Aikido Saturday Afternoon - 10/17/09

Aikidokas: Tim, Trey, Tom, and Sal..

Ukemi: I did a full warm-up, minus the big falls.

The Walk: Twice, as usual.

Releases: None.

Techniques:

We spent a lot of time playing with initial off-balances for Shomen-ate. If tori continues to rotate his center while he's still attached to uke's lead hand, he can continue to keep uke off-balance. Eventually, this will cause a fall without any other interaction from tori.

Trey, at the end, wanted me to do some work on Aigamae-ate. My first attempt was a non-starter. On my second, I was late, so I turned it into Gyakugamae-ate. On the third, I managed an Agamae-ate although it was not pretty.

Tim then called for me to get gedan-ate. My mind became very unaikido-like in demeanor: I was determined I was going to get the technique. I think I had the off-balances nicely, but kake was rude. I had extended my leading leg further behind Trey than I normally do, so when our centers met, he had my nice tall knee that he had to fall over. He ended up in the right spot, but rotated about 90 degrees from his normal position. We were working on an extra layer of mats, so the fall wasn't too bad.

Aftermath: None of note. I think I may need to add big falls back to my warm-up routine soon.