We were doing a bunch of interesting techniques. At one point we fall into something like a Koshi Guruma. This is all fine except that my nage is relatively inexperienced. He goes to throw me and keeps my slap hand. As I was going over I had let go of my original safety grip thinking I was ok. Then when I realize I'm not going to be in the correct position or have my slap hand available I regrip. I went to grab gi. Got a handful around the bicep area. As I went down the gi slid down some.

What I didn't know was that I had some skin caught up in that gi. I slid down, no slap hand as that was captured still but was able to keep a proper orientation at least because of my grip. Later in the dressing room he showed me a nice scrape in that area. I apoloized. Then I thought about it and realized that the only reason it happened is because he held onto my slap hand. So then I didn't feel so bad.

The second time he threw me he kept my slap hand again but I was more ready for it. I told him to let go of the slap hand next time. So we tried again and the same result. After that the instructor managed to get him to stop that crap. Later uke's in line were at least safe.

Koshi Waza

2010-05-14T12:18:00.003-05:00

A few classes scooted by again since my last post.

The last class was Moneday. Mike taught. We really worked on our koshi waza. We did o gosh and uki gosh. I hadn't done uki gosh in a while but it came back pretty fast. My o gosh is coming along. My timing and placement are better. I still have a bad habit of looking back at uke. One of the things we focused on was completing the throw and continuing to turn. Once we did that I noticed a difference of where uke was landing. I had different partners for this. I found it much harder to throw a larger person.

I think overall my technique has improved though.

Friday/Sunday Practice

2010-05-06T15:42:00.004-05:00

Friday night I went to class. Bob had us working on tenchinage and tenchinage reversals. We moved on to something I haven't done in a while. Uke goes to grab, nage steps back drawing uke forward and as nage goes to one knee, moves his arms in a circular fashion attempting to draw uke out and down. Scooping the leg is optional. After a while of this Bob had us practice an exercise where ukes grab either arm, nage falls backward and ukes roll out. This particular exercise had me pretty nervous. Not everyone in the class that day can roll straight every time. So I adjusted my timing so I had a chance to react or at worst would roll away at an angle intentionally so that I could be safer. After this was done we went back to the original exercise. The thought was that we should have the same feeling to move uke.

Sunday morning was fun. One of the regular weekday guys showed up that doesn't normally do Sunday mornings. Peter kept us quite busy with various techniques. My favorite being the otoshi he did at towards the end of class. What a shock, eh?

Interesting Entry

2010-04-29T01:20:00.003-05:00

I've had probably 4 classes or so since I posted last. Lots of good stuff. Since John Rogers visit to Shodokan the teaching there have been several classes revolving around ideas he stressed.

Recently in a Sunday morning class there was the mention of awareness. Peter threw me and started talking about how uke shouldn't be just looking away or waiting for something to happen. Uke should have a connection with nage. Don't take your eyes off him just because you are waiting for him to roll you over for a pin for example. I'm usually pretty good at this.

Since I train with lots of different kinds of people I learned a long time ago to pay attention. At times you never know when someone will do something surprising. I remember one class when my nage all of a sudden did a totally different technique after doing it correctly for several minutes. He spaced out. Luckily I was paying attention to him and followed him with no problem. The surprising thing was that he was an experienced person. I expect that kind of thing from someone just starting out. The beginners can be more dangerous because you don't really know what they are going to do.

The last class I had was a Monday night at NSA. Matt taught. So often in aikido we are looking for way of off balancing uke. Matt had us doing some exercises making me think a little bit about that.

Actually something about this entry finally clicked. A lot of times when Matt teaches he somehow can suck you in before a throw. I could never easily replicate that. It was this class that helped it click. It's not done with strength and yet it feels strong. It's seems to me now that it is done by having nage in a certain position and then using his center.

The entry was something like....
Step with your back foot a little to the side and bring the front foot back. So essentially as the attack comes you are allowing it to continue in a certain direction while you get out of the way. We started off with some static wrist grabs for it. We played around with this entry for a while. One thing we did a little different was do some uchiotoshi. We go into a nikkyo and as uke comes up, lead uke up and out, then go to one knee. I'm used to pushing the hip with the other hand at times for this. I could do this technique all day long and still play with it. It's a fun one. The nikkyo was interesting. Matt had us take the hand in front of us and use our other hand from the bottom rather than the top for the nikkyo. I've seen that but it's been a long while since I've practiced it. There was one other difference in this technique. Sometimes we practice getting really close to uke and the turning in our body helps the off-balancing. In this class Matt had us doing it a little different. We were a little further away.

Rob... you'd be proud of me. I was looking to float uke for this.

Are You Breaking Up With Me?!

2010-04-13T13:23:00.003-05:00

We started with some ukemi. Mike even set up something for us to jump over as we did a forward roll.

We moved on to sumi-otoshi. From there we did that kotagaeshi. As uke comes in for a tsuki, you step back off the line, deflect the strike with the opposite hand, pickup the grip with the other hand, and continue in a circle, pivot and throw. I have trouble getting the proper grip at times when this is done at speed. Could use more practice that's for sure.

Mike had us working on our timing. Someone holds a bokken and does a shomen cut while someone else tries to enter and get to a good position.

We did a couple of sword disarms as well. We did one I had done recently. Another was a wakagatmi followed by a nikkyo. The nikkyo was a little hard to find for most of us.
So at one point the person was trying to do a nikkyo to me. I totally forgot and of course as some of you remember I can ignore certain nikkyo positions. For me there is no pain. So just as Mike was coming over to see what he was fiddling with I realized I wasn't reacting at all and said.... Oh... wait it's not you, it's me. To which he replied... "What?!! Are you breaking up with me". After I stopped laughing, I had to explain to him that I can ignore a straight arm nikkyo. Usually, when I feel enough pressure I just tap as most people would be feeling it. Sometimes I forget.

I swear I wasn't trying to break up with him.

ZZZzzzzzz What? Class?

2010-04-11T21:55:00.002-05:00

Wife had to wake me this morning for class. Usually I'm up helping the kids, this morning I was just sleeping. Still, she woke me early enough to get there on time.

Peter had us doing techniques from tsuki. We did sumi-otoshi, shihonage, kaitenage, a couple of different forms of nikkyo, sankyo. We even did a few koshinage. Very nice. I felt really good after class. Worked a bit on my ukemi. I was curious if I could intentionally fall like Matt does at NSA. He tends to do a breakfall but really, he almost rolls across the shoulder some and comes back up. I actually was able to do this on purpose.

Kaeshi Waza

2010-04-11T21:47:00.002-05:00

Ok.... more than two hours has passed so I can't quite remember exactly what was done in class. First class Bob taught. No clue what we did at this point.
Helped out with the dojo computer and then went to the in-progress second class. I had some doubts about joining in. I was pretty wiped. So when I jumped in they were doing kaeshi-waza. Ikkyo reversal. Then we did a sankyo reversal. I think there were some kokyunage and so forth. At the end of class Mr. Mulligan gave us a little time to do a little freestyle with our partner. Dave and I were mixing it up a bit. My tai-otoshi needs practice still I think. I'm not getting the distribution of my weight correct.

Test Time At North Shore Aikikai

2010-04-06T09:47:00.003-05:00

We held a short class before the tests. We did an abbreviated warmup. Then Mike had us all line up on the mat and all do our ukemi in a straight line right next to each other. I had experienced people on both sides of me so I didn't have to worry too much about one of them rolling off line and coming into me.

Started class with a tsuki sumi-otoshi. We also did some kotagaeshi. The version where it feels more like an ude-garame. Uke strikes, nage steps deflects incoming strike with opposite hand. Get a kotagaeshi grip with the other hand, turn your hips and throw. My biggest problem with this is I was throwing people down instead of out. I can feel the difference myself. I think I know how to fix it at this point but I would need more practice at it to get it right. Rob was doing the technique and not just throwing me out... but then floating me as well. I could see exactly what he was doing. Again, I think I just need a few more repetitions to get closer to what I want.

Oh... one thing during this class that was cool. At one point in practice when I went to do my attack, nage didn't have me but went to put his fist up into my face to make me back off. Without even thinking about it, I deflected the incoming first with my other hand. This is probably from all the jodan tsuki practice we've been doing in Mr. Mulligan's class at Shodokan. Very cool. No thought to that. I just reacted. So there is a chance that if someone threw a punch at my face I might do something other than stand there and take it. It was nice too... I didn't push the fist over too hard but with enough force to miss my face. I think part of the reason I actually reacted to it was that I wasn't expecting it at all. If I saw it coming slowly I may not have reacted as I know he wouldn't really hurt me.

We wrapped up and set up for a test. I took another quick look at the test list. Didn't see anything squirrely so I was happy.

I got to uke for the 2nd kyu test. The tests went well. One of the guys who took his 5th kyu test looked really good. There were a lot of little things he was getting right that you don't often see in a fifth kyu test. Pretty cool.

My nage did great for her test. We kept it at a reasonable pace. I was wondering if I was going to have a problem keeping up but it was no problem. I tried to focus on my breathing and took momentary rests where I could. I was pretty psyched that we blended so well for the test. We hadn't practiced together in weeks. The test went by fast actually. By the end of the test I was in a groove.

I guess for a couple of throws she was really tossing me. There is a chance that someone got it on video. I'm hoping to see it. I'm curious to watch the test. Sometimes when I'm uke I focus more on my ukemi(attacking, being there, staying with her as best I can). I don't get to pay attention to too much else.

I keep meaning to bring a video camara in to a class but I never quite get it there. I'm wondering if I'll see stuff that needs fixing that I had no idea I was doing as nage or uke.

We then watched the other testers do some ukemi.

After this we did the randori portion for the 2nd kyu test. I frequently had a body thrown at me so that I had to hop back. When I did attack I didn't always telegraph it. I waited at times until I was right next to nage and then attacked. It's a little tougher when people do this to you but I knew she could handle it fine. I think all the practice they were doing for freestyles was really helping. I know it helped me improve.

Anyway.... congratulations to all the people testing last night. It was great fun.

Yay.... Chokes

2010-04-05T08:59:00.003-05:00

We don't do these very often but we got to do some chokes Friday night. Call me strange, I enjoy these classes. For the most part we are shooting for blood chokes, not wind chokes.

Also, we were doing a simple kokyunage. The same kind of windmilling crap you see when people do their randori parts of their test. After doing a quick line or two of this, sensei had us throwing someone and moving around a bit. For me, this was relatively easy to do because of the randori that NSA was having us do a month or so back. One thing I may want to change though. For some of my techniques, especially if there is a pivot of the hips, I frequently drive off of what becomes my back foot. I'm wondering if I want to try and drive less. If I do less, I'm wondering if I'll be faster because my stance will be different. The question is, will uke still move because they are off balance enough or not? What habit do I want to try and cultivate?

More Tsuki

2010-03-28T21:42:00.004-05:00

We did nikkyo, shihonage, kotagaeshi. Later on Peter showed us a series of possible responses including a few different versions of koshinage. He says at the end of class to pick something and go with it. So I do a few. Then I decide to do one of the koshinage and ended up doing one I knew but was not one of the ones shown. Get uke in a nikkyo and as he comes up enter and throw. Then I managed one he showed us which was to do a sankyo, send uke around and do the koshinage.

2010-03-28T21:42:00.001-05:00

Hey... Check Out This Cool Blog!

2010-03-27T21:48:00.003-05:00

aikitube.blogspot.com

Some of the video has unfortunately been removed. Some of it is there though. Still worth a look.

Feeling Good

2010-03-27T21:12:00.002-05:00

Took two classes Friday night at Shodokan. Bob taught first class. Pretty much stuck with Ariel for my partner for most of the class. He's kind of tall so it's easy to get lazy and not bend your knees when you work with him. We did fine. Class started off with a hand grab nikkyo. Went to a shihonage then fell into a combination. Uke would yokomen one side, as nage steps back, uke strikes a yokomen with the other hand. Then we did a technique. After that we added a third attack in the sequence. Uke had to do a front kick. This meant nage had to enter and grab the leg. The ukemi for this is horrible. This is how I sprained my ankle (badly) last year. So, this wasn't particularly fun for me. Hey, not everything is going to be fun.

Occasionally Bob shows us something using a bokken. Sometimes to show how important it is to move offline. Even after all this time I still hesitate if I have a nice oak bokken in my hand. I'd feel bad clocking him. I like using a shinai for those demos. If I hit him with that, it will only suck. It won't likely require a trip to the hospital. So, I hesitate. Still, I really should trust him to get the hell out of the way. There is improvement however. I'm not afraid to hit him with my hand like I used to be. Getting hit with a hand doesn't do much damage usually. Hey... I don't like hurting people.... unless it's a nikkyo or something, then I enjoy it.

Mulligan taught the advanced class as usual. I stuck around for a second class this night. He had us doing soft kokyunage for the most part. Some of the kokyunage I just stare at and wonder what the heck. This set of kokyunage I probably got 80% - 90% of it generally right. Did lots better for these this particular night. Most of the kokyunage were in response to a punch to the face (jodan tsuki). He also asked us to give a realistic attack. Since I had Dave as a partner I wasn't too worried about hitting him. I knew he'd move out of the way. I was giving him a pretty fast attack.

At the end of class Mr. Mulligan told us to go at it freestyle with the same punch to the face attack. We both did pretty well at the end there. The only thing we seemed screw up was that we both needed yonkyo practice. Neither one of us was applying it well. On the drive home I'm pretty sure I figured out my problem. I know what Dave's was too as I know where he was applying pressure on me. I could feel where he was missing the nerve. The rest of the freestyle was very good though for both of us. I felt as though I was applying techniques fairly well with a minimum of effort. I did some kokyunage. Some from the class and others that we had done in the past (such as enter and pull/drag the shoulders back as you move behind uke). Another technique where you fade back and then with your hands, allow the punch to slide past. Then you bend the wrist and the elbow as you bring uke's arm in for something like a shihonage movement. I did not add the pressure point pinch for this. I got a couple different iriminage in. One was a direct entry. Tap the incoming arm so it is deflected just a little and then enter and iriminage. The other I did was more of a standard version. With all the iriminage practice we've had lately I was able to really get Dave's balance as he came down. When he came up I fisnished by aiming through him. That is an example of a technique that I did that didn't feel like much to me but seem to have a big affect on my uke. We did otoshi, koshinage, sankyo, udekimenage, kotagaeshi. We both even did a couple of chokes. One of my favorites I usually end up doing to Budy for some reason but seeing as he isn't around I slapped it on Dave. I enter quickly, put my arm around uke's neck and using the edge of my hand I apply pressure to the jawline pulling uke's head to one side. I use my other hand to grab his arm to aid in taking his balance. The only problem is that you HAVE TO take uke's balance. If you don't and you have an arm wrapped around him like that your likely going for a ride. I'm pretty good at this choke and most people tap pretty fast once I get it.

Next up I got all flowy for the heck of it and did some uchi kaitenage, and another where I pulled uke around for a sumi-otoshi... or did a tenkan, pull him around, j-step then enter uchi(under the arm) for a sankyo or kaitenage or something. My aikido felt really good for this session.

Class at Shodokan

2010-03-23T15:39:00.004-05:00

Only had time for one class last night. Bob taught at Shodokan. We did a bit of ushiro attacks. Responding with kotagaeshi, shihonage, jujinage. One thing I didn't get quite right was I was going for the other hand for the kotagaeshi. Bob had showed it grabbing the other hand. Apparently you can do both. I'm sure if you dissected it there may be some martial reason why one is better than the other. Could be that it doesn't really matter as long as the flow is there. I was able to do it either way.

I was able to get the grips really well on the jujinage after some practice. Bob had some kind of movement involving his hip to draw uke across him. I wasn't able to replicate this easily.

Bummer for me. I likely won't get to class next monday. Worse still.... there is literally a once in a lifetime opportunity to attend an amazing seminar at New England Aikikai this weekend. I will likely miss it. Unreal.

Had a Week Off

2010-03-22T12:41:00.002-05:00

Had to take a week or so away from aikido. I went to a class on Friday and caught Sunday's class. Friday, Bob had us doing shihonage among other things. I really tried changing things a little bit to see how different approaches would affect things. I didn't feel up to taking the second class but I did decide to stay and watch.

I almost fell asleep in my chair watching a couple of times. I've been run ragged last week and it was showing. Most of the stuff I'm pretty sure I would have done without too much issue. There were one or two things being done that would have been very challenging for me. The best part was watching Tony beat the tar out of someone else for a change (in this case Dave). At the end of class was a freestyle chunk of time and that usually means hip throws, seoinage and so forth for Tony.

Sunday we did lots of techniques from a 2 handed grab. Nikkyo, kotagaeshi, shihonage, udekiminage. The kotagaeshi I found odd. Keep in mind we are doing the techniques to either grabbing hand. So I couldn't remember exactly how Peter got to a kotagaeshi position for both hands. I ended up making up all kinds of ways. All of them made sense. Some were more direct, some were less direct but more sticky as I had to get my hand around to the right spot. Peter let me flounder around for a while. I think sometimes he's just interested in seeing what I'll come up with. I hit one that apparently is a common way and he mentioned it. I did that one a few times before moving on to the next attempt at a version. I never did figure out which version he was doing. I swear I thought I was paying attention. Really!!

I guess I've been spending a lot of time lately changing little things to see what works best.

More Sword Disarms

2010-03-05T23:37:00.002-05:00

I was only able to make it to the later class tonight. We went through the 5 sword disarms we covered in the past couple of weeks. We added 3 more. I was remembering most of the details from the previous ones. Somtimes it took several tries before I remembered some little detail.

As for the new ones. One was just to come in and do a kotagaeshi. The second involved raising the hilt while using the other hand to support the back of the blade as you cut up through uke. The third technique that I remember was a sankyo. You had to raise the hilt up as you slid your other hand under uke's wrists. Bring everything up towards you and reach up for the sankyo grip. Have to remember to stand in front of uke for this.

After this we did some tenchinage a couple of different ways. We also worked on affecting uke's posture with small hand movements getting uke to actually fall. One of the simpler ones was to draw uke in just a bit and lay the back of your hand onto uke's wrist, (out to the side). Use very little strength and uke will still fall.

Another Freestyle Practice

2010-03-03T14:16:00.003-05:00

Bob taught the first class at Shodokan. I seem to remember doing lots of iriminage. At one point we did the suwari waza version. I had one side that was slightly better but this improved overall for some reason. I found that doing a tenkan for this technique easier than it used to be. At the end of class we were doing moretetori kokyuho. My partner at that point asked me to give him lots of resistance. He tends to give lots himself when he is uke so he is fun to practice with. I went real slow at one point to let him feel what I was doing as he said he wanted to 'watch'.

Headed over to North Shore Aikikai afterwards.
Mike had us do another round of freestyle practice. This time instead of tsuki, he had us attacking with yokomenuchi. The responses were any direction for shihonage and udekimenage. One thing I realized right away was that for me, ura versions of either of these techniques feel very similar. Yet the ukemi is in a totally different direction. That makes it particularly hard on uke when you are going at any speed. I was super concerned about my elbows for this one.

I found it much more difficult to aim my uke's with shihonage than with anything we've done so far. I did ok for my turn. People were pressing me less which was probably necessary for this one.

It just goes to show that depending on the responses is how dynamic the freestyle can be. Last week was more dynamic. I think if we did kotagaeashi it could have opened up the freestyle some(as most of us would breakfall for it).

Ok... This is Different

2010-03-03T13:24:00.005-05:00

Pretty colors......
The Trail one is kind of cool.

http://www.youtube.com/user/adaptiveperception

While I'm at it..... check out this video. I've never seen anyone bend their knees quite this much.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoRAb6oE7cw

Take a Ride on the Koshi-Machine...

2010-02-27T21:26:00.003-05:00

Do NOT pass go! Do not collect $200.

Friday night I went to two classes at Shodokan. The first class was very aerobic. We started slow with some back stretches and then moved on.

Bob had us doing iriminage. My partner for a good lot of it was an experienced person but at times doesn't necessarily follow what is being taught. Some times this is a good thing for exploration. Other times I just want to do what is taught. This night I was happy to experiment a little bit. One thing I noticed right away was noodling around with how to take uke around. Uke attacks with moretetori. The technique called for nage to tenkan and bring uke around, and then does the iriminage. After bringing uke around you can do two things. You can bring uke around where your hand goes low, or you can bring uke around with your hand about mid level. The effect is totally different. In the low version, uke still has a grip on your arm and the way I was doing it I had trouble with uke now having two hands on me leaning over my arm with his weight in a powerful way. I'm wondering if there is a way to do this where uke won't have that moment of control over me. For a while I practiced it by bringing my hand mid level as if you were doing the same attack as a nikkyo. You break ukes grip somewhat and you end up on top of uke's arm still. This seem to work better for me.

So what version are you doing? Are you coming around low, or coming around higher and going 'above' the grip to break it some. If you are going low... have you ever noticed a point at which uke has a moment of control? How do you get around the problem?

Is it one of those things where you want uke to feel as though he HAS to hold on? Still.... I feel as though I have a hole there when I go low.

Bob had us do udeminage in a line. Some people had some nice improvement when the tried it again. The last time through the line we were throwing, turning around, and throwing again right away to keep a nice pace going.

The second class Mr. Mulligan started us off with some 'easy' kokyunage. These are always interesting. Some are ridiculously hard to do correctly. Some are easier. We did this for a while and then Mr. Mulligan called for a koshinage. Normally this isn't a problem from me but the particular partner I had at the moment was Tony. He's the guy I also see a lot of on Sundays. Years and years of judo have made his hip throws effortless for him. His timing is just amazing. So he tossed me around. When he does a hip-throw and he knows you can take it, he will go for it. I was being whipped to the mat repeatedly. The nice thing is I can abuse him and he has no problem with it. By the end of the koshinage session I was pretty spent at that point. Then a change to technique was called for. Some form of tai otoshi. Normally I like otoshi but this was a tougher one to get right. Then.... another change and we do somthing I remember he called aiki-otoshi. Basically you pin uke's hip to you with one hand and use the other hand to scoop the closest leg. Turn and toss. How I used to do ukemi for this was to slide down uke's back. I spent some time during this session working on a different ukemi. More of an ushiro otoshi ukemi feel (Donovan Waite style). The few tries I had at it felt really comfortable. It's a really active ukemi but it felt better. 'Scraping' down someones back slows things enough to be fine but does not guarantee that you will not land on the flat of your back. This is where the other ukemi seems better. My biggest concern is that I don't blow out my shoulder by doing this wrong.

We skipped tachitori. Sort of ran out of time. I actually remembered more details I think and I certainly remembered the 5 techniques we've covered most recently.

Curious George Strikes!

2010-02-24T14:51:00.004-05:00

Headed off to Shodokan. The focus for this class was to increase our aerobic benefit. We set up into groups. One person in the middle taking ukemi from the people surrounding him. The intent is to finish your ukemi and immediately attack the next person. You keep a pace that you could practice a full class for. Rob and Shira at the other dojo used to do this with me quite a bit. Now that the concept was introduced to all of the students at Shodokan, I'm going to see if I can get some people to practice in this manner. I could sure use the workout. This was absolutely fun practice. The other thing we worked on was moving from technique to technique. Get uke in an ikkyo, change it to a nikkyo, to a sankyo, to an iriminage....etc. Really helps the fluidity of things.

After that ended I headed off to North Shore Aikikai. Mike was teaching. This was an interesting class because just recently Shodokan had some randori practice that was good but I was fairly shaky at. Mike decided after showing us a few techniques to do a session or 3 of randori practice. The three techniques he gave us to use were an ura version of sumi-otoshi(something we do a lot of), an ura version of tai otoshi, and something I guess I would call an uchi kaitenage with a magic hand rotation. The first two I was familiar with. The uchi version of kaitenage I haven't practiced much. In order to get your hand in the right spot without letting go you really need to be sticky and rotate the hand around. For those that aren't familiar between uchi and ura versions.... with ura you take a normal kaitenage, step behind uke some and rotate them around as you tenkan before throwing. With uchi.... you go under uke's arm, bring it down and then up to a normal kaitenage.

Anyway.... The attack was tsuki and Mike first had us do 2 ukes. After a turn he quickly moved it to 3 ukes. For my first turn, I was doing a fair job of rolling my uke into the next attacker. In fact, Mike thought I did good but could have done better if my uke's would press me more. There were some points where I would look up to judge intent and I was seeing them both be a bit standoffish while I was throwing. My plan of course was to throw my uke into the closest attacker. Since there wasn't an obvious uke with intent there was a momentary stop of motion as I kept an eye on both of them and neither moved. After a brief moment, I just picked one and threw and moved to deal with the other. I've had this problem before on other days.

So ok... turn two for me comes up with 3 ukes. They start to press me more. I did fairly well at moving off and making sure I dump one uke into another. My aikido however was starting to fall apart a bit. I was failing to tenkan much for the suggested techniques and the magic hand change which I could do during practice for the kaitenage was eluding me half the time.

I was pretty happy overall with my experience though. There were some good moments where I dumped ukes right into oncoming attackers forcing them to actually backpedal. I really felt like I was controlling them to some extent. My uke's were pressuring me just enough to make this very challenging but not so much that I couldn't get a learning experience out of it.

For right or wrong, I don't really plan much what I'm going to do with uke. Sometimes I'll have something in mind but just as often I just do one of the techniques showed to us and if uke isn't in the right space I adjust for it if I can. For example... I'd do the uchi kaitenage, find out that I'm pointing the wrong way, so I just simply step behind uke and do the ura version to toss him where I need him. I'm curious if this is the way it's always going to be for me or whether I will have stuff muscle memorized to the point where I know which way uke will be sent before I 'pick' a technique. Right now, I'm kind of organic as I'm adjusting as I go along.

Mike talked a lot about planning where to move, about gaining space. I could really see it when it was Diana's turn. On one of the occassions, the attacks where in a bit of a tight circle, and then she settled in and got us seperated(I was uke too) and was able to expand the circle, use more of the mat and slow down the pace of her randori. It was very cool to watch.

The only other thing of note during a randori session was when nage did what looked to me to be some kind of kokyunage and way undercut uke. Uke was flying. Unfortunately, in the process of doing this he turned his back to me and went to one knee as I was headed his way. So I ended the randori..... by jumping on his back like a rabid monkey. Actually, what I thought of at the time was that I could get a good choke in from that position. I chose not act on that though as I didn't really want to

A. Choke someone just trying to practice a freestyle and....
B. Didn't want to deal with the possible response which might just get me hurt.

So I settled for just knocking us both over to the ground.

After these two classes, I was actually physically tired even the next day.
What a great night.

Friday Night / Sunday Morning

2010-02-24T14:44:00.004-05:00

Friday night was a bit of a test. We did the sword disarms we did the previous week. He asked us to do them without showing us anything. I actually remembered all three disarms but not necessarily some of the subtle points. Mr. Mulligan suggested we take some time to practice these midweek to try and help us remember them. Then... he added two more. What did he add? The first one was actually the same as the first one but from uke's right side. The problem with it is, instead of being able to just stick your hand on the hilt and go from there you have to sort of snake it in between uke's arms. The second one was to move in to uke's left, reach under and grab uke's right arm as high as you can, grab the sword with the left and then throw. Reminds me a bit of seoi nage.

We had someone show up who typically doesn't show for Sundays. We did a normal good class of course. The one bit that was eventful at least in my mind was that Peter called for a koshinage. My partner's ukemi has always been so so. I've asked him in the past if he wants help with it as I think I can relate to exactly whats going on. He's refused for some reason.

I did some lifts with him. Peter immediately came over to help with his ukemi a bit. I'm pretty careful nowadays. I've had too many people not hook, or otherwise grab me to protect themselves. So I spent some turns doing lifts. I tried to get him to firm his center up a bit so he doesn't drape over me. At the end he said ok... throw me. So I moved in, things felt great, so I threw him. He did a terrific fall. I asked him after how he felt and he said it was 'like nothing'.

Cool.

Mr. Mulligan Makes Local News

2010-02-18T14:22:00.004-05:00

There was a post of this up on aikiweb.com but the link aged. Here is a working link to the story.

http://www.wickedlocal.com/beverly/sports/adult_leagues/x1468646730/Beverly-master-Bernie-Mulligan-reaches-highest-rank-in-Aikido

I had no idea the local papers visited. Must have happened on a Wednesday most likely. There have been a few articles written about Mr. Mulligan or the dojo over the years. This one was quite extensive.

Nice Class Sunday Morning

2010-02-16T23:05:00.003-05:00

Nothing in particular stuck out this class except for one thing. I was distracted a bit. Usually I can go with the flow for the ukemi. There was one that I had no idea where we were headed for. By the time I decided to pay attention it was kind of late. So I have some idea what an aikido technique moving at a reasonable pace will do to an unsuspecting person. I myself took a last minute ukemi to avoid any damage. It wasn't pretty but it worked fine.
So Peter had us doing a bunch of techniques from shomenuchi. Fun class.

After class Peter asked me about the kotemawashi from Friday night. Apparently lots of people thought it was cool enough to talk about. I showed him what I could remember from it.

Whoa.... I Remembered Something

2010-02-13T22:04:00.002-05:00

Awesome night for this kind of stuff. For whatever reason my left knee is a bit sore. Feels great after I warm up a bit and mostly during practice. I definitely think it's getting better. I'm guessing that within a week it should be back to normal.

Tahitori night for sure. I went to two classes at Shodokan last night. Bob taught for the first class. We started just by practicing our irimi. We did a few knife disarms and then some sword disarms for the class. The tougher sword disarm was one that involved using a sankyo. The other ones I had done before and was ok with them. Oddly enough the tanto disarm using sankyo is easy. Fr the sword however, I always felt as though I had to work to get my hand in the correct position for the sankyo.

Second class was taught by Mr. Mulligan and a real fun one. He also did some sword disarms. We did three in his class. One was to enter on uke's left, tenkan and match uke's stance. Raise your arm as you come in to match his sword going up. As he comes down, put your hand down on the hilt/handle between uke's hands, rotate out a bit, get your elbow under uke's elbow, raise the sword in kind of an unbendable arm feel, and move forward to throw.

The second one was to enter on the same side but instead of doing a tenkan, you are more or less facing uke, grab the hilt with the left hand, simultaneously, raise the hilt up as you use your right hand on their face to push it up and back(move forward).

The third one was to enter weakly on uke's right. So you turn your back to him as you come in. Turn all the way around, put your right hand on the hilt, raise it up as you do a kokyunage thing with your elbow under his chin.

These are more or less the 3 we did in the second class. We also did a couple of other techniques so it wasn't all sword work. One was something I'd never even seen before. It was very cool. Sensei referred to it as kote mawashi. I have yet to find a youtube of it. It was nikkyo with a different twist(insert laugh track here).
You get a nikkyo so uke's arm is upside down. The hand is down. The pressure for the nikkyo is up. However, what you do with it is lead uke forward to continue his forward momentum. So he is led forward and then you pivot in place and throw by pushing uke out with this control. Very neat. This took some practice. One side I had a good lead, the other needs work.

The other technique I remember us doing is some kind of kokyunage. I've done it before but it's been a while. You end up whipping uke out while going down on one knee. After some tweaks I managed to get this going pretty well.

One thing about these classes is that for the most part I was constantly improving as I went on. Whether from suggestions from the sensei or from my own noticing things (myself or my partner) I was generally making good adjustments.

Towards the end of class, Mr. Mulligan had us do the three sword disarms. For some off reason I remembered them fine for the most part. Again I made an adjustment or two as I went but I had no problem remembering the basic technique. A far cry from other nights.

More Practice Needed

2010-02-09T13:44:00.003-05:00

If last night was any indication, I need gobs more practice for my freestyle. I'm getting a bit ahead of myself here though.

I started off at Shodokan. Bob had us start off with some tenkan practice and some back stretches. The rest of the night was one exercise building on another. At one point we were doing a tsuki attack and responding with either a tenkan/j-step/sumi-otoshi, or just the 5th kyu version of kotagaeshi. We had to really watch our spacing as there were quite a few students on the mat last night. These two exercises were fine. Then at another point we had been doing a tsuki iriminage(longer version with the tenkan).
Then we did a similar start ending with a sankyo.

Basically we did a whole bunch of stuff and some of it flowed from one to the other. All of these exercises/techniques felt really good. Most times I think I had some sense of what I was doing and things were working.

Bob then had us split into groups(of 4) and take turns attacking one person in the middle. I did so so on these. For some reason I kept going to a nikkyo. We really were supposed to be doing something that we practiced that night. Nikkyo was not included. Neither was koshinage which is what followed after I got the nikkyo on my uke. I wasn't sure what to do with him. I realized I did the 'wrong' technique but wanted to finish doing something so I looked at him and saw hip throw. I slid in and did a beautiful ogosh. I know the throw must have felt relatively gentle to my partner (as it was really smooth) but I am still not happy about doing the 'wrong' technique. This theme continues.....

Class was almost ending so Bob had us taking turns for freestyle practice. We each had to attempt to handle 4 ukes. Discussing just my own performance here...... Bleeechh. The only thing good that I felt I did is that I had a really good sense for where all my uke's were. I didn't always have great position(surrounded). Frequently I felt like I was stuck not doing aikido. At least twice I ended up with a nikkyo but instead of just following it up with something I became conscious of the fact that I was not doing one of the techniques we practiced that night.

I really feel like my freestyle went severely downhill. I did better on my last test in the spring (although that was only 2 people). At least there I purposely got off the standard set of techniques. I don't know if it's from lack of practice or I was just overwhelmed by too many ukes. The thing is.... if I merely screwed up my position I wouldn't be that unhappy. That has to be learned and I haven't done much of this kind of practice. What I am unhappy about is that I expected more aikido to come out.

I'm trying to keep a positive mind on this but it's difficult. It was a disheartening end of a fun class. I still wonder if I would do the same or better if I wasn't trying to limit my responses to what we did that evening. We frequently limit an attack or response so people can practice more safely. People know what ukemi to take and so forth. The thing is... I think I have it in me to do better at this stage but I may be wrong. I feel as though I should be able to purposefully do one of 4 or so techniques.

It makes me want to practice that more. I don't see this as an ending or anything. It's just where I am right now.

Despite my dismal finish I headed out for North Shore Aikikai.
We practiced tenkans. Afterwards we worked on doing a tenkan with a j-step concentrating on our foot positions, balance, and hand positions.

When that was done we tried to use this and apply it to a moretetori ikkyo and then maybe nikkyo. Matt also focused on teaching pins. I got to focus on something that's been bugging me for a while. I found that I needed to transition before I get down to a knee. The class was doing real well pinning. Even the least experienced person there was pinning me really well. Everything was really tight and he had control of me about 85% of the time. He did amazingly well for where he is at right now.

Later we moved to a jujinage from ushiro. This was actually a good thing to work on since it's on my next test. I did fair on it. There are some aspects that I need to work on still.

At the end of class he showed us a really fun throw. There was a bit of body movement and somehow as uke I felt like I was whipped/cast out.

Got a Few Minutes

2010-02-08T14:21:00.003-05:00

Don't discount the entertainment value of an aikido demo done at local colleges. Some of them are just great. Kudos for the ukemi on the hardwood stage.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4y06kilJTA

Ikkyo and Counters

2010-02-08T13:30:00.003-05:00

Friday night I went to Alan's class. Alan had us doing suwariwaza ikkyo for quite a while. It was good practice to be on our knees. I had a taller partner for that so as a result I had to move a little further for the pin. I had to take whole steps to get there.

After a while he stood us up for more ikkyo. We did something else as well but it's been a few whole days so I can't quite recall what that was.

A day or so ago I look at my wife and say..... I feel like someone has been punching my tricep. She said, "Aikido". I said... nah... we don't really punch there or anything... then I realized the ikkyo class. The partner I had was a strong guy with a strong pin. A few times he varied it a bit(experimenting I think) and was on the muscle. Didn't even notice it until much later. It showed up as a dull ache. My wife says I'm so used to being beat up I don't remember when any of it happens.

I couldn't attend the second class. I had to be home. Bummer. From what I understand I missed a cool class from Mulligan focused on blending and really subtle stuff. At least this is what I was told by a fellow student. I couldn't resist asking what I missed.

SUNDAY MORNING
We started off with a few exercises to do some back stretches.

Warmed up with a line of kaitenage and so forth.

After.... we did a ryotetori start. We did a kotageashi here. But... instead of the usual reverse kotagaeshi you might think to do here, Peter had us doing a different one. There was a hand change. So you had to bring the hand up as you'd expect, pluck the hand off with your other hand, take the original grabbed hand and grab the wrist and get a kotagaeshi grip then use your other hand, tenkan as normal. Ok.... sound good? Now try it the way Peter was showing it. DON'T just pluck the hand off to do the hand change. You have to do the hand change while staying sticky the whole time. Never lose contact and rotate the hand around to get your hand in the correct position.

Then we did a ryotetori shihonage. No surprise there. Did omote and ura.

Toward the end of class we practiced some reversals. One was a shomen attack, uke responds with an ikkyo and nage counters with a kotagaeshi. I had the darndest time with this one until I realized I was just moving with my feet in the wrong direction. Once I figured that out (after some help from Peter and my partner) I was able to do the technique correctly.

At one point Peter asked us to strike with more intent and try to do the ikkyo with more intent. Don't let the reversal just happen because we are trying to be 'nice' to our partners. This is a group of experienced folks so he was expecting us to ramp up a bit. It had repurcussions though. I actually managed a proper ikkyo on my partner. Nage wasn't able to reverse mine easily. I was thinking that some of the reason might be because I don't grab the arm right away. By the time I actually do grab your arm I have you off balance already.

Then Peter called for us to line up at end of class and I was shocked that it was over.

Polishing Things Up a Bit

2010-02-02T11:28:00.002-05:00

Often times I like to spend time in class just working on techniques I already supposedly know. This Monday class was one of those. Bob had us doing a simple exercise to start out. Uke grabs the wrist. Nage does a tenkan. My partner for some of this was funny. He kept telling me that he felt as though he could strike me before I got him off balance. I said... dude, this isn't a technique, it's only an exercise. Maybe I should've just started moving the second he grabbed on but I was concentrating on other things.

After doing this for a little while Bob added an extra element. Sort of an uchi kaiten? One was with a tenkan, j-step. The other was same attack, tenkan, step back. Bob had us focus on keeping uke's hand in a position where we are pulling him around against all four fingers. If you have your arm rotated the wrong way you can strip uke's grip unintentionally. Although I never had that problem I am not sure what I was doing before he mentioned this to the whole class. I think I was doing ok there. I certainly was after he mentioned it and I was mindful of it. Another thing I worked on was leading a little better. Bob made it clear when he worked in with us that I needed to focus on leading uke out a little bit before pulling him around. Leading him out will put him off balance. Although I have clear memory or being taught this I wasn't doing it that night. Odd thing is, that if we were doing tsuki kotagaeshi, I would have definitely remembered this. For some reason, I don't lead that way for every technique. We also finished with uke being a bit off balance as the grabbed hand is now off to the side.

From what I recall we did kaitenage in lines after this using the same opening. I was working on controling uke well. I think I was doing really well judging by my uke's responses however, I would like to be controlling the head a little earlier I think. Yet something else for me to noodle around with.

Later in the class we moved to sumi otoshi. One of the guys in my line was driving me nuts. He would tenkan around and pull me around but.... rather than keeping my arm at the same level or lower, he would raise my arm high. I think that he was trying to make the throw more effective by starting high and 'throwing' down. Of course, this isn't particularly effective and makes the ukemi a little funny. I kept my mouth shut the whole time and just took ukemi. He'll figure it out someday.

One thing I didn't keep my mouth shut on though was when the same guy took ukemi and was planting his opposite hand on the mat. Moves like that can break your wrist(especially when you are newer) so I took him aside and had a quick 10 second conversation with him to try to explain what he was doing wrong and why it was a bad idea. I told him I didn't want to be the one that broke his wrist because he wasn't rolling correctly. He did better after that.

Then we got to work on iriminage some. This is always a good thing to practice. I think I had my partner off balance most of the time. Usually this technique is a good workout but my partner wasn't really pushing me hard. He really didn't have my balance most of the time.

Koshinage Full Speed

2010-02-02T11:13:00.003-05:00

I'm a bit behind again on posting blogs. I had an awesome class on Sunday. Peter had us really going at it. He focused a bit on the weaker open entry. Instead of entering behind uke, this entry is in front of uke with your back to him at one point. We did all kinds of techniques from this.

Toward the end of class we had moved on to a simple yokomen attack. The technique that stuck out in my mind was the koshinage. Why is that you ask? Well, Tony was present in class. Tony was a judo guy long ago. He used to win competitions and such. He does hip throws like most people breathe.

I gave him a good committed attack and got a judo compeition style hip throw from him. He was really planting me. There were a couple in there that were really smooth. He got right under me and wham. I think Peter was enjoying the show. I really got to get a video camara in some day so I can see what it looks like. I'm also curious to see if I can spot problems with my technique.

The taiotoshi was in that class too. Now I got to noodle around with it a bit. At one point I was learning it where uke keeps moving. In that case you take a step as you throw. But.... on this day I was getting uke static. After the strike, uke was planted and not moving at all. So in this case I experimented with popping my foot out and doing the taiotoshi right there. I took it easy for the most part but I knew Tony's ukemi was up for it so on one occassion I did one closer to full speed and got a nice result.

I did have a scary moment during that taiotoshi exercise. My partner at the time didn't have my arm in a standard position and had an arm bar of sorts for the tai otoshi. I felt a good amount of pressure on my elbow. In reaction, I somehow managed to slide my arm in a little more to get a piece of his gi and breakfalled over to release the pressure. I don't expect an armbar as part of taiotoshi. It was an accident on nage's part. Still... it got me moving for sure.

Nikkyo Night

2010-01-19T13:53:00.002-05:00

I headed out to Shodokan for a class. Mr. Mulligan taught this one. For the most part he had us working on our nikkyo. I was psyched as I still want to work with this some. Out of habit I was doing the nikkyo with my hands up on his hand. But really... the nikkyo he was showing had one hand on uke's elbow. I really should have been practicing that one more also. Although I think doing it that way is easier to get than the way I was doing it so I'm pretty sure I'd have no trouble with it.

At one point we did sankyo. I was getting a good sankyo on my partner. I noodled around with some differences to see what each did. I even did some ura versions as that always needs work.

After this class I headed out to North Shore Aikikai for another class. We worked on 2nd kyu test requirements as one of their members is close to testing soon. It's good practice for me as well as I need to take this test at some point soon also. What I learned was that I really need to polish things up a bit. I'm all over the place for probably half of the techniques. One of the differences I noticed from people lately was how they did their shihonage. For some reason, early on, I was given the impression that you kept uke's hand in front/a bit higher than your face as if you were reading your watch. This has the result that as you tenkan, uke's arm get's extended and torqued around and returned to their shoulder (assuming that's what you want to do). The other way I've seen it done (at both dojos by some members) is to bring the shihonage arm up, nage goes under, turns and cuts uke's arm back down before uke can really react.

The first method is nice because the extension keeps uke off balance the whole time. However a drawback is that if you likely tried this on a real attacker you may get more fight from him as he reacts to you pulling that arm in an unatural direction. Now... the second method is good because the attacker won't feel much pressure until it's too late. However, there seems to be a moment where nage is on balance and may be able to react.

I know one good thing from the second version is that if you have someone who is really stiff (and I've seen this), you really can't shihonage them using the first variation. I can do both versions but which is it they want to see in a test? I'll have to ask.

Although I've seen this in the past I never really paid much attention to it until now. At this point I want to explore the differences some I think.

Oh.... one of the test techniques had us doing nikkyo in the second class for a while. So between the two classes from my perspective it seemed like nikkyo night.

Good Morning Sunday

2010-01-19T13:51:00.002-05:00

Peter had 4 of us Sunday morning. At this point I don't remember much of the actual class but I remember enjoying it lots. If I remember details I'll add it here later.

Basic Class Was Great

2010-01-18T16:13:00.002-05:00

Seems like I've been seeing a lot of Mr. Mulligan lately as other instructors were unavailable this week. Alan couldn't teach Friday night so Mr. Mulligan took the class over. Since the early class is really supposed to be a basic class he had us doing some basic techniques. This was awesome since I really wanted a chance to run through them again and tweak things if needed. Overall, things felt pretty good. I got to work with a few different partners. Don't get me wrong, it's fun to fling people about but sometimes I just want to make sure I have good posture, my partner off-balance and focus on basic correctness.

We did have a couple watching us for the class. Frequently when someone comes to watch, they lose interest after 30 minutes or so. These folks stayed for the entire class. They had some concerns because there were a bit older. They seemed hesitant and for some reason did not want to 'bother' sensei. I talked to them for a bit and suggested that they could go at a pace they would be comfortable at. That it wasn't expected that they go fast or fall hard or anything bad like that. So while I'm suggesting that they could start slow and how it's possible to become more flexible and everything, the younger aikidoka next to me starts talking about injuries on the mat. I'm thinking... oh man... shut up. You're freaking them out. I think everyone knows that getting injured is a possibility but you don't need to focus on it.

The husband still seemed interested in aikido but the wife started asking me where the taichi group was. I let them know that just recently we have suspended the taichi classes. After I said that they immediately told me that there was a taichi program at the Beverly Y. I didn't realize that they did taichi there actually. They went further and told me that there is also an aikido program there. They also seemed to know a bit of the lineage. At this point in the conversation I mostly just listened. I have a suspicion that they had visited there before coming to Shodokan. I was wondering if they were hoping to take classes concurrently or something so they could 'commute' to class together.

In cases like this I tend to be closed mouthed. I don't go extolling the virtues of one dojo over another. It would make me very uncomfortable and in my mind isn't appropriate.

There is excellent teaching at both which is why I'm happy to take classes at both.

I'm curious to find out where they end up. It wouldn't surprise me if they both did taichi somewhere.

Flood and Choke Techniques

2010-01-12T11:18:00.004-05:00

Last night we practiced a special flood technique. In case the 2nd floor of the dojo floods we can jump 15 feet in the air and grab the steel girders. You grab about different shoulders about shoulder width apart. You need to be able to hang there for extended periods of time so the water has time to recede.

We also worked on some chokes last night. I have no idea why but I really enjoy chokes. The one that sticks out the most started with a shomen strike. You turn uke as if doing a shihonage. Then reach across the front of his chest grabbing the gi collar with your opposite hand (with thumb inside the gi). You move around behind uke and grab the same shoulder with the other hand. Your arms end up in an X. The trick then is to use your hand position in a scissor like motion to increase the pressure. I did these fairly well. After we switched to a strike to the face.

During some of the night I was working with Joanna. She's fun to work with because every so often she'll start resisting a technique and I'll be forced to do something. Usually, I try to keep doing the technique in the best/softest way possible but there are times when it is so much easier to do something else that I just do something else. She knows this and expects this and I think half the time she resists, she's just curious what I'll do with it. At one point I couldn't do a particular technique so I ended up in a nikkyo, then got to another technique to get her on the ground, she quickly started to rise but since I still had my connection (her hand) I just went to a kotagaeshi with it and flipped her back over after that for a pin.

The reason that this is fun is because she may do this once in a class. She won't keep doing it constantly defeating the practice. Once or twice is fun. After that it would be somewhat annoying and at this level as I just want to practice my techqniques.

At the end of class Mr. Mulligan had us doing a kokyunage. It's king of like an iriminage like motion getting uke to move/fall because of the threat of a strike to the face. He asked us to kiai. The usually quiet dojo got louder then. At least for a few minutes.

I've been noticing lately that I'm not paying full attention to myself for basic techniques now and this is not a good thing. To bring an arm down for a yokomen attack, all my teachers would have me use one hand. For whatever reason I was using my second hand as well. This isn't something I learned from anyone. It's just something I started doing without thinking. It may not be a big thing but in my mind that should be second nature. At one point I believe it was. I am not too sure where or when I changed but I need to make sure my techniques are still there.

There's That Technique Again

2010-01-11T11:09:00.002-05:00

Peter had an excellent class Sunday morning. We did a variety of techniques from a shomen attack. Peter continues encouraging us to attack from whatever side to whatever hanmi. Your foot position shouldn't be a problem when dealing with an attack.
In fact, for many techniques, I don't even need to pay much attention to this. During one class someone attacked the same side twice even though I had a different hanmi. After we finished he commented that he wanted to attack me on my other side and it was then that I realized that I didn't really care what side he attacked on. My foot position had changed but his attack hadn't. This is good at least.

One of the last techniques was similar to the twisty hip throw that was done Friday night in Alan's class. I think Peter liked it enough that he wanted to try that one out more. Although he is an instructor he will often mix in with this group taking ukemi and allowing us to feel the technique from him. After this one we did a quick shomen one where nage pretty much just moves in for the hip throw as uke strikes. It's very fast and really needs a good committed attack to help it out.

Great class. Felt warm and fuzzy for the rest of the day.