Wednesday Night at the Dojo

Attendees: Sensei Tim, John, Keith, Chuck, and Stanley.

Ukemi (forward rolls): both sides without the crash pad. Spent a fair amount of time on this. John and Stanley breaking down my faults. Maybe next time I'll build it back up a bit. Realized my leftside problem is probably because of my right foot dominance, not left or right-handedness, I think.

The Walk: Went okay, I'm pretty close to having it committed to memory.

Kata Hara (actually, some Hindi word meaning bulls***) : Start off with the releases and work into katas of techniques 6, 7, 8 and 9. Too much for my little brain to handle, since I really had not worked on those techniques. Took a fall off of one of the techniques that I was not confident in and landed poorly.

Aftermath: Left shoulder's a little sore. I'm still a little sore from, I think, volleyball on Tuesday. I think that affected a bunch of stuff during the session.

tag : Aikido

Monday Night at the Dojo

Attendees: Sensei Randy and Keith. Chuck sat on the sidelines.

Ukemi: both sides without the crash pad. Little by little

The Walk: Went okay, even when I could see anyone else. Stumbling around on the last couple.

Releases: 1 through 8 with Keith. Hadn't refreshed my mind from the cheat sheet so I felt adrift at times.

We did some Ueshiba-style work for most of the time, mixed in with some knife work. Good stuff.

Aftermath: Nothing of note.

tag : Aikido

Aggiecon 37

Drove up to CS Friday morning with some stops to photograph wildflowers and to do some geocaching. Stopped by the Creamery to confirm that they stopped selling their fantastic shakes several years ago.

The Koldus parking garage was full, so I parked in the West Campus garage.

Got my packet and dropped in to a couple of panels. Art Show had some good stuff from Theresa Mather, but was pretty slim pickings otherwise. Nothing that I was interested in bidding on. Same for the Charity Auction: nothing worth bidding on.

Spent some time at the FACT table before an attempted dinner with the FACT crowd. We attempted to meet up at C & J's barbeque. Some folks went to C & J's in Bryan, some to the one in CS and some others to JC's in CS.

I spent Saturday at the FACT table, cahtting with Chuck, Willie and anyone who happened by. Dinner was at Los Nortenos, at my suggestion. Mostly well-received. Paul, Kimm's fiancee thought their sauce was a little too sweet on the tamales.

Left the con around 11:30 on Sunday to drive home. Stopped for some Peproni Rolls at Double Dave's and got on the road at around Noon. Made it home 1:40 later. Wow. That was a quick drive.

tag : Fandom

Wednesday Night at the Dojo

Attendees: Sensei Tim, John, Keith, and Stanley.

Ukemi (forward rolls): both sides without the crash pad. Progressing little by little.

The Walk: Went okay.

Releases: 1 through 8 with Tim. Spent quite a bit of time..

Bent knees: Had a half-hour discussion on posture and bent knees.

Aftermath: No real problems.

tag : Aikido

Monday Night at the Dojo

Attendees: Sensei Randy, Keith, and Stanley.

Ukemi (forward rolls): both sides without the crash pad. Same old, same old. Some small tweaks to the left side may help in the future.

The Walk: Went okay.

Releases: 1 through 8 with Sensei.

Shomen-ate: Worked with Sensei on this. Tried a couple, failed to get a throw.

Agemai-ate: Worked with Sensei on this. Tried a couple, failed to get a throw.

Hand randori: Weird.

Aftermath: No real problems. Did a better job stretching this time so there were no tweaks to any specific muscles.

tag : Aikido

Good Bread

I took a course entitled "Beautiful Breads" and the HEB Central Market in town. A 3 hour class that was mainly cnocerned with shaping dough into fancy shapes. We created a sheaf of wheat, a dove of peace, a braided loaf and an easter egg nest.

We did a little work creating the doughs, but they had most of them ready for us. It takes dough a while to be ready for use, so that's not surprising. The dough we worked with was the Armenian Egg Bread dough and we created the braided loaf out of it.

I kept the braided loaf at home for us to eat, but brought the rest in to work. Most of it is gone.

tag : Cooking

Maeotoshi

More video.







Maeotoshi. Demonstrated by Robert and Keith.




tag : Aikido

Shihonage

More video.







Shihonage. Demonstrated by Robert and Keith.




tag : Aikido

The first 10 techniques redux

More video.







The first ten of the 17 techniques of Aikido. Demonstrated by Robert and Keith with Robert as uke.




tag : Aikido

Wednesday Night at the Dojo

Attendees: Sensei Tim, John, Keith, Stanley, young Robert (brown belt) and Chuck.

Ukemi (forward rolls): both sides without the crash pad. Still having problems with the left side. sigh. I wonder if I'll ever mange these.

The Walk: Went okay.

Releases: 1 through 8 with John. Good detail work.

Shomen-ate: Worked with John on this. More repetitions = good. I don't remember any problems with this one. Maybe because John is so close to my height?

Agemai-ate: Worked with John on this.

Gyakugamea-ate: Worked with John on this. Back of hand to eyes. I was a little to forceful with one hand, so John showed me what it felt like. Ouch.

Gedan-ate: Worked with John on this. Attempted a few throws on both sides. It went ok. Far too many things to do at once.

Ushiro-ate: Worked with John on this. Got some good falls with this one. Footwork's interesting.

Aftermath: A little soreness in the neck, shoulder and a tweaked groin muscle. Ibuprofen is good. Maybe I didn't stretch as thoroughly as I should?

tag : Aikido

The Walk

Here's one part of the filming I did at the dojo:






The walk, presented by Keith and Robert



tag : Aikido

Jo falls

Another of the pieces of the video I shot for the dojo.






Some throws/falls with Sensei Tim, Sensei Randy and Keith.




tag : Aikido

The first 10 techniques

Another of the pieces of the video I shot for the dojo.







The first ten of the 17 techniques of Aikido. Demonstrated by Robert and Keith with Keith as uke.




tag : Aikido

The 8 Releases in Aikido

Here's one part of the filming I did at the dojo:





The 8 releases with Robert and Keith.

tag : Aikido

Monday Night at the Dojo

Attendees: Sensei Randy, Keith, young Robert (brown belt) and Chuck (black belt back on the mat for the first time in 5 years).

Ukemi (forward rolls): both sides without the crash pad. Still having problems with the left side. sigh.

The Walk: Went okay.

Releases: 1 through 8 with Sensei.

Shomen-ate: Worked with Sensei on this. More repetitions = good. Was uke for Chuck on this.

Agemai-ate: Worked with Chuck on this for quite some time. Made some improvement, I think.

Aftermath: A little soreness in the back. Ibuprofen is good. Working on editing the video.

tag : Aikido

Tax Man

Taxes are done, e-filed with TurboTax. Check is supposedly going to be on its way to us by the end of March. Really should save the refund, but I've been wanting a new TV for quite some time.

Will decide at some point, I suppose.

tag : House

Wednesday Night at the Dojo

Attendees: Sensei Tim, Keith and someone else I've forgotten.

Ukemi (forward rolls): both sides without the crash pad. Regressed a little on the left side.

The Walk: Went okay. Need to do it more often at home.

Releases: 1 through 8 with Sensei. More intense work, finding faults. Good stuff. The cheat sheets are helping a little.

Shomenate: Spent a lot of time on this. Unbendable arm is the most debilitating flaw I have on this one. It's not staying unbendable.

Gedan-ate: Spent some of the evening on this. Still haven't attempted many throws with this, I've just been shown.

Aftermath: No pain. No real repercussions. Planned on filming Friday night for use on the website.

tag : Aikido

Monday Night at the Dojo

Attendees: Sensei Randy, Keith and Stanley.

Forward rolls: Worked on left adn right without the crash pad. Yay!

The Walk: Went okay. Getting better. Need more at-home work.

Releases: 1 through 8 with Sensei.

Gyakugamea-ate: Sensei worked with me on this. Back of hand to eyes.

Ushiro-ate: Sensei worked with me on this. First time on this technique. I'm not completing it and that's why I did not get a fall from Sensei.

Ad hoc: Stanley was having trouble with Technique #14 - Mae-otoshi, so Sensei Ray came out and talked/demonstrated it for 30 minutes. Cool.

Repercussions: None, really. Felt really good about the session.

tag : Aikido

Spring fever

Saturday was a gorgeous day: bright skies, low humidity, sunshine and a cool northerly breeze. A perfect day for yard work.

Tasks:
Mowing the weeds
Planting more veggies
Planting the blueberry bushes I bought to replace the one I destroyed while mowing the weeds
Chainsaw a Mimosa tree and the resulting branches.

4 and 1/2 hours of solid physical labor result in a much better looking yard and some sunburn.

tag : Gardening

Wednesday Night at the Dojo

Attendees: Sensei Tim, and Stanley.

Ukemi (forward rolls): worked on the left side with the crash pad. Still need lots of work. Did a few on the right side. Tim wanted me to do one on the left without the crash pad and it went well. I'll do more without it next time.

The Walk: Went okay. Need to do it more often at home.

Releases: 1 through 8 with Stanley. An ok venture. The cheat sheets are helping a little.

Shomenate: Spent a lot of time on this. Unbendable arm is the most debilitating flaw I have on this one. It's not staying unbendable.

Aigamaeate: Spent the rest of the evening on this. My height was mucking up Stanley. My non-unbendable arm was mucking up my technique.

Aftermath: No pain. No real repercussions. Updated the website with pictures from the recent Judo competitions.

tag : Aikido