'bout time

The Texas Aggies had a good weekend. A win over tu and the resignation of Fran.

I never saw the reason to replace RC, and Fran had dubious credentials to his name.

Now, time for basketball season. Hmmm. I wonder if we're playing over the Xmas holidays at Reed Arena? I might try to make a trip to see a game.

Wednesday Night at the Dojo 11/28

Aikidokas: Tim, Brad, and Trey

The Walk: one rep with me counting and one rep with Tim counting at a higher speed. I goofed up on the higher speed one, which caused Trey to goof up. Oh well.

Ukemi: more rolls! Did the 3 regular type rolls left side, just from the knees on the right.

Releases: They went ok. We spent a good portion of time on them.

Techniques:

Trey was tori for two of his usual set of techniques: Gedan-ate and Ushiro-ate. I think we saw some light bulbs, but we still to get some more reps in for him.

Aftermath: none of note.

Volleyball, 0-3

We're actually better than this. This week we changed up the rotation to a 6-2. This is kind of difficult with 3 women and 3 men. It's much easier with 2 women and 4 men.

The games weren't even close.

Keep on diggin'

Monday Night at the Dojo 11/26

Aikidokas: Randy, Kim, and Trey

The Walk: as usual.

Ukemi: Still no right side standing, maybe in a couple of days. The shoulder's been feeling a little sore, so I'm giving it some more time.

Releases: Per usual

Techniques:

Shomen-ate: Trey worked on this technique.

Aigamae-ate: Trey worked on this technique.

I ran through the following with Randy while Trey and Kim worked on techniques 3 and 4.

Sumi-otoshi: I spent a good 15 minutes on this and got close, right side only. Randy couldn't figure out what the problem was. He was wishing for another set of experienced eyes.

Aftermath: none of note.

Tool update

I went to Cutting Edge this weekend in preparation for stocking "da Bribe." I also made a stop at the nearby, soon-to-open Woodcraft store. Woodcraft had no prices up, so I had to make do with Cutting Edge. CE says they will match prices, and I think I'd prefer to shop there. We'll see how things play out in December.

SCMS
Makita : $730

Jointer
Powermatic 6" : $800 + $130MB + $25 GC/Rebate
Powermatic 8" : $1300 + $130MB + $50 GC/Rebate

Planer
Jet 13" (JPM 13OS) : $850 + $85 MB + $50 GC/Rebate
Jet 16" (JWP 16OS) : $1000 + $50 GC/Rebate
Delta 15" : $1300
Powermatic 15" (15S) : $1600

Tablesaw
Delta 36-L31X-BC50 : $1950 + $0 MB + $100 GC/Rebate

Bandsaw
Jet 18" 1-3/4 HP : $1200 + $200 MB + $100 GC/Rebate
Jet 18" 3 HP : $1350 + $200 MB + $100 GC/Rebate


Let's do a quick, most-expensive-case total

SCMS : $0730
Jointer : $1430
Planer : $1600
Bandsaw : $1550
TS : $1950
---------------
$7260
Tax : $0600
---------------
Total : $7860
GC/Rebate $0250
---------------
$7610

Ouch!

Tax

Saturday Morning at the Dojo 11/24

Aikidokas: Tim, Richard, and Kim

The Walk: as usual.

Ukemi: No issues. Still not taking standing right-sided.

Releases: We spent a good portion of the day reviewing releases. Richard is a Yondan from the KG days of most of the Senseis. He's been mainly working on Jyodo for the past few years.

Techniques:

Shomen-ate and Gyakugamae-ate: I served as uke and did not get many, if any, reps in as tori. There was a neat almost occurrence during one of my falls. It was raining quite a bit outside the dojo. At one point a massive blast of thunder occurred just after I took a fall. It would have been hilarious if it had occurred just as I reached the mat.

Aftermath: none of note.

Monday NOT at the Dojo 11/20

I wasn't feeling up to snuff and, with the Holidays around the corner, decided to sleep through the evening instead of possibly infecting other folks. 14 hours of sleep.

I think I'm in better shape.

Saturday Morning at the Dojo 11/17

Aikidokas: Tim, Kim, and Trey

The Walk: as usual.

Ukemi: No issues. Still not taking standing right-sided.

Releases: none today.

Techniques:

Randori and Blum line drills. A very free form day at the dojo.

The first part of the randori was just get off-line. 3 ukes and one tori in the middle moving off-line from each of the attacks. Next phase was altering uke's path as you moved off-line during their attack. The third phase was attempting a technique as you move off-line.

Tim was able to find the problem I've had ever since getting back on the mat: I am getting too far off-line. Making too big of a step. I think this will help me tremendously, as long as I can remember it.

I got brutalized on a couple of falls during randori, but the discomfort was short-lived and not related to the shoulder.

Aftermath: none of note. 500th post. Wow!

Wednesday Night at the Dojo 11/14

Aikidokas: Tim, Brad, and Trey

The Walk: as usual. We stopped midway through the first iteration to talk about something. What was it.... Ah... constant movement. Don't stop when transitioning from one point to the next. Smooth. Rolling.

Ukemi: more rolls! Did the 3 regular type rolls left side, just from the knees on the right.

Releases: They went ok. We worked dynamically this evening. Sensei Tim has issues with the rotate around the elbow/drop the center versions. I can see his point as this way of release is an invitation for a tall tori to get into trouble with a smaller uke.

Techniques:

Trey was tori for two of his usual set of techniques: Shomen-ate, and Aigamae-ate. It was a rough night.

I was struggling to enlighten him on what was going wrong on Aigamae-ate. I think, just before we broke, we came up with a tidbit. He'd been stepping into me when reversing my direction for gake. What, I think, we want him to do is to hip-switch in place and then continue the motion with a strike to the face.

Aftermath: Ibuprofen is my friend again. I forgot to put Heet on my left shoulder, so it's a little tingly today. I took a rough fall on a final Aigamae-ate and I thought it might cause some repercussions, but it did not.

Volleyball, 1-2

Another disappointing evening. We played poorly and we were outmanned 4 to 5.

My serves stunk, I couldn't block and my kills were non-existent.

Onward.

Monday Night at the Dojo 11/12

Aikidokas: Randy, Kim, and Trey

The Walk: as usual.

Ukemi: Forward Rolls!!! I did left-sided kneeling and standing. I did some right-sided kneeling. No issues!!

Releases: We did some work with the new approach to releases that came out of this weekend's ATAA Technical Board Seminar. The new approach is to be used on the odd number releases. And it's mainly for the introduction of new students to releases.

The intro to students will have them doing releases statically, with uke clamped down on their wrists. Tori will then start the release by doing a center drop and rotating around his elbow. Previously, tori would rotate around his wrist.

Techniques:

Shomen-ate: Trey and I both worked on this technique. Still having issues, but he did nail it a couple of times.

Aigamae-ate: Trey worked on this technique. Nailed it a couple of times.

Gyakugamea-ate: Trey worked on this technique. Nailed it a couple of times.

I ran through the following with Randy while Trey and Kim worked on more of the first 10.

Mae-otoshi: I managed to succeed on both left and right side. Randy considered me proficient in the technique for the evening.

Aftermath: Kim had another good evening. Mine wasn't too bad, either. Shoulder complained a little after the session. I meant to take some ibu, but forgot.

Friday Night at the Dojo 11/9

Aikidokas: Tim, Randy, John, and Kim

The Walk: none tonight

Ukemi: Still no rolls.

Releases: none tonight

Techniques:

Kim wanted to be thrown around again this evening, so I spent the evening as tori.

We got a little work in before the folks for the technical board seminar arrived.

I think we spent some time on

8. Ude-hineri ::: pull and push down
9. Hiki-taoshi ::: arm twist

My footwork was off on Ude-hineri. That can cause uke to slam into my shin, which is not a good thing. I got it corrected by the end of our time on the mat.

Aftermath: none of note. I spent the rest of the evening videotaping the technical board.

Construction update 11/8

A lot of stuff has been accomplished over the past few days. So much, in fact, that it is livable. The city hasn't come out for the occupancy certification yet, but I think it would pass.

Status:

Exterior still needs:
x - final paint
x - light fixtures
x - ceiling fans
x - speakers
new driveway
yard grading

Shop still needs:
x - Sink
x - Outlets
x - Light fixtures
x - roll-up doors
Lock on roll-up door
floor outlets leveled with slab

Apartment still needs:
x - Final coats of paint
x - floorboards
x - linoleum
x - cabinet doors
x - countertops
x - cabinet stain
x - appliances
x - lights
x - outlets
x - door hardware
x - closet shelves
x - A/C
x - Sewer connection
x - speakers
minor touchups

Garage still needs:
x - water heater
washer (we'll do this ourselves if it gets done at all)
dryer (we'll do this ourselves if it gets done at all)
ramps to doorways
x - garage door opener

Destruction of the old driveway is due to commence Real Soon Now.

Wednesday Night at the Dojo 11/7

Aikidokas: Tim, Brad, and Trey

The Walk: as usual.

Ukemi: nothing to report. We brought out the crash pad for Brad tonight to give him a really soft landing spot to straighten out his rolls. It helped quite a bit.

Releases: They went ok

Techniques:

Trey was tori for his usual set of techniques: Shomen-ate, Aigamae-ate, Gyakugamae-ate, and Ushiro-ate. He did amazingly well. He had a great night and I took lots of falls.

We also did some work on Gedan-ate. He managed to take me down with the technique several times, but at about 70% correct. We've got some tweaking to do.

Aftermath: I slept well after taking all of those falls. Forward rolls on Monday. I hope.

Volleyball, 0-3

Opponent: Fandango

We played the best team in the league and played poorly. We got stomped. I didn't get any kills for the evening, I don't believe. Much confusion on our alignment.

sigh.

Monday Night at the Dojo 11/5

Aikidokas: Randy, Kim, and Trey

The Walk: as usual.

Ukemi: nothing to report.

Releases: Randy had us repeat releases until Trey got them right. We spent a lot of time on the first release as one of us would spot something that needed fixing each time.

I also tori'd a set with Kim as uke. She was being brutal and I was not responding well to the change.

Techniques:

Shomen-ate: Trey and I both worked on this technique. Still having issues.

Aigamae-ate: Trey worked on this technique. I wonder if my performance as uke is hurting his development?

I ran through the following with Randy while Trey watched.

Hiki-otoshi: I worked on this with Randy at the end of the evening. I ran through a couple of attempts with no gake. Then I ran through a couple of attempts where Randy did a roll-out. And then one with Randy taking the big fall. It went fairly well.

Aftermath: Kim had a great evening. She hasn't been this happy coming off the mat in quite some time.

Wednesday Night at the Dojo 10/31

Jyodokas: Tim

The Walk: once

Since it was just me and Tim, we broke off from aikido and did Jyodo instead

I was introduced to two attacks and one "poke".

Grabbing some information from the UCO Aikido Club website, I think what I was introduced to were the following:

# Honte uchi - normal
# Gyakute uchi - reverse

I have no idea what the name of the "poke" was. I should have posted right after the class, but things were quite frantic getting ready for the weekend.

Aftermath: none of note.