Aikido Saturday Afternoon - 08/21/10

Aikidokas: Tim, Mike, Carla, Craig, Jeff, Gail, Larry, Trey, Thor, Troy, Brad

Ukemi: A light warm-up.

Today was a mini-seminar on the last half of the Weapons sections of Koryu Dai San no Kata.  We covered offensive Jo and double-bokken.  I learned a bunch.  I was also taken to task quite a bit for what we call my "monster-face" and my stance when working with the weapons.

Mike, Larry, and Craig were the main instructors for the seminar.

My monster-face is a manifestation of tension.  I, usually, occurs when I'm not extremely comfortable with something.  Not to say that I'm tension-free when I am comfortable with something, however.  I was often told to just let go and do.  Don't worry or flinch.  Hah!  Well, it's something to strive for.

I just had an possible insight.  I wonder if the flinching during the techniques has to do with my height?  At 6'5" I have to duck under a lot of things.  I wonder if seeing the bokken come toward me causes me to want to duck under it?

I think I enjoyed the last technique of the double-bokken the most.  It was the most complex, but it really engaged my mind.  Here's the sequence:  Uke strikes at knee, jabs at right shoulder, jabs at left shoulder, overhead strike, overhead strike.

I have the most trouble with the counter to the left shoulder jab as tori.  The tip of my bokken did not want to make a small circle and end up on the inside of uke's bokken.  I always ended up in a block with the grip up high and the tip pointing down.  I'm going to have to work on that.

Aftermath: Tired.  Was standing, learning, and filming for 4 hours.  My legs were beat.