The musings of a weary mind. Conversations on aikido, gardening, cooking, travel and, maybe, woodworking.
Peter Jackson and New Line have kissed and made up.
Peter and Fran are going to Ex. Produce "The Hobbit"!
Yahoo!
Aikidokas: Tim, Randy, and Trey
The Walk: as usual.
Ukemi: Ukemi went well. No big falls. Soon.
Releases: Per usual, with Randy.
Techniques:
Sensei Tim broke the news that he wants both Trey and I demonstrating soon. No sense as to how soon that might actually be.
In respect of that announcement, we did some work on demonstration etiquette.
We also did some work on techniques. Trey and I both worked on the first 5. My 5 were ate 3-step distance as opposed to the usual 1-step distance. So, we had to introduce Trey to 3-step attacks. He picked it up very quickly.
Aftermath: Major kerfuffle has occurred. Our previous sensei, Sensei R., wanted to get away from the stress of running a dojo. So, he turned the dojo over to a local judo sensei over the past few months. Things occurred Wednesday that resulted in the aikido program having to a find a new home immediately.
Friday night was our first night in the new location.
Everything is different.
The mats are different, and far less springy/comfortable. The surface is far less stable. The covering over the cushioning material tends to move a little and that makes the footing a little peculiar at the moment. It caused a bit of trouble throughout the evening, but we will adjust.
It seems to be a little more slick. When we work on ukemi, we're all sliding some after the fall. In the old place, we would generally stick once we hit the ground. Some of us were sliding 6-8 inches after landing.
The times that we have access to the training space have changed, too. We now have Friday evening and Saturday afternoon. As opposed to Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evening plus Saturday morning. It's going to make it easier for my wife to make it more consistently, but I'm going to be getting fewer hours in.
Speaking of which, we need to get a training recorder set up. We had a nice computer program at the old place. Need to see about some sort of program or something for the new place. Web database or something?
Half of the monthly dues for training are now going into a mat fund. I'm tossing around ideas for a semi-portable base upon which to place the mats during training. Something to add a little spring to the mats, but not enough so that they fail. They need to be stackable so they can be moved out of the way. they need to be light enough to move. They need to be stable enough when in position so they don't move away from each other.
Last match of the season. I got a heck of a workout moving for blocks and hits and did ok.
I think our issue is inconsistency of line-up. Maybe we'll have better luck next season.
Aikidokas: Randy, Marty, and Trey
The Walk: as usual.
Ukemi: Ukemi went well. No big falls. Soon.
Releases: Per usual, with Marty.
Techniques:
Kind of a round robin affair.
I got to work on Tenkai Kote-hineri and Mae-otoshi, and Shihonage.
Got a tip from Randy on the turn to the third off-balance on Shiho that I hope to incorporate.
I sprained or tweaked Trey's thumb on Mae-otoshi. I'm letting uke go too low to the ground.
I need to not over-extend uke on Tenkai.
Aftermath: No a/c in the dojo for some reason. A very exhausting session.
Managed to get tickets to the upcoming Bruce Springsteen concert. I got online right when they went on sale. All of the floor tickets were gone and most of the lower prom. I did manage to score lower prom tickets, though.
First time to see Mr. S. in concert. Should be awesome!
We're getting very close. We've planned to start moving furniture in on the weekend before Christmas. Let's hope it happens.
Status:
Exterior still needs:
x - new driveway
yard grading
guttering
Shop still needs:
Lock on roll-up door
floor outlets leveled with slab
Apartment still needs:
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
We walked on our new driveway Saturday morning. They poured it on Friday. The builder does not want us driving on it for 28 days. The supervisor for our project says we can drive on it starting today. We might wait until the end of the week. We were without a functional driveway for about 3 weeks. A real pain.
They're planning on grading the yard toward the end of the week. That will require driving a Bobcat on the driveway, moving quantities of sand around.
Aikidokas: Tim, Marty, Rob, and Brad
The Walk: Rob counted one in Japanese and I counted the second in Czech
Ukemi: Standing right-sided rolls!! No pain!!
Releases: Worked with Marty. He only does them when he's down here in Texas, so it's always educational.
Techniques:
Marty and I worked on some of the changed techniques (Shomen-ate, Ushiro-ate, Oshi-taoshi, Kote-gaeshi, Mae-otoshi, and Sumi-otoshi).
Aftermath: Lots of changes coming at the dojo. I'm not sure how much to reveal until they actually occur.
A decent performance. We played fairly well. The second match the games were pretty close even if we did lose all three. We had a great lady substituting for us in the second match.
Keep on diggin'
Aikidokas: Tim, and Trey
The Walk: as usual.
Ukemi: No issues. Still not taking standing right-sided.
Releases: Per usual
Techniques:
Shomen-ate, Aigamae-ate, Gyakugamae-ate, Gedan-ate and Ushiro-ate: Little by little, Trey's getting better at these. I'd say he's 70%, maybe 80%, ready for a promotion.
Tim had Trey take a few big falls during warm-ups. He took those easily enough that he got to uke for me on some of the more advanced techniques. I was able to work on Mae-otoshi and Sumi-otoshi. Yahoo! I actually was successful at one rep of Sumi-otoshi.
Aftermath: Sinus infection or cold arrived on the scene a couple of hours before I woke up.
Check out directly from here. Fast. Secure. Simple.
