Aikidokas: Sensei Tim, Rob, and Robert.
Ukemi: Took no forward rolls, just the back falls.
The Walk: as usual.
Releases: Worked with Tim.
Techniques: Ran through 1-5 as tori, working with Robert.
I was very cautious, but did ok. Gedan-ate had me concerned as I have to bend quite a bit, at the knees.
Aftermath: Back was sore, but it's not hurting this morning. I just need to be careful with it. Probably no forward rolls on Saturday.
Defeated the second place team fairly handily. 21-10, 21-15, 15-13. I tweaked my back a bit on a couple of plays, but it turns out to have just been a good solid stretch. Still aches a bit, though.
The folks who run the league have our record wrong. They misrecorded our results as being 3 losses. I hope it gets corrected soon.
Friday: at the dojo taking pictures, since my back is still ailing.
Saturday: trip to Huntsville to deliver the scooter back to the in-laws. Stop off on the way back at a Steak and Ale for a judo tournament meeting.
Sunday: bread-making. 4 loaves of ciabatta. I'm still not happy with how they're turning out. Party at fellow aikidoka's place (his 4th annual house-warming party).
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End : 4
Third installment of the franchise and, I think, the weakest. Too many people, places and things. Calypso just disappears. One obvious background painting. Flagships fight instead of entire fleets. Almost 3 hours long (168 minutes). Mystical woo-woo, etc.
That said, it's still a good flick. I'd certainly be willing to go see it again and find the things I missed on the first viewing. It will probably be added to our DVD library when it comes out.
Aikidokas: Sensei Tim, Jeff, Gail, Oliver, Steve and Blake(?). The folks from Killeen came down for a training session. I'm pretty sure I messed up Jake's and Blake's names.
Ukemi: Not bad, until I tweaked the back muscle again on a forward roll.
The Walk: as usual.
Releases: Worked with Steve and Blake on the releases.
Techniques: helped Blake on Shomen-ate.
After the tweak of my back, I did as little as possible. I served as videographer for Jeff and Gail on some of their techniques so that they would have a reference for them back home. I need to transfer them to DVD and get them into the mail.
Aftermath: Back is not happy. Hot shower, heavy duty pain pills were in order. I did very little, except rest, the rest of the weekend. I plan on not getting back on the mat until at least the 28th, maybe the 30th. Have to see how the back feels. And no volleyball this week either.
Aikidokas: Sensei Tim.
Ukemi: No real issues. I limited myself to two big falls to see how my body was reacting after the migraine
The Walk: Per usual.
Releases: Worked with Tim. It's got to be Center/Foot/Hand. That order. In order for anything to work properly
Techniques:
Spent the evening exploring the last 5 techniques of Owaza Ju Pon. The ATAA seminar coming up at the end of June will, supposedly, have a number of Nidans in attendance. They will be working on these items so Tim wanted to get me exposed to them.
6. Shiho-nage - four corner (all directions) throw - a slightly different version from the Ju Nana Hon Kata
7. Ushiro-ate - behind (from the rear) strike - a slightly different version from the Ju Nana Hon Kata
8. Kote-gaeshi - wrist turn - - a slightly different version from the Ju Nana Hon Kata
9. Ushiro-kubi-gatame - hold from behind (the rear) - a completely new technique
10. Shizumi-otoshi - sinking body drop - a completely new technique
I did a few reps on 6, 7 and 9 and did ok. I'm not proficient on the current Kote-gaeshi to try a new approach yet. The Shizumi-otoshi can be uke'd out of in two ways, but by that point in the evening it was not appropriate to try.
Aftermath: At some point during the evening, it may have been during a backfall somehow, I wrenched a back muscle. Bad enough that it rated a 4 or 5 on my pain scale that goes to 10. It didn't really make it's presence felt until I was uke for Ushiro-kubi-gatame, where uke really bends over at the waist.
By the next morning, it was down to a 2 or 3.
I hope to be able to get on the mat on Saturday. I'll show up and stretch at least. Pain level and number of aikidokas will determine what I do at that point.
We had 4 players to their 5. I think the Ramrods are probably the best team in the league. We won: 15-21, 21-15, 15-10. We were very sloppy the first game and let them get out to a lead from which we could not recover.
I had a decent string of serves at one point and managed to get a few kills. Not a bad evening.
Fight Club: 4
It's not a firm 4 rating. I didn't like all of the blood and gore, but I'd watch it again just to have a better clue as to what's going on.
I thought the three main performances were good.
I did not see the twist coming at all.
Still recovering from a weekend migraine, I stayed away from the dojo. If you've got vertigo telling you you're falling while walking straight, it's probably not a good thing to try to maintain center and balance in a strenuous activity.
I hope to get back on the mat on Wednesday.
Casino Royale: 4
A nice antidote to the chick flick earlier in the day, we saw this at home via DVD.
We get to see Bond achieve "00" status. No "Q" within visible range, but we do get to see his hand in Bond's car.
I enjoyed the poker scenes. Bond was pretty much a fool for playing the final hand. I guessed he had Aces full of eights, but I was wrong.
It was nicely done, nothing extremely over-the-top. I'm glad to add it to the Bond collection we have in the house.
Waitress: 4
A chick flick that we went to see for Mother's Day. Good acting all around. I really enjoyed Andy Griffith's performance.
I did not like the absolutely final scene of the film. It did not seem in character with the rest of it. I can understand, I think, what Shelly was doing there, but I don't think it needed to be done.
Adrienne Shelly, writer/director/actor in the movie was killed in her New York apartment this past November by a construction worker.
Suffered from a mild migraine Friday and Saturday. Vertigo and a mild headache. It was gone on Sunday.
Friday afternoon was spent dealing with the stained glass workbench and supplies. I moved all of the glass to underneath the workbench, clearing out the glass cabinet fro transport to the storage shed.
We made a run to Best Buy and spent some gift cars on movies and a thumb drive. And then on to Durango's for dinner.
Saturday I slept until around 1pm. I was in absolutely no condition for aikido. :( We made a run to the shed. I think it's almost the final run we'll have to make.
Saturday evening was gaming.
Sunday was a gorgeous morning. The migraine was gone, the temperature was coolish. The entire family sat out in the fenced yard and chilled. The two humans read the paper while the animals just goofed around.
Mother's Day was spent at the movies: "Waitress". A good movie, even if it is a "chick flick". Ice Cream at Marble Slab afterwards.
Home to a whipped up meal and "Casino Royale".
A good weekend. If it hadn't been for the migraine, a great weekend.
First day of actual construction work and the animals get loose.
Vlad was allowed to stay in the fenced area over the afternoon. Unfortunately, a noisy machine in the form of a skid steer showed up. Vlad apparently tried to get away from the noise and hid under the grill. I didn't find this out until after a couple of hours of searching for him. Once the construction folks went away, he popped out of his hiding place quite quickly.
One of the times going into the house while looking for Vlad, the dogs got loose. I told them both to stop and sit. Jack listened and obeyed! Tank ignored me.
I picked up Jack and dropped him in the house. I then went chasing Tank. He zipped across the street and down a quiet stretch of road. While running down that road, he was able to chat with Bailey, a local Lab. That slowed him down enough that I could get close to him. He then stopped to sniff and mark another lawn and I was able to snag him at that point and carry him home.
Aikidokas: Sensei Tim, and Stanley.
Ukemi: No real issues.
The Walk: Once normal. Once in reverse.
Releases: Worked with Stanley.
Techniques:
Spent the evening on Sumi-otoshi and Kote-gaeshi. Stanley got a lot of reps working on Sumi with me as uke. I think he managed it a couple of times. He definitely made a lot of improvement.
A got a few reps as tori for Kote-gaeshi. Doing it at a glacial speed is very difficult. Trying to get uke to hold you up on several of the off-balances is weird.
Stanley got a few reps in as tori as well.
Aftermath: None of note.
The new season started. Unfortunately, we were not able to get into the competitive league, so we're playing in the recreational league. I hope it's good for our egos, but that will mean it's kind of unfair to the teams who belong in the recr4eational league.
The competitive league was full by the time we signed up. This is the first time in several years that this situation has arisen.
We played ok last night with 4 people. We were playing against 5 and won 21-12, 21-12, 15-8. Something along those lines at least.
Aikidokas: Randy, John, Stanley, and Greg. Kim stayed home to do some more prep work for upcoming construction.
Ukemi: Not bad.
The Walk: As usual
It took me 50 minutes to get to the dojo where it normally takes me about 20. I was not in a great mental state for the evening, I believe. The freeform evening we had at the dojo didn't work well with said mental state.
We did some warm-up techniques of shomen-ate for a while.
Then we went into a semi-randori situation. Tori and uke are at 3 step distance. John would signal with hand signs the technique that tori was to attempt from a position so that uke could not see it. John would then tap uke and send him in to attack. I did not do well. My problem was in seeing the signal, processing it into the name of a technique and getting the technique into my brain so that I was ready to execute it all while uke and I were approaching one another. Getting a competent technique was beyond me.
It was a good exercise. It might have been better if I'd had a second or two more to process the technique called for at the beginning of the exercise. Then reduce the amount of time as the evening wore on.
We did a little tanto-randori at the end as well. Started off with getting off-line from the knife, then moved on to trying some simple techniques. That went ok.
Aftermath: Toe is still a little bruised.
Corpse Bride: 3
A neat little film, but a little obvious in places. I spotted the villain when he popped up on stage and knew what he'd done instantly.
Animation was pretty good. They had issues with flowing veils and such.
Friday: Zip off to Pasa-get-down-dena and pick up 15 sheets of MDF slatwall for a song. Drive home. Move some Nandina plants in preparation for the construction. Dinner at Durango's.
Saturday: Up early to get to the chili cook-off. Spend all day at said chili cook-off. Earn 10th place.
Sunday: Move more plants, bricks, etc. and install construction fencing for upcoming construction. Dinner at Joe's bar-b-cue. Kim moves Pypn's grave out of construction path, not without a few tears.
Aikidokas: Sensei Tim, and Rob.
Ukemi: No real issues.
The Walk: Once normal. Once in reverse.
Releases: Worked with Rob.
Techniques:
Spent the evening on Shomen-ate and Kote-gaeshi. We spent half an hour trying to figure out shomen on each other, as usual.
Kote-gaeshi is interesting with Rob. He's not completely comfortable with the ukemi for it, so you have to nail the technique perfectly. I got close a couple of times.
Rob attempted the Owaza Ju Pon version of Kote-gaeshi as tori. He got very close on the last attempt.
Aftermath: None of note.
Aikidokas: Randy, John, Greg and Kim.
Ukemi: Not bad.
The Walk: As usual
Releases: with John
Techniques: with Greg
Ran through 1-14 with me as tori. And then 1-10 with Greg as tori.
Man, was I rusty.
I was entering the techniques at the wrong angle on most of them. Our spacing on the 3-step approach was off a bit, so that may have contributed to all sorts of issues. Other specifics, hmmm.
Ushiro-ate: ended up spinning Greg around far more than I should have.
Kote-gaeshi: ended with my hands to high, causing Greg to struggle to land well.
Shihonage: ended up walking Greg around the mat on one. Obviously missed on off-balance. Probably the third one.
Aftermath: It was nice to have some more players on the mat.
