Attendees: Randy, John, Raj, Keith, Oliver, Sheila and Kim
Kim and I zipped off to the dojo in case we could squeeze some space for some work on the mat.
We did manage to grab some space. Keith and Oliver were working Shodan stuff and Raj and John were working together. Kim, Sheila and I did the walk and worked on releases.
We got through all 8 with Sheila as tori. We made it through 5 with Kim as tori beforee had to get off the mat and let the iaido folks on.
Attendees: Mainly judo folks. No other aikidokas showed up until late, when Keith and Oliver arrived, so I was on the sidelines watching.
I brought the camera along in case this occurred. I managed to get some good pictures of K and O while they were working on Keith's Shodan stuff.
One really good one of Oliver taking a big fall, but the lighting was iffy. I need to see if I can tweak it on the computer and make it look good. I got some other good ones in black and white that I'll probably post to my flickr account.
I joined Sensei Raymond again at a Champion Judo in Pasa-get down-dena for another training session on scoring/keeping time for a judo tournament.
A number of the adults were suffering from some sort of gut bug, so they didn't not want to have a mock tournament. We just officiated for the juniors.
And Buck wants to be able to spend more time working on techniques before the tournamentso we're not going to have mock tournaments for the next couple of weeks.
That means I get to go to aikido on Wednesdays. Cool.
And the hits just keep on coming.
"Fandango" trashed us, as expected. First game was a disaster. I think we won 5 points. Second game was better and third game was ok.
We're now in last place. At least we're not alone in last. We play the other last place team this week, so it's got playoff implications. :D
 |
| The trip back to Austin from the Salt Lick BBQ in Dripping Springs. 15MB around 9 minutes long |
Kim's parents were in town this weekend and, as usual, one of our meals was at Joe's Bar-B-Q in Alvin. I don't know why, but we hadn't eaten there in quite some time. Good stuff. I had the stuffed baked potato. So far I've had 3 meals off of it and will have one more tomorrow.
At the restaurant I ate a good portion of the thing. I had to save room for the blackberry cobbler that was available. Blackberry cobbler and Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla ice cream. Fantastic!
Attendees: Randy, Rob, Keith, Stanley and Kim.
Ukemi: Not bad. Didn't get around to big falls.
The Walk: as usual.
Releases: Worked with Rob. He's almost my height, and the tallest person I've worked with, so there were some adjustments on the off-balances for both of us. It'd been a while since he'd done any aikido so adding my height to the mix was an added challenge
Techniques: Worked with Rob. Tori'd for 6-10. They went well overall. I'm taking too big of a step on the entries to a number of techniques.
Had to do some adjustment for waki-gatame as Rob is too tall for my elbow to go straight over his shoulder as I normally do. I have to get off-line and get his posture broken down enough so that my elbow can slip over his upper arm and then my elbow can slide up to his shoulder to control it. The rest of the technique follows from there easily.
Uke'd for Rob on Ude-hineri and Waki-gatame. Sensei Raymond gave us the approach to use for the technique against taller opponents.
Uke'd for Oliver (he showed up late to work with Keith on his Shodan demonstration) on Waki-gatame. Luckily the aforementioned tips had already been dispensed.
It was pointed out to me that my big toe is "flinching" as uke approaches. This is a big problem on the one-step entry for techniques as it makes me late. It causes my weight to rock back. Then I have to rock forward before I can fall into the right spot. I have to try to remember to correct this.
Aftermath: The bruises are sooo nice to look at.
Attendees: Tim, Greg, Oliver and Kim.
Normal class.
Ukemi: Felt off enough that I didn't take any big falls. Just didn't feel like risking it.
I spent the day working with Greg: releases and techniques. I don't remember much of my work as tori, but I spent a lot of time ukeing for Ushiro-ate. So much so that I developed bruises on both arms. The cause was my gi bunching up and twisting on my upper arm when Greg made contact on the initial off-balance. It felt like we worked on the technique for about 30 minutes.
Aftermath: Two nice bruises. One on each arm just above the biceps.
Attendees: Mainly judo folks. No other aikidokas showed up until late, when Keith arrived, so I was on the sidelines watching
Actually, I'd brought my new camera along to try it out on some action shots. I spent a good portion of the evening taking pictures. I hope to get a couple online and posted soon.
Did the walk and uke'd for Keith a little once the judo folks cleared the mat.
I joined Sensei Raymond again at a Champion Judo in Pasa-get down-dena for another training session on scoring/keeping time for a judo tournament.
The folks a Champion went to a tournament in San Antonio this past weekend. They placed third in Jr. team and had one of their ladies take first place in Seniors.
Planning on aikido tonight.
A new season starting off as the old season left off. With a loss.
We won game out of three. The middle one, if I remember correctly. I think the team we played ("Way Out") moved up from the recreational league, but I'm not certain.
Next week we play "Fandango", usually the best team in the league. They've play two matches already and are 2-4, so they have the same winning percentage as we do at 1-2.
There are only 5 teams in the league this time and we play each team twice, except for "Fandango". The playoffs are around the 21st of November. Top 4 teams make the playoffs, so I hope we're one of those four.
Attendees: John, Keith, and Kim.
Ukemi: Left side a little off. Took a couple of big throws from John. Did some more left sdie simple rolls. Disastrous. Stopped quickly.
The Walk: as usual.
Releases: Worked with Keith.
Techniques: Worked with Keith. Uke'd for 1-10 for him and then he uke'd 1-10 for me. I tweaked Keith's shoulder on Ude-hineri. I hope it recovers quickly.
Aftermath: Nothing of note. I collapsed my arm on the late left side and thought it might invite repercussions, but nothing so far. I'm probably going to do judo official training on Wednesday and then aikido on Thursday.
Attendees: Mike, Tim, Randy, Jeff, Greg, Oliver and Kim.
A review of the 14 double hand grabs.
I spent the day working with Jeff and it went well. 3.5 hours of double grab throws. We didn't do any of the big throws, just got to the off-balances for them.
I joined Sensei Raymond at a local judo dojo to learn how to score/keep time for a judo tournament. Sensei is one of the organizers for November's Houston Open and he needs as many volunteers as he can get. My knees need a little more rest so I wasn't going to be going to aikido in any event.
It was interesting learning the scoring, penalties, etc. I need more work on this, so I might be doing it on a regular basis depending on my body's need for rest. I could join Sensei and help out at a tournament in San Antonio on Saturday, but I'm going to be at the dojo for a review of the double-hand grabs that Mike covered a week and ahalf ago.
I hereby declare that we've been blessed with our first cool front of the fall, and right on schedule. Temps got down to the upper 50's last night and we could have slept with the windows open. We didn't though, since the dogs would have barked all night long as they would be listening to all of the wildlife wandering around the yard.
It'll warm up a bit this weekend. Then, in about 2 or 3 weeks (October 8 timeframe), we should be getting consistently cooler weather with the odd spike into higher temps.
Just about fall!
Managed to get to a night of D&D this past weekend. Survey said it was my turn to DM for the first time in a year and a half.
The party is rattling around in the remnants of the Fire Giants stronghold from the "Against the Giants" module. The use of the web spell was nicley done and effective on their part. One stairway down to the second level is not a good design for a complex.
Battle is in progress.
Attendees: Randy, Stanley and Kim.
Ukemi: Not bad. Iffy on the left side. Sensei Raymond noted me jumping on leftside big throws. Doesn't hurt, but I do need to correct it.
The Walk: as usual.
Releases: Worked with Stanley. Pace seemed ok. Needed to tweak 6 and 8.
Techniques: Worked with Stanley on 1-10 with me as tori and then attemtped to get through 1-17 with him as tori.
As Tori:
1, 2 and 3 went ok. Had to try Gedan-ate a couple of times for improper hand positioning. Ushiro-ate I gave up the sidewalk. Oshi-taoshi: Sensei Raymond said he could have used my face for a Halloween mask. Too much effort. I must become bored with all of this for it to work well. Ude-gaeshi: losing control of uke's hand on the pivot. Ude-hineri: worked well. Hiki-taoshi: not controlling uke's shoulder well before the throw, spacing is good, however. Waki-gatame: worked well, getting to be a favorite technique.
As uke:
Over-committed, or something similar, on Gedan-ate. Again.
Spiked my knee on Oshi-taoshi.
Spiked the other knee on Kote-hineri
It was getting late, so I begged off bigger throws for safety's sake. The rest of the techniques went well.
Aftermath: Two achey knees. Naproxen sodium on the schedule for the next couple of days. Might wait until Saturday to go back to the dojo.
Attendees: Tim, Keith, Greg, Oliver and Kim.
Ukemi: One funky kote-gaeshi fall. No pain, but it looked funky to the watchers.
The Walk: ok.
Releases: With Greg. His deceptively long arms are tough to adjust to.
Techniques: With Greg. Ran through 1-7 as tori. Went pretty well. Keith was the overseer and tried to withhold comments until the end, but just couldn't do it. :) Then worked as uke for Greg. We spent a lot of time on Shomen-ate.
Did a partner swap and I ended up working with Kim. She was working on #2 agamae-ate. Tried some alternative approaches to help her with the timing and I think it helped. We'll see how she does tonight.
Aftermath: My knees are a little sore. Not certain if it's aikido or life in general.
tag : Aikido
Attendees: Tim, John, Keith, Stanley, and Oliver.
Ukemi: Not bad. Threw John and was thrown by John on big falls. No worries.
The Walk: as usual.
Releases: Worked with Stanley. Rushed tonight. It's always something :).
Techniques: Worked with Stanley on the first couple of two-handed grab techniques from Saturday.
Then, John had us do dry runs of demos. So I had to do 1-10 both sides and Stanley had to do 1-17 both sides. That meant I had to fall for 1-17 on both sides. Good practice for me. Also, had to do the techniques 3-step, instead of my usual 1-step.
As Tori:
No hip switch on one side of Aigamae-ate.
Failed to get a good throw on Gedan-ate on right side, first time.
Real trouble on one side of Ushiro-ate, had to try it a couple of times.
Messed up with hand position on entry to Ude-hineri on the first side, fixed it on left side.
As uke:
Over-committed, or something similar, on Gedan-ate.
Failed to remember uke's response on Ude-gaeshi
Did ok on the falls for Kote-gaeshi
Left side fall for either Mae-otoshi or Hiki-otoshi was rough because I collapsed my arm.
Aftermath: Sweat, sweat and more sweat. A beer at home to make certain I was relaxed. John said we'll remember this temperature in the dojo fondly when winter rolls around. He'll be wearing his double-weave gi and standing under the heater to warm up.
Attendees: Randy, Keith, Stanley and Sheila.
Ukemi: Started working on throwing folks their warm-up kote gaeshi falls. Took some more myself with no problems.
The Walk: ok.
Releases: With Keith. My pivots are late on a number of releases.
Techniques: With Keith. Worked on 6-10. It went pretty well. Need to work on pivots for ude-gaeshi. I'm using to much arm and not enough center after uke pushes out of Oshi-taoshi. Worked a little on taking falls for Hiki-otoshi so that Stanley will have more ukes for the technique.
I then spent the rest working with Sheila on Gyakugamea-ate. Asked Sensei Raymond for some tips and he suggested a method for her to be able to apply the technique to someone my size. I'm about a foot and a half taller than she is.
The steps to handle susquatch:
1. fall along the line of your feet in the direction of your back foot
2. hook strong wrist over uke's attacking hand and get weak hand on uke's elbow
3. pivot on your back foot, off-line, to allow uke to go past you
4. continue to pivot in the same direction until uke's eyes are at a height compatible for the eye flash.
5. this can result in uke having very little time to prepare for his fall as he might be about 6" off the ground. :D
We spent about 45 minutes on this and she was doing quite well.
Aftermath: none, really, although a couple of the falls from Gyakugamea-ate were a little quick and I did not fall properly. My knees are really off, I don't know why.
tag : Aikido
Attendees: Mike, Tim, Randy, John, Keith, Robert, and Greg.
This was seminar on two-handed wrist grabs and 14 ways to throw uke.
1. double push to the chest
2. shomen ate
3. tenchi nage
4. both hands push to the side
5. ushiro ate
6. spinning arm bar
7. one hand waki gatame
8. two hand waki gatame
9. kote gaeshi
10. shiho nage
11. mae otoshi
12. sumi otoshi
13. drop to back corner
14. o garuma
I spent the day working with John and it was great. 4 hours of double grab throws. I think I liked the kote gaeshi and the drop to back corner throws the most. I was able to take the falls for the kote gaeshi with no real problems. I had trouble on my last o garuma fall. I was paying attention to what John was doing for the throw and forgot to duck my chin. Neck got a little wonky.
However, there were no lasting effects. Ibuprofen taken as a precaution.
Here are the camouflaged ammo cantainers I painted a while back. I took them up to the library and placed them in the middle of the floor. Kim almost tripped over them because they blended into the carpet.
Attendees: Tim, John, Keith, Stanley, Oliver and Stacia.
Ukemi: Not bad. No big falls in warm up this time.
The Walk: as usual.
Releases: Worked with John. I'm taking too big of a step off-line and am too tense.
Techniques: Worked with John on 6, 8, and 9. I'm taking too big of a step to move off-line. I'm also rushing (duh! I'm always in a hurry) parts of some techniques. Worked with Stanley on 6-10 with a 3 step approach. Need to take the off-blance with small steps and off at 45 degrees. Need to control uke's shoulder on #9.
Aftermath: Nothing of note.
Ah, maybe next season. And the next season starts the end of this month.
The last match we played, we won. Unfortunately, the team we played (Green Eggs & Slam) had to forfeit the first game because they didn't have enough folks to field a team. They ended up with only 3 players, so the match was quite unfair. One of the players was playing competitive volleyball for the first time as a last minute sub.
We played decently all season, but not quite well enough to win.
We went to the Aggie football game on Saturday, thanks to some friends of the family who have season tickets.
We left the house around 1:45 to make certain the traffic didn't keep us from getting to the game on time. We arrived in College Station around 3:45, giving us plenty of time to watch march-in, hunt for shirts, etc. and grab something to eat.
Kim was amazed at the increase in "event" status the games show. They've closed the street on campus in front of the MSC that used to be used for march-in and turned it into a midway of sorts. Radio stations are out there, a bunch of food vendors, moonwalks, etc.
We zipped into the "C" to look for a shirt for me. The crowds were pretty bad, but not unnavigable. We had no luck finding a shirt, though.
We then went out to the Rudder Fountain area where the Yell Leaders were hosting a BBQ cook-off. We got our plates and had ourselves some bbq. The sausage stayed with me for *hours*. The brisket wasn't bad.
Off to the game.
We won. Not impressively, even if the score was 35-3. Our defense had holes through which a better team would have launched invasions. We proved incapable of blasting big holes in the Citadel's defense. Both the offensive and defensive lines look a little light for Big 12 play.
It was a fun afternoon. Much better than if we'd lost.
Attendees: Tim, Keith, Robert, Greg, Oliver and Kim.
Ukemi: Took a big fall on both sides, no problems.
The Walk: as usual
Releases: worked with Greg, tweaking each other's execution.
Techniques: worked with Greg. We went through the first 10 in a row, except for #9. We waited for fall zones to be clear for the roll-outs required so skipped to 10 and then back to 9. Initial kazushi (off-balance) proved to be the key to doing most techniques.
Aftermath: None, really.
tag : Aikido
Attendees: Oliver and Kim. Sensei Raymond was on the other part of the mat working with Judo folks. So, I was running aikido. It is educational to try to instruct. I hope I'm not screwing folks up to much.
Ukemi: Not bad. One slightly off roll on the right side. Probably collapsed the arm.
The Walk: as usual.
Releases: Worked with Oliver. Oliver and Kim worked together after that with me watching.
Techniques: Exampled Shomen-ate with Oliver for Kim to watch. She and Oliver then spent most of the rest of the evening working on her Shomen-ate. She made great improvements from the start of the evening until when we stopped. I then uked for Oliver on 1, 2 and 5 to get him some more practice.
Aftermath: Nothing of note.
tag : Aikido
Attendees: Tim, Keith, and Sheila.
Ukemi: Not bad. Took some big falls in warm up this time. It was nice to get that practice in. Keith was throwing me on those and he had to adjust to my height. He had to take two steps to my one in order to be able to extend my arm enough to get the throw. We spent a fair amount of time on ukemi.
The Walk: as usual.
Releases: Worked with Tim. He adjusted my angle into the releases. Wants me to just barely bypass uke, not fall at a 45 deg angle to their path.
Techniques: Not sure where the time went, but I didn't work on any techniques.
Aftermath: Nothing of note.
tag : Aikido
During ukemi practice on Monday, comments were made on how much of the mat I use to fall. At 6'5", I use quite a bit. Discussion ensued and it was determined that a mat needs to be long enough for me to do 3 forward rolls and wide enough to do 2 forward rolls. That square footage, whatever it is, was designated a zrubek.
A mat needs to be 1 zrubek in area plus 1/2 a zrubek in area surrounding the main mat for a "splash zone".
Attendees: Randy, John, Keith, Stacia, and Sheila.
Ukemi: Need to extend my legs on the rolls to slow me down some.
The Walk: ok.
Releases: With Keith. I'm late on a number of releases.
Techniques: With Keith. I worked on my Hiki-taoshi. Working on the footwork. We worked on his Kote-gaeshi. Up to the final throw, most of the time. I did end up taking two big falls right-sided and maybe one on the left. One of the ones on the right side was good. The other one was a little bone-jarring. I remember hearing my jaw slam shut. Apparently, I tried to extend out of the hold instead of turning in to it, causing a bit of a twist in the roll.
Watched a preliminary assessment of Stacia's and Sheila's progress. They're getting close to their hours for green belt. They did pretty well. Better with Keith as uke than with each other as uke.
Aftermath: Not too bad considering the falls. Took ibuprofen as a cautionary measure.
tag : Aikido
It's interesting how much I enjoy painting ammo cans to be used as caches in geocaching.
I picked up a bunch of ammo cans on Friday. 6 of them, I think. 3 small, 2 slightly larger and 1 fairly big one. I painted them Saturday morning and Sunday evening.
1. Spray them all flat black to cover up the bright yellow lettering
2. Grab some leaves, pine needles, etc. for use in painting
3. Use the khaki, forest green, and dark brown spray paints to paint shadows of the leaves onto the cans
4. Spray paint the geocaching information onto the can so folks know its a geocache.
I think I'll try to post some pictures of them up here at some point.
Fun stuff. Creative use of natural materials.
A friend of the family called up over the weekend and offered up some football tickets. This friend is an Old Ag and has decent tickets. Kim took the call and offered to pay the cost of the tickets, but she was told "No". Apparently, the friend wants to chat and catch up on family happenings so he's treating us to the game. And including a parking pass with the tickets. Coool!
So, we'll be at the Aggies' first game of the season. Thankfully, it's a 6 p.m. start. 2 p.m. starts at this time of year are uuuuuuuuuugly hot.
The downside to a 6 p.m. start is that it ends around 10 p.m. We then have to drive 2 1/2 hours home (probably longer, since it'll be football traffic). We'll get home no earlier than 1 a.m.
Gig 'em Aggies!
Attendees: Mike, Carla, Tim, Randy, Robert, Kim, and Jeff and Dan from Killeen. Mike was down to do a seminar on Ni Kata and we had the day free, so we decided to attend.
Ukemi: No warm-up ukemi
The Walk: Not done
We worked through all of the techniques, but I've forgotten most of what we covered. I know I've forgotten the stuff we did early in the day. We worked on getting out of: two-handed grabs from behind, one hand and collar grab from behind, knife strikes from in front and a bunch of others. Around 17 techniques in all, I think.
Kim did remarkably well. Took some back falls and threw me as well.
Aftermath: None, really.
tag : Aikido
Attendees: Keith, Oliver and Kim. Keith and Oliver worked together, so I worked with Kim.
Ukemi: Me trying to figure out what other folks are doing wrong with ukemi is a scary thought.
The Walk: Ran through it a couple of times.
Releases: Spent the entire evening on them. I think we made some progress, but I really don't feel comfortable teaching new folks. Tweaking I can, sort of, do. Figuring out what to correct first for new folks is tough.
We tired out early because we hadn't had dinner before we got to the mat.
Aftermath: Overall ache, probably from the shomen-ates on Wednesday.
tag : Aikido
Posting this for my future reference.
Atemi waza (striking techniques):
1. Shomen-ate ::: straight frontal head strike
2. Aigamae-ate ::: regular facing posture strike
3. Gyakugamea-ate ::: reverse posture strike
4. Gedan-ate ::: low strike
5. Ushiro-ate ::: behind (from the rear) strike
Hiji waza (elbow techniques):
6. Oshi-taoshi ::: knock or push down
7. Ude-gaeshi ::: arm turn
8. Hiki-taoshi ::: pull and push down
9. Ude-hineri ::: arm twist
10. Waki-gatame ::: side of the chest arm lock
Tekubi waza (wrist techniques):
11. Kote-hineri ::: wrist twist
12. Kote-gaeshi ::: wrist turn
13. Tenkai-kote-hineri ::: circular (spinning) wrist twist
14. Shiho-nage ::: four corner (all directions) throw
Uke waza (floating techniques):
15. Mae-otoshi ::: forward drop
16. Sumi-otoshi ::: rear corner drop
17. Hiki-otoshi ::: pull and drop
tag : Aikido
Attendees: Tim, Keith, Stanley, Oliver and Sheila.
Ukemi: Not bad. Got a fair amount of time to work on it.
Did a first pass at knee-walking. Talk about the knees complaining. Wow. A nice amount of burn from the knee joints. Left big toe wasn't terribly happy either.
Releases: Worked with Keith. Spent some time on 5-8, working on timing, pacing and getting under my arm.
Techniques: Worked with Keith on Ude-hineri, trying to get the footwork corrected. Improvement, but still more to go. Then uke'd for Keith on Shomen-ate. Spent 20-30 minutes on it. We bowed out to end class and I continued to uke for Oliver, Stanley and Keith on Shomen-ate and Aigamae-ate.
Aftermath: Not much after class. Felt a little like I'd been run over by a freight train when I got up this morning. Back muscle seems to be getting better. Sternum, where I get stuck for Shomen-ate by shorter folks is a little achey.
tag : Aikido
This week we won 0 out of 3 against "Passing Out", the second place team. Once again, we had a different cast of players. We played decently.
The games were close. Well, the first one wasn't. We had a chance to win the other two, though.
We're in next-to-last place. Mathematically, we are eliminated from playoff contention. We're off next week and then we have one more match.
tag : Volleyball
Attendees: Randy, Keith, Stanley, Oliver, and Sheila.
Ukemi: No problems noted.
The Walk: ok.
Releases: With Stanley. Not much of note, for once.
Techniques: With Keith/Stanley/Oliver. Round-robin type. Worked on #5 and #8. Uke'd for other ones that Randy assigned to tori.
We did a couple of interesting group exercises.
1) Tori stand in the middle of the mat, eyes closed. One of the rest of us comes up to him, grabs either the shoulder, the collar or the wrist. Tori's task is to make a shomen-ate strike, very gently, on uke without opening his eyes. I didn't do very well.
2) Tori stand in the middle of the mat, eyes closed. One of the rest of us comes up to his back with evil intent. Tori's job is to get out of the way of uke just in time to avoid the attack. Almost everyone was able to avoid my attacks. Whether because I came upon them with VERY evil intent, or my weight caused the mat to sink under them more, I don't know.
Aftermath: Still protecting to sore on the left hand. Also a sore muscle in the middle of my back, left side (spinalis dorsi?).
tag : Aikido
Attendees: Keith, Oliver, Sheila and Kim. Keith was running the newly rejuvenated Judo program, so I was running aikido.
Ukemi: Me trying to figure out what other folks are doing wrong with ukemi is a scary thought.
The Walk: Ran through it a couple of times.
Releases: Kim and Sheila worked together. Oliver eventually came over from the Judo side of the mat and worked with Kim on releases while I worked with Sheila.
Techniques: Oliver worked with Kim while I worked with Sheila. We worked on 1, 2 and 5. The height difference is big enough that I did not think I would be a efficient teaching partner for Sheila on 3 and 4. I don't know if Oliver went beyond Shomen-ate with Kim or not.
Aftermath: One muscle in the back is aching, probably from working the convention last weekend. Left foot is slowly getting better.
tag : Aikido
As Kim and I were getting ready to leave the house last night, Kim
spotted one of our local Red-shoulder hawks sitting on our chain link
fence. I rushed to a window in time to see the hawk fly from his perch
to land at the edge of our garden about 15 feet from us.
He looked around in the g/a/r/d/e/n/ weed patch for a minute or so and
then flew off. It appeared he was unsuccessful in his hunt for food.
It sure was neat seeing the eyes of a hawk pop up between random gaps in the weeds. I had no time to get the camera, unfortunately.
I think it was probably a youngster from this year's crop as his head
feathers were not a uniform as an adult's usually are.
tag : Gardening ::: Wildlife
Attendees: Tim, John, Keith, Stanley, Oliver, Stacia and Sheila.
Ukemi: Not bad. Comments from Stanley about twisting.
Releases: Worked with Stanley.
Techniques: Round robin with Keith and Stanley on 6-9. Not pleased that I haven't corrected the footwork for 8 and 9.
Aftermath: Muscle in the left middle back is giving me a little grief. Perhaps from the big fall on Monday? Bandaged up the left hand to protect the injury caused by pegboards at Armadillocon.
tag : Aikido
This week we won 0 out of 3 against "Cogito Ergo Boom", a team that had one only 3 games prior to our match. Once again, we had a different cast of players. We played decently. We won 8 straight points on my serve in the second game.
The games were close, but we should have won them all. We're having Robert set all of the time and I think that's a problem. In our co-ed league, the ladies have to hit it once if we hit it more than once before we send it over. Having a guy set it means there's a 50/50 chance of him being able to set to a guy. If a lady is setting, there's a 100% chance that she can set it to a guy.
We're in next-to-last place. Mathematically, I think would could possibly make the playoffs if we win the rest of our games.
tag : Volleyball
create your own visited countries map
or vertaling Duits Nederlands
US, Canada, Mexico, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic, Poland and Australia
Attendees: Randy, John, Keith, Oliver, Sheila and Stacia.
Ukemi: Pretty good considering I'd been thinking about Art Show all weekend.
The Walk: ok.
Releases: With John. Did some more tweaking, as usual.
Techniques: With John. Did some work on #11 ( new one for me ) Kote Hineri. It's the same as Oshi Taoshi, only different. :) The main difference is the addition of a wrist bend of uke's hand. Also did some work on Oshi Taoshi as a result.
I uke'd for Keith on some of his stuff, mainly Kote Gaeshi. This is usually a big fall , but since I haven't done big falls Keith was going to have me do roll-outs instead. We worked a lot on him getting me off-balance. Lots of tweaking going on. Then he got it just right. And forgot to let me roll out. So I took my first big fall. A nice, solid, relatively pain-free big fall. We stopped at that point in case it happened again.
Aftermath: Skin burn on my left hand from moving pegboard over the weekend caused a few issues during the session. I hope it's healed to the pain-free stage by Wednesday.
tag : Aikido
Going home.
First task of the day was to get packed up. It looked like I had all of the Art Show and all of my own stuff in my hotel room. And I did.
I need to get all of the packages of mail-in art to the various shippers before getting on the road to Houston. I had to visit USPS, UPS and FedEx to complete that task. It actually did not take that long to accomplish. Maybe an hour or so.
I was on the road home by 11 am and made it home a little before 2 pm. I grabbed the heat-sensitive items out of the truck and then collapsed into bed for a couple of hours of shut-eye.
I needed to be ready for aikido later that evening.
We totaled about $3400 in total sales in the Art Show for the weekend. That's down a little bit from past years, but the convention had reduced attendance because we're hosting WFC later this year and a number of folks could not hit both conventions. Also, our Artist GOH had to cancel at the last minute so we lost the sales we would have made from her art.
tag : Convention :: Travel :: Aikido
Checkout and Tear down.
Sunday morning was when everyone came to pay for and pick up their purchases. A busy couple of hours dealing with the public.
We started tearing down the show at around 2, after all of the artists had picked up their unsold works and Laura had packed up the stuff for the mailin artists.
We managed to get the steel and pegboard taken down, packed up and stowed away in the storage unit by 5:15. That enabled us to get back to the hotel in time to caravan to the County Line for a BBQ dinner. Good stuff.
Got back to the hotel and it was time to reconcile the books. They balanced on the first try!
To celebrate, I went up to the dead dog party and had a few beers. I got to talk some more with Julie Czerneda and kibbitzed a little with Willie Siros before turning into a pumpkin.
tag : Convention :: Travel
More time at the Art Show.
Also during the day was the Charity Auction. Laura D. was willing to be my proxy for the auction since one of us had to stay in the Art Show. I wanted the three books that Julie Czerneda had donated for the auction. "Survival", "Migration" and "Regeneration". The copy of "Regeneration" included two alternate endings. I gave her what seemed like appropriate budgets for the books. I won the first two in the series, but did not win the third. I did win a "Tuckerization" in an Elizabeth Moon novel, though. Laura dashed out during the auction and grabbed me when said item came up for auction. She satyed in the show while I went in and won the bidding.
When the auction was over, the bidder who won the third book came up to me and offered to sell it to me for $40 more than he paid. If I'd been quick on my feet I'd've agreed to the offer, if he donated the extra to the charity. Instead I just declined.
Shortly thereafter we closed the Art Show in order to prep for the Art Auction. We actually had one this year and had 10 items in it. The last minute bidding before the auction was quite lively. The bidding in the auction was lively as well. Once piece started at $15 and made it up to $66 before it was sold.
Some checkout of items occurred after the auction, but traffic died down and I was able to close the show at 9:30 instead of staying open until 10:00.
tag : Convention :: Travel
Time to turn steel and pegboard into an Art Show.
I got into the Art Show around 9:30am and started working on laying out the art and arranging it on the peg board. Grant Kruger (Fan Guest of Honor) was kind enough to help me in this task. I was done, mostly, by the time I was due to open the show. Laura Domitz helped with final tweaking and layout of 3-D art and with displaying a piece rightside up that I'd hung upside down.
Shut down the show at 6 for some dinner at Fuddrucker's and opened it back up at 8. I re-opened so that folks could come in while the liquor was flowing during "Meet the Pros" and bid on the art.
tag : Convention :: Travel
Day 1: pre-con
Up at 5am for final packing and departure. Out of the house a little after 6am. I make it to the turnoff that leads to Taylor and finally decide that the kolaches in Taylor are worth the 34 mile detour. When I get there they still have poppyseed kolaches available. w00t!
Back on the road again into Austin. Whip out the GPS and spot a geocache I want to find. Spend the next 1.5 hours or so searching for caches. I find most of the ones I look for, but not all of them.
Next stop: Aikido of Austin at 5501 N. Lamar. I sat and watched their mid-day practice. They are quite a bit different from my dojo. They have a mat about double, or more, of the size of ours but it looks a lot less pleasant to fall on. They all practice the same technique at the same time. One tori and everyone else ukes for said tori. No warm-up ukemi. Nice folks.
Next: drive down to Driftwood to have lunch at Salt Lick BBQ. Mainly for their legendary beef ribs. It took me a while to find them and it ended up not being worth the effort. The brisket was dry and they only offer beef ribs on Sundays. Bummer. The potato salad was good. The BBQ sauce was ok, honey-based instead of tomato-based. I video-taped the drive back to Austin and hope to get it uploaded soon.
Back to the convention hotel, check in and go chill in the lobby. Chatting with Julia, Renee and Elizabeth for a spell. Julie Czerneda came walking in and I was introduced to her. Such a sweet lady. Shortly thereafter we headed off to Los Portales for dinner, then back to the hotel to assemble the Art Show. We finished that around 11 pm and I collapsed into bed shortly thereafter.
tag : Convention :: Travel :: Geocaching :: Aikido
I'm running the Art Show at Armadillocon this coming weekend.
Unfortunately, the Artist Guest of Honor is having health issues and will not be able to attend. I don't think she's had an opportunity to send in her art, either. I've also set aside space for an artist who has reserved space for the past three years but not sent in her art during that time span. I don't expect she'll send in her art this year, either.
That'll be 9 panels of empty space that I have to fill if it all works out as I expect it to.
Grrr.
At least the art that is in the show will be good.
This week we won 0 out of 3 against "Way Out", the team that was in last place. Once again, we had a different cast of players. It is my opinion that it takes 3 weeks of playing with the same group to play up to your potential. We haven't had the same cast for 2 consecutive weeks.
The games were close, but we should have won them all.
There's the chance we may not be in last place when the standings are updated.
tag : Volleyball
Attendees: Randy, Keith, and Stanley.
Ukemi: Not bad. Some adjustments to hand position. I need to come out sometime and just do ukemi.
The Walk: Once with eyes open, once with eyes closed.
Releases: With Randy. He thought I was doing well. I really prefer the free form approach to releases that he and I have been doing. Makes my mind quickly figure out which release is next.
Techniques: We had a round robin for techniques. One of Robert, Keith or I would be Tori and the other 2. We did this for 1-3. We did a little work with an elbow throw and then moved on to "Uke Surprise". This is what I'm calling the scenario where tori is told the technique to attempt but uke does not know what is coming.
What was I told to try? Oshi Taoshi #6, Hiki Taoshi #8, Waki Gatame #10, Gyakugamea-ate #3, Ushiro-ate #5.
I did the eye flash wrong on #8 and I failed horribly on my first Oshi Taoshi. Other than that, I think I did fairly well.
Aftermath: None. Hoping to watch another dojo's practice when I go to Austin this weekend.
tag : Aikido
At least that's what I think I've got. I'm not certain what type,
though, cause I never felt it and it doesn't hurt. There are two little
puncture spots maybe less than 1/8" apart.
I've been watching it because there is some bruising about 1" diameter
around the spot.
Another guy who takes aikido with me got spider bit on Monday and his
bite rapidly expanded and changed colors. He went to either a doctor or
the emergency room where they gave him some sort of pill that seemed to
have an immediate beneficial effect, perhaps steroids.
My theory is we both got bitten by a brown recluse, but it will likely
remain a mystery.
Attendees: Oliver and a friend thinking about joining us. Eek! I was Sempai and led most of the evening. Sensei Ray did chime in a little bit. I took Wednesday off to rest the right shoulder.
Ukemi: Did a little, collapsing the arm according to Sensei.
My task was to introduce Oliver's friend (I'll call her OF since I didn't catch/remember her name) to aikido. We did the usual backfall warm-up, but skipped forward rolls.
The Walk: Ran through it a couple of times, having OF just follow the foot movements.
Releases: Oliver and I worked with OF on 1, 2, 3 and 5. She did pretty well for her first night.
Techniques: Oliver and I worked with OF on Shmoen-ate. Again, she did well.
Aftermath: Right shoulder a little twinged still. A very light evening. I hope OF decides to join our merry little band of aikidokas. Another person to be thrown by is all good.
tag : Aikido
This week we won 0 out of 3 against the Fandango, the team that usually wins the league. I was warmed up, due to aikido, and a little tired, but not as tired as last week.
We played well, just not well enough to win.
tag : Volleyball
Attendees: Ray, Keith, and Robert.
Ukemi: Showed up early and spent some time working on it. Pinged my right shoulder on pop-up rolls. Supposedly I'm twisting and tending to collapse. Sigh.
The Walk: No walk.
Releases: No releases.
Techniques: Worked with everyone on #8 Hiki Taoshi and #9 Ude Hineri. With Sensei Raymond out on the mat for the first time in a long time (His doctor has cleared him to get on the mat in an official capacity), we discovered a tweak in Hiki Taoshi that makes uke fall a lot quicker (1 step as opposed to 3 or 4).
The change:
We've been doing the technique as a 3 part technique: Off-balance, turn, eye-flash/step back/pressure down.
Raymond suggested the following for a 4 step technique: off-balance, turn, eye flash/pull back appropriate foot, apply pressure to elbow/pressure down.
The adjustment of the foot that corresponds to the eye-flashing hand is an amazingly effective change. It gets that knee out of uke's way and forces uke to rebound a little bit more intensely from the eye-flash. That makes the off-balance achieved when the hand hits the elbow and the opposite foot drops back devastating. Tori makes that step and uke drops. It was that drastic of a change in result.
Since Ude Hineri has the same entry, the change works just as well for it.
Aftermath: Had to leave early to get to a volleyball match. Right shoulder slightly pinged. I don't know if I'll go to the dojo tonight (Wednesday) or give it a night off.
tag : Aikido
Attendees: Randy, John, Keith, Robert and Stacia.
Ukemi: Pretty sweet. My first 3 right side rolls were attempts to pop up and they worked. I tweaked my right shoulder blade doing it, so it wasn't perfect. But it happened. Tried doing some cross-legged rolls and was not nearly as successful. Got some suggestions from John.
The Walk: ok.
Releases: With Randy. With a 3 step approach I was working well. Maybe I'll try that with Oliver. We did some variations on the releases, working on my off-balances, whiel they other folks were finishing up their releases.
Techniques: We had a 3 or 4 person round robin for techniques. One of Robert, Keith or I would be Tori and the other 2 and sometimes Randy would uke.
Oshi Taoshi, technique #6
Ude Gaeshi, technique #7
Ude Hineri, technique #8
Hiki Taoshi, technique #9 (I have this listed as #8 in an earlier post. Oops.)
Waki Gatame, technique #10
All of these at three-step distance. Went fairly well. My #8 and #9, since they're so closely related, need a lot of work. I'm letting uke back on balance after the entry and using muscle to generate the fall.
I uke'd for Mae-Otoshi to give them a tall person to deal with and it was a bit of a struggle for both Keith and Robert. Sensei came in to give them tips.
Aftermath: Slight twinge on the shoulder, nothing major.
tag : Aikido
Attendees: Tim, Randy, John, Keith, Martin, Robert, Oliver and Jeff and Gail from Killeen.
Jeff and Gail run a dojo in Killeen. They are joining the ATAA to be able to get some higher level instruction. Jeff is a newly minted Shodan and Sensei for the dojo in the Killeen/Fort Hood area.
He and Gail are going to come down one weekend a month and two folks from our dojo will go up there one weekend a month.
So we had a big turnout to make certain Jeff had a number of folks to work with.
Ukemi: Not bad. Nothing of note that I can remember.
Walk: Three times through.
Releases: Worked with Oliver. Better than Thursday.
Techniques: Worked with Keith on 6-10. Then worked with Oliver on my 6-10 (minus #9 as I did not want to be causing the rollout of a white belt, even if his ukemi is better than mine). Then uke'd for Oliver on 1-5.
Sensei'd called out for pizza, so we broke, in a ragged fashion, for lunch and then got back on the mat.
I did more uke for Oliver. Just before we shut down the session around 2pm, I uke'd some for Keith on one of his big 10. As usual, my height requires adjustment of the usual off-balances.
Aftermath: Not much
tag : Aikido
Attendees: Raj, John, Robert, Stasha, Oliver and Kim. Another big night.
Ukemi: Did ok.
The Walk: ok.
Releases: Worked with Oliver. I got frustrated all out of scale with my releases tonight. Some minor physical ailments were a contributing factor in my bad attitude. Almost a complete mental meltdown, though. Sigh.
Techniques: Worked with Oliver. Got through the first five as uke and tori. Much better mental attitude for the techniques for some reason.
Aftermath: Annoyed at myself. Substantially.
tag : Aikido
This week we won 0 out of 3 against the Slamjammers, a team that's been around as long as we have. I was warmed up, due to aikido, but a little tired.
We lost the third game 17-15. The others were not as close. My serving was not great.
I was dead sore afterwards from the aikido and volleyball. Ibuprofen was taken to try to alleviate some of the soreness.
tag : Volleyball
Attendees: John, Keith, Robert, Stasha, and Sheila. Another good crowd on an off night.
Ukemi: Showed up early and spent some time working on it. After bow in, I did some more. Robert had me do some "lead-out" falls. They actually went ok.
The Walk: ok. Had to do the counting on one of our repetitions.
Releases: Round robin with Robert and Keith.
Techniques: Worked with John on #8 Hiki Taoshi, #9 Ude Hineri, #10 Waki Gatame. They went ok.
Aftermath: Had to leave early to get to a volleyball match.
tag : Aikido
Attendees: Randy and Robert.
Ukemi: Was ok.
The Walk: ok.
Worked on releases, some Ni Kata and some Junana Hon Kata.
Oshi Taoshi, technique #6
Ude Gaeshi, technique #7
Hiki Taoshi, technique #8
All of these at three-step distance. Lots of brain freezes du eto the additional steps in the appsoach. Did okay until the very end. I was uke for Robert and took a fall on my right knee, also getting a mat burn on the toes of my right foot in the process. We have a fair amount of give to our mat, but it still had an impact.
Aftermath: A fair amount of pain in the knee. Two ibuprofen and an ice pack before bed.
tag : Aikido
We spent a little time at the show today wandering around, shopping and watching the Herding Group conformation judging. "Harry Potter", the Cardigan Corgi did not place in the top 4.
We also attempted to get an ILP for Jack, so that he could compete in AKC agility trials, but they, essentially, laughed us out of the building.
Still. A fun afternoon. We got to see some good looking dogs.
Jack seemed to have fun and folks wanted to pet him. He didn't enjoy it when we took him into the flyball area: too much barking. He also had fun running on the cement floor; he had very little traction. At one point Kim had walked him away from me and then told him to go get me. He charged across the floor and, about 15 feet away from me he stopped running and just slid the rest of the way to me. He was very conscious of all of the members our troupe. He was constantly trying to make certain we were all still with him. There were so many legs and paws at his eye level that he was worried he'd misplace one of us.
It only cost us the $8 parking fee to get into Reliant Park. It was late enough in the day that they weren't charging to get into the show.
tag : Agility
Attendees: Tim, Randy, Raj, John, Robert, Keith and Kim.
We spent some time watching and seeing if there was going to be any space on the mat for us. Since it's supposed to be for black belts, we don't feel right taking up space on a night when they need it. Sensei Raymond told us to go ahead.
So. We worked on slaps and rolls and then went on to the walk.
After the walk we worked on Kim's Shomen-ate. She made great strides and managed to throw me a couple of times by the end of the evening.
Spent a little time jump starting a car outside of the dojo.
Then we did some work on back breakfalls, ukemi rolls, and the Walk. Kim got a lot of input on the rolls and we spent a good amount of time on the Walk.
Aftermath: Dinner at the Fox and Hound with Sensei Raymond, John and Raj.
tag : Aikido
Attendees: Raj, John, Keith, Robert, Stasha, Sheila, Oliver and Kim. My word! 9 folks on the mat. That's the most I've seen for a "regular" night of aikido. And Thursdays aren't actually scheduled nights for aikido
Ukemi: Left side was a little off again tonight. Didn't get to spend a lot of time working on it.
The Walk: ok.
Releases: Worked with Oliver. I have a very hard time being tori with Oliver. I don't know why.
Techniques: Worked with Oliver. I went through my first five to brush up on them and then worked with Oliver on 1 through 3. He's making good progress.
Aftermath: Not much of anything.
tag : Aikido
Attendees: Tim, Keith, Robert, Stanley, and Oliver.
Ukemi: Left side was a little off, didn't get enough time to work on it. Tim wanted me to start working on side rolls and implied that I should work on "reverse" rolls. I'm way behind where a green belt should be, as far as I'm concerned.
Releases: Worked with Tim. He was really working with me on timing and hand position.
After the general release work, we worked on turning releases 1-4 into Oshi Taoshi. We also spent a large amount of time "attacking" Oliver, making him make quick decisions about how to deal with us. He was greatly improved by the end of the 20 minute session. He even found a technique that he likes to use on me, and he's successful with it.
Aftermath: Disappointed in ukemi. Pleased that my green belt actually arrived. Finally, some color on the mat! :D
tag : Aikido
Huh. I thought I'd posted last weeks results. Apparently not.
Ok. Last week we won 2 out of 3 games against the Shockers, a team of NASA Co-ops.
This week we won 2 out of 3 against the Lab Rats. They only had 4 players and we had 5 or 6, depending on which game you're talking about. One of our ladies wasn't feeling up to snuff, so she bowed out in the middle of the second game.
I burst a blood vessel on my serving/spiking hand at some point in the third game. It was a little swollen and is now starting to bruise up. It should be quite beautiful in a couple of days.
tag : Volleyball
Attendees: Keith, Stanley, Robert, and Sheila.
Ukemi: Working well this evening. Twisting on the left side.
The Walk: ok.
Got a late start waiting for Randy to show up, then we remembered he wasn't going to be there, so Keith was in charge.
Worked with Stanley on the releases.
Worked with Robert on Hiki Taoshi, technique #8. He and Keith were amazed at the progress I made on it in just one evening. After tore-ing for a while, I uke'd for Robert on the same technique. It took a while, but he adjusted to my height. We then tried Ushiro-ate a couple of times. For the same reason: adjust to the massive height differential.
Aftermath: Lawdy, it's hot! It was probably 85 degrees and 85% humidity when I walked out of hte dojo at 9:30 pm. Other than that, just a slight tingling in the left arm. Still waiting for the green belt to arrive.
tag : Aikido
 | You scored as 0 - The Fool. The Fool is the most complex and most contradictory of all the Tarot cards. "I am not a number, I am a free man". The Fool represents naivety and childlike innocence - yet the Fool is wise. He carries only what possessions he really needs He journeys through life, tasting everything it has to offer then letting it go and moving on. The Fool is a risk taker, often shown with one foot over a cliff showing us every new beginning has a risk. Whether the Fool represents opportunity or danger one thing is clear: this world needs more fools. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Attendees: Keith, Sheila, Oliver and Kim.
Ukemi: Left side was a little off again tonight. We spent about 30 minutes just rolling around. That gave Sheila and Kim a long time to work on it. Sensei Raymond tweaked my ukemi a bit. I spent a lot of time on the left side and I've got some stuff to remember
Releases: Worked with Kim. She made great strides.
Techniques: Worked with Oliver on his Shomen-ate. He uke'd for me on Oshi-taoshi and Ude-gaeshi. We alternate back and forth. I'd uke a right side and two left side shomens and he'd uke 1 left and one right Oshi.
Aftermath: A little twinge in the left shoulder from so much work on ukemi.
tag : Aikido
Attendees: Tim, John, Keith, Robert, and Oliver.
Ukemi: Left side was a little off. But pretty good otherwise
Releases: Worked with Keith. Always an educational time.
Bhakwas: Spent most of the evening working with Keith. We went ran through 1, 2a, 2b, 3, 4a, 4b, 5, 6, 7 and 8. Brain fries as I try to remember the entry.
Aftermath: No problems. Nice, sweaty workout.
tag : Aikido
Attendees: Randy, Keith, Robert, and Oliver.
Ukemi: Working well this evening. Did one attempt at rolling up from ukemi. Not bad for a first attempt.
The Walk: ok.
Worked with Oliver quite a bit. I uke'd for his Shomen-ate. He uke'd for my Oshi Taoshi. He's really close on the Shomen, I'm not certain what he needs to tweak to start getting the throws. I did ok on the Oshi. Also did a little work on ude gaeshi.
We then spent some time on, I think, Ni Kata. A number of these involve collar grabs. There's a "heaven and earth" throw that I like and I roll-out throw with which I was pleased. Taking the ukemi successfully, that is. On the right side. Didn't do left side.
Aftermath: Keith said he had someone apply the technique to him that tweaked my shoulder. He noted pain. So, it's not just me. you have to be careful with the technique. Shoulder's still a little iffy. Other than that, just sweat. A vigorous workout with Oliver.
tag : Aikido
Attendees: Sensei Yoji, Ray, Tim, Carla, Mike, Martin, Raj, Stanley, Robert and two folks who drove in from Killeen.
Before the seminar started, I asked Sensei Yoji to sign the copies of his books that I'd brought with me. I hope to get to read them soon.
We spent the first part of the morning with a brief history of aikido from Sensei Yoji. I don't remember what we covered before lunch. I'll have to look at the video.
We broke for lunch. We ordered pizza to be delivered and watched some video of Kenji Tomiki working over and uke. It also included some video from his dojo with lartge numbers of students working continuously in close quarters. It looked like quite a workout.
After lunch we worked through the Junana Hon Kata, finding variations of various techniques. Sensei Yoji would demonstrate the variations on two techniques and we would break off and work on them. We may have started this in the morning session, I don't recall. I know we made it up to Waki Gatame, as that was the last one I felt comfortable working on.
Martin and I spent a good amount of time working with each other. I worked with Robert, Tim, Raj, Stanley, and Robert as well.
Around 4:00, it became apparent that we were worn out, as activity on the mat was quit lethargic. Mate was called and we broke to freshen up for dinner.
At dinner I presented Sensi Yoji with a copy of the book I edited and he invited me to sit down with him and chat. I did so until local friends that he hadn't seen in a while arrived. During our conversation I discovered that he was a neighbor of mine when I was growing up. It turns out he lived about 8 houses down the street from me from 1968 until 1978. I don't remember him, but I'm sure I saw him. One of my other neighbors at the time was heavily into judo. I need to ask him if he remembers Yoji.
He came up to me later during dinner and handed me his business card. He encouraged me to submit my writings to the "Writers' of the Future" contest. He's a judge for it at the moment and recommends it as being a lucrative contest. The business card got destroyed in the wash.
tag : Aikido
Attendees: Tim, Randy, Martin (a black belt from Colorado in town for the seminar), and Kim.
Spent a little time jump starting a car outside of the dojo.
Then we did some work on back breakfalls, ukemi rolls, and the Walk. Kim got a lot of input on the rolls and we spent a good amount of time on the Walk.
Aftermath: Mexican food for dinner with Sensei Raymond and Martin.
tag : Aikido
Took the night off to give my shoulder a chance to recover. I want to be able to profit from this weekend's seminar. I'll go whether the shoulder's ready or not. If nothing else, I'll man a camera.
Went to a digital photography presentation at the library instead. Got to sit with my darling spouse since she was running the event.
Aftermath: Still tingling fingers. Slightly better big toe.
tag : Aikido
Attendees: Keith, Robert, and Oliver.
Ukemi: Kind of off. My body is twisting as it's falling. I need to correct it. Did a fair amount of ukemi, had a couple of rough landings and stopped.
The Walk: ok.
Releases: With Robert. More fine tuning.
Robert started to teach me techniques 6 and 7 (Oshi-taoshi and Ude-gaeshi). Worked through it bit by bit and had some success. My big toe is bothering me for the right side technique: I can't get the kata form of the arm bar at the moment. Maybe next week.
Worked with Oliver a little on his Gyakugamea-ate and came up with a good way for shorter folks to accomplish that throw on me: off-balance, a *really* good eyeflahs and then use the collar of my gi to complete the throw. It worked quite well.
We alternated Gyakugamea-ate for him and then Oshi-taoshi for me. Back and forth, left then right.
Keith did a little more demonstrating and on one of the demonstrations he caught my shoulder in a position that caused me to cuss out loud. That caused my fingers to lose feeling. After stretching and attempting to clear the feeling it was still there so I bowed out.
Still. 3 hours of aikido today. A nice, long session. Twice as long as normal. We'll have to see how the arm is tomorrow for class.
Aftermath: Sore toe, tingling fingers, sore shoulder, sore body. Time for Naproxen Sodium.
tag : Aikido
Attendees: Randy, Keith, Robert, and Oliver.
Ukemi: Kind of off. Bad Phase of the moon.
The Walk: ok.
I don't remember much of the evening. Mainly because I went to the dojo today, the 4th, before recording my thoughts.
We did do some techniques that Mike demonstrated on Saturday. including a "heaven and earth" throw that I particularly like. I wasn't being a very good uke for Oliver on that so, after we bowed out, I did a few more attacks for him after figuring out what I was doing wrong.
Aftermath: Nothing of note.
tag : Aikido
Drove to Austin and back on Saturday for conventions I'm helping run (Armadillocon and World Fantasy)
Left at the crack of dawn as it was a different place than I've been before and ended up getting there 2.5 hours early. With lots of time to kill, I stopped by Woodcraft and then drove to Taylor for some good kolaches. They were, unfortunately, out of poppyseed.
Ended up getting lost from Taylor to Pflugerville, but I found the meeting place just before the meetings started.
Meetings happened and then I headed back. In rained the entire way. Got back quickly, all things considered, and joined Kim and friends for Mexican food.
tag : Travel ::: Conventions
Attendees: Tim, Randy, Keith, Robert, and Kim.
At spouse's suggestion, we went to the dojo for a little one-on-one instruction. normally Friday night is for black belts and above, but if you bring your own uke you're welcome on the mat.
So, we did some work on back breakfalls, the Walk and the first release. We'd occasionally get some input from one of the other guys, but it was mainly me teaching Kim. Now that's a scary thought. A newly-minted green belt teaching his wife. I'm certainly learning things as we go along.
Aftermath: Big toe's still achy. And then Mexican food for dinner!
tag : Aikido
Attendees: Raj, Keith, Robert, Sheila, Oliver and Kim (my lovely and talented spouse).
Ukemi: Left side was a little off again tonight.
Releases: Worked with Sheila. The vast, and I do mean vast, height differential (she's 5'0" and I'm 6'5") made this an interesting experiment. A lot of things have to be tweaked for the differences.
Techniques: Spent some of the time introducing my wife to the footwork for Shomen-ate. Fraught with dangerous possibilites.
Spent the rest of the time ukeing for Oliver on Shomen-ate. He showed marked improvement by the end of the evening and managed to throw me 3 times on the right side. We spent less time on the left side, but that's per usual. He's trying overcome TKD training and the footwork associated therewith.
Aftermath: I forgot about the big toe drag I had on a Shomen-ate on Wednesday. It really wrenched the toe. Walking without the support of a shoe adds a little pain to my life. On the mat it was ok, thankfully. Also discovered 3 bruises on my forearms. More than likely they are the result of Ushiro-ate work on Wednesday. Nothing else is likely to cause them.
Kim's aching all over apparently.
tag : Aikido
Attendees: Randy, John, Raj, Keith, Robert, Stanley, and Oliver. A big crowd.
Ukemi: Not too bad
Releases: Worked with Stanley and Keith. Full sets with both.
John came into the dojo and asked, before the session started, if I was testing for green belt. I told him: "Not to my knowledge." My knowledge was faulty.
They wanted me to demonstrate for my green belt. Ack!
I spent most of the evening going through the 5 techniques with Keith, who was to be my uke for the demonstration. We must have gone through all of them 10 times each. Keith's main suggestion was to get the first off-balance, and it helped. My Gyakugamea-ate was pretty awful, I hope I wasn't killing Keith. I was getting some nice elevation of uke on Agamai-ate, so my timing was on.
I did a dress rehearsal, then they gave me 15 minutes to work on anything I needed to, so I spent the time on Gyakugamea-ate and Agamai-ate. Then Keith had me go through all 5 a couple more times.
The demonstration. I had to demonstrate the Walk, the 8 releases, and the first 5 techniques. I got through the walk okay, thanks to Keith joining me in the demonstration. My mind was blown, so I needed a little help.
The releases went ok. I mucked up one, but did not improperly react and subsequently successfully executed what I was supposed to do.
After I was done, the black belts got together and talked for a long, long time. at least it seemed that way to me. They eventually bestowed the rank of Yonkyu upon me. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to wait for the belt as the dojo did not have one in my size.
Aftermath: Tired and sweaty, but happy.
tag : Aikido
Spent the weekend in Estes Park, Colorado celebrating Kim's parents' 50th wedding anniversary. The folks at the "Y" wanted to throw a little party for them, so we flew up and joined in the festivities.
MIL is still a little under the weather, so she and FIL were not able to join us for as many activities as they would have liked.
We flew into Denver Friday afternoon, grabbed a rental car and drove into the mountains. They were gorgeous, as always. We visited with MIL and then grabbed dinner at Sweet Basilico Cafe, a great Italian joint in town.
Saturday morning, we went geocaching around the area and found 8 caches. We tried a couple more but didn't realize they were disabled until we'd driven to the general area.
Saturday evening was dinner at Orlando's. My steak was good, the lobster was not terribly impressive. I've got to stick to my usual prohibition of eating seafood too far from the coast.
Sunday noon was brunch at the Pine Room on the "Y" grounds. Quite nice.
A relaxing afternoon, and then the party at one of the lodges on the "Y" grounds. 60-some-odd folks signed in, so we think around 80 or 90 folks were actually there. Cake, ice cream, etc. were served. Tons were left over.
Monday morning: packing and visiting with the folks.
Monday afternoon: drive to the airport.
I had a nice, pleasant encounter with TSA while going through security. I was in my minimal traveling set up: shorts, t-shirt, and Teva sandals. I had no keys on me. No wallet. No coins. Just driver's license and boarding pass. My carry-on luggage was a computer and passed through the scanner just fine.
The lady directing folks through the scanners recommended that I take off my shoes. Having gone through the scanners in Houston in the same getup with no problems, I said "no." She told me to walk through the scanner, and no beep occurred. She then directed me to the wanding prison and called for someone to "wand" me.
Kim heard the guy, as he was walking over to me, state: "I'll make him take off his shoes" in a rather aggressive tone of voice.
He came over to the prison, escorted me out and told me to sit down in one of the handy-dandy chairs. He then told me to take off my shoes. When I did, he handed them off to one of his flunkies to run them through x-ray. After handing over my shoes, he instructed me to lift both of my feet so he could see the soles. Next came the standing wand session. He ran the wand over me a couple of times, getting nary a blip on the wand. He looked disappointed.
My shoes were returned to me and I was allowed to put them back on. I should have grabbed the guys name and badge number, but I didn't think of that until later.
What I thought of to do for future travel is to write, on the bottom of my feet, "Hey Sexy" just in case it happens again.
At times during the weekend, I felt like an aikidoka: we kept driving around in circles. (aikido humor)
tag : Travel ::: Aikido
This is just too cool!
We're going to have Yoji Kondo at our dojo for a seminar on July 8. The seminar will run from 9am until 5pm, if not later. The cost is $50. He will be discussing the relationship between judo and aikido, among other things. It will not be a discussion only seminar, so bring your gi.
We hope to videotape the seminar, or at least portions of it, but I don't know if we have Sensei Kondo's permission yet.
Not only is Sensei Kondo an aikidoka, but he's also an astrophysicist and a science fiction author. An amazing triad of interests that parallel mine fairly well.
Sensei Kondo was the translator for Karl Geis when he was communicating with Kenji Tomiki while setting up Fugakukai Aikido in Houston. He was also an instructor in my hometown in the 70's, so this area is not unfamiliar to him. He was actually employed by JSC for a number of years. There is the chance that he worked with/knew my father.
He also taught judo with a man named David Drake. I'm not certain that it's the same D. Drake who is a science fiction author, but I'm going to look into it.
If you want more information on this, drop me a line. The short notice could not be helped.
tag : Aikido
Attendees: Tim, Keith, Robert, Stanley, and Oliver (a friend of Keith's that has decided to take up the art).
Ukemi: Left side was a little off.
Releases: Worked with Stanley. He gave some good suggestions: need to get down lower on 5 and 7.
Techniques: Spent most of the evening working with Stanley. We went throught the first 5 twice each on both sides.
I spent a good portion of the night as uke for folks attempting a shomen-ate. With my height, the safe off-balances are different. The approach to use is to take control of my arm at the elbow instead of the wrist. This allows tori to actually get an off-balance and be able to throw me quickly. The throw happens fairly quickly with this approach.
Robert threw me on his second attempt with this approach.
I was improperly prepared for a couple of the falls I took, but I managed to make it through the evening without too much damage. I probably uke'd for 30 or more attempts at shomen-ate.
Aftermath: A little head snap on a couple of falls, so I took some naproxen when I got home. No real problems, just some overall aches that are related to not stretching enough before volleyball on Tuesday.
tag : Aikido
Another volleyball season has come and gone. It was a disaster results-wise, but still a fun season. 6-21, counting games and not matches.
Last night we lost 19-21, 16-21 and 14-16. So it was very close, especially considering that we were playing with 5 players and the other team had 6 and the other team was the first place team.
I don't know what it was, but my hits were fairly effective. I think I had 5 or 6 and most of those landed in front of the 10 foot line. I only hit one down the line, the rest of them were cross-court shots.
I dug a couple of hard hit spikes as well. My serving has not been good for a couple of seasons. I think it's because of a strained muscle in my forearm that never gets a good chance to heal.
Next season starts in a couple of weeks, I think.
tag : Volleyball
Attendees: Sensei Randy, Keith, and Stanley.
Another different night at the dojo.
Ukemi: left side was a little off, but not too bad.
We started with the Walk facing into the center of the mat. Then we did another cycle, facing 90 degrees to the right of the center.
The rest of the evening was spent in multiples: everyone against the man in the middle. I think I'll probably shorten that to MITM if we do it again.
The first cycle was defending against strikes and grabs. Mind-blowing stuff even when you know who's attacking next.
The second cycle added knives (rubber) into the mix. I always got cut. OR would have if they had been real knives.
The third cycle, I think, was more of a free-for-all style. Attackers attacked in no certain order, as soon as the previous attacker was engaged the next attacker could start his attack. Once I got a feel for it, I really liked using ushiro-ate when I could.
We ended the evening with some hand randori. I did not do well in that. Maybe showing lack of exposure, or maybe brain fry from the rest of the evening.
Aftermath: Sweat. Lots of it.
tags : Aikido
Kim was off at work on Saturday, so I spent some of the day on hurricane preparations. Cutting 1/2" plywood for all but our two biggest windows. The approach I use for window prep is to use Plylox clips. I know the guy who invented them, I worked on their web site, and even did a presentation at a local city council meeting for them about 10 years ago. So, I'm not unbiased.
Anyway, I had to cut the plywood to size for the windows. The instructions say to cut 1/4" shorter than the dimension of the opening, but for my windows it had to be 1" shorter. My windows aren't set into the brick far enough. A lot of my windows are the same size, so I was able to stack playwood sheets and cut out multiple windows at the same time.
After the plywood, and with the plywood scraps from the work, I started working on a dog house for our "boys".
The odds of them using it when it's complete? 10:1 against. If they don't use it, the cat probably will.
I've got all but the roof done and I've got to figure out how I want to put that together. This was an off-the-cuff, design it as you go project. And there are no *major* flaws so far.
Sunday was a day for turning some bottle stoppers on the lathe. I managed to get 5 done in about 2 and 1/2 hours. I'm happy with most of them, the one in blood wood turned out nicely. I do need to sharpen my small gouge, but that means firing up the Tormek and it's under a couple of layers of stuff at the moment.
Oh, I also had to clean up a dead rat that was starting to ferment in the garage. Ugh. The trashmen took it away today, I hope.
tag : Woodworking ::: Home
Attendees: Tim, Randy, Keith, and Robert.
The spouse and I stopped by the dojo after running errands. The folks at the dojo have been trying to get me to get her to the dojo to start learning, so I brought her by to watch.
This was higher level class and we got there late, so she didn't get a good taste of what an actual class would be like. But, she's thinking about it. I'm going to try to get her to a semi-normal class next week before she commits so she knows what she's getting into a little better.
Dinner was at Durango's, our favorite Mexican joint. Mmmmmmm, margaritas!
tag : Aikido
Attendees: Tim, John, Keith, Robert, and Stanley. Sensei Raymond was there on the sidelines, a day before some surgery.
Ukemi: no major problems
Releases: Dang. Can't remember. That's what I get for waiting so long to post.
Techniques: Spent most of the evening working with Robert, most of the time as uke. Giving him a tall target to work on his techniques. I did some work on my five, with Robert telling me to work at my level. Tim was correcting my ending foot positions. I tend to not end in a "strong" position.
Aftermath: A little twinge in the left shoulder area, but that is a usual ailment and not related, too much, to aikido.
tag : Aikido
Attendees: Randy, Keith, and Robert.
Spent some time with Randy, working on releases.
We spent a good portion of the evening working on getting me ready for my demonstration - still no set date. Keith and Robert were uke for me to work on techniques 1 - 5. Keith was uke for left side and Robert for the right. Then they'd switch the side the uke'd for. I think I ran through each technique three times on each side. I had a little trouble dealing with Robert, as there is a large height difference between us. I had trouble with him on Gedan-ate and Agamai-ate.
I think we did it twice going from 1 to 5 and once going from 5 to 1.
We spent the last little bit of the session doing some hand randori. Trying to change my thinking from trying to spot techniques to trying to spot releases.
Aftermath: Nothing of note.
tags : Aikido
Attendees: a whole bunch of folks
This was the date of the dojo's semi-annual party (summer version). All dojo students were invited, along with local aikido experts and significant others.
I spent the morning, and most of the afternoon, smoking brisket and chicken. They turned out great. I wish I'd picked up a better quality brisket. It was kind of tough, but it tasted great! So did the chicken. No leftovers. Bummer.
We folded the mat over itself so that we had a large amount of floor space for chairs and tables, yet had room for kids to run and play on a nice, doubly-cushioned mat. Carla and Mike, from the recent seminar were there and they conducted some mini-sessions after everyone was sufficiently lubricated with alcohol.
Unfortunately (not really), the thing most folks wanted to see was how to deal with someone of my size. So, I was uke. Luckily, I was not subjected to falls I hadn't done in the past. Taking falls with a slight buzz (1 beer and 2 alcoholic ciders) was unusual.
Mike presented an interesting technique that I will attempt to describe.
Start to execute a shomen-ate. After the entry, when the off-hand is holding uke off-balance and the strong hand is rotating over to uke's face, move the strong hand under the uke's arm. Place your thumb just inside the elbow, catching the top of the arm with the thumb.
Now, pull your thumb to your center, while allowing your off-hand to move more toward your center, bringing uke's hand with you. As this continues, uke's arm will fold at the elbow and your strong hand will be in a position to catch uke's wrist. Your off-hand will be guiding uke's hand and keeping it in position until your strong hand can secure a hold.
I think this is an alternate entry into shihonage, but I'm not certain if that's the correct name for the technique or not.
Mike did it to me and my first thought was "Sweet!" It was just so cool. The alcohol may have been doing some talking, I don't know.
The party lasted for about 4 hours and a good time was had by all.
tag : Aikido ::: Cooking
Attendees: Tim, John, Keith, Robert, and Stanley.
Ukemi: did fairly well on both sides.
Releases: With Keith. He's always finding things to fix on my releases because there *are* always things to fix on my releases.
Techniques: Worked on stuff for my demonstration with Keith for a good portion of the session. Took a breather in the middle and uke'd for Keith. We worked through some approaches to dealing with a substantially taller person when you're tori.
tag : Aikido
One of my profs at college told a story about an exam he gave to one of his classes. This was a calculus class, probably 3rd semester calculus.
There were 10 questions on the exam.
All of them multiple choice, with 5 choices.
All of the answers to the exam were "E".
All of the answers to the exam were "None of the above"
Would that, or would that not freak you out?
You're happily going along, figuring out the answer to the first question. You're pretty sure you've got it right and look at the available answers. Hmmmm. It's not on there. Ah, a "None of the above", cool. I'll mark that.
Second question. You're happily going along, figuring out the answer to the first question. You're pretty sure you've got it right and look at the available answers. Hmmmm. It's not on there. I wonder if I'm doing this right? (go back and check first question) (go back and check second question)
etc., etc.
I'd be a basket-case.
tags : College ::: Psychology
Attendees: Sensei Ray, Keith, Stanley, and Robert.
A different night at the dojo. Randy sensei was still out of town, and Ray had a headache, so he directed us from off mat.
We did a little of the usual stretching: rolls and falls. We were then directed to spend a good bit of time on the Walk, taking it slow and working on various parts that were giving us trouble. It was good to spend the time working on a couple of the moves and getting the pattern down a little bit better.
Next up was working on some of the releases and figuring out what techniques are possible from each one. I didn't do too well on that.
After that, I paired up with Keith and worked backwards through the techniques I know.
Aftermath: Nothing of note.
tags : Aikido
A video I forgot to put up earlier
TenkaiKotehineri. Demonstrated by Robert and Keith.
tag : Aikido
It rained most of yesterday.
I was awakened around 4:10 am to the sound of serious rainfall. When I got outside to go to work, our 5" capacity rain gauge was full, so I emptied it. The roads on the way to work weren't too bad, although there were a couple of places with water standing at the curb.
It rained while I was at work, and when I got home, the rain gauge read 1.5". When I left to go to aikido at 6pm, it read 4.5". 3" in about 2 hours.
Most of Houston received around 4" of rain. It appears the Friendswood area took the brunt of the rainfall. We needed it.
It has rained some today, but not nearly as much as it did yesterday.
Mosquitoes should be enjoying this. sigh.
tag : Home
Attendees: Tim, Randy, John, Keith, and Stanley.
Ukemi: did fairly well on both sides. Senseis are apparently pleased. More on that fruther down the page.
The Walk: Went well. Did it in a circle formation, everyone facing the middle. Strange
Releases: With John. Nice to work with someone my height.
Techniques: John worked with me and introduced me to 3 new techniques: Oshi-taoshi, Ude-gaeshi, and Ude-hineri (respectively, 6, 7 and 8 in the Ju Nana Hon Kata. 6 and 8 require belly-flop falls from uke, so they aren't terribly fun to take. It really helps if you breathe out as you're taking a fall. After working on those for a bit, we went through the first 5. I also went through some of the Bhakwas and through John on one of the moves, but left go of his arm when I should have held on to it. Oops.
After working through all of that, Senseis Tim and Randy wanted to see me go through the 5 techniques in front of them, sort of an impromptu "demonstration." Keith and Stanley sat quietly off to the side of the mat while I was doing this, so it was the atmosphere of a demonstration. John was my uke for this. He threw me a twist when I was supposed to be doing Gyakugamea-ate and blocked it, forcing me to go for Gedan-ate. We also went through Oshi-taoshi, Ude-gaeshi, and Ude-hineri on just the right side. Tim and Randy commented afterward that maybe I should get a green belt with a brown stripe, or some sort of puce colored belt, since I demonstrated some of the nikkyu techniques. lol.
It looks like my demo for green belt will be before the end of June and I'll be working with Keith for my uke. Plenty of time to get nervous.
Aftermath: Left lower back and left ankle are a little sore from volleyball, I think. Almost busted a toe walking around the house after aikido. Need to have the house covered in mats.
tag : Aikido
