Saturday Morning at the Dojo 5/20

Attendees: Ray, Randy, Tim, Carla, Mike, Matthew, Frankie, John, Drew, Raj, Keith, Stanley and some others that I'll determine once I see the picture from the seminar. Ray - Hachidan; Randy, Tim, Carla, Mike, Matthew - Rokyudan; Frankie - Godan. Talk about some experience!

Ukemi: I think this occurred Sat. morning, but it might have occured Friday night. Frankie saw me rolling out and came out to throw me over him. He grabbed the "lapels" of my gi, turned 90 degrees and slid on his heels, landing so that he and I formed an upside down "T". Before he reached that point, though, I went tumbling over him in a right hand roll. It was cool.

We did an introduction of all of the attendees. I was the only person on the mat who had not tested at all. No other white belts present. A call for questions went out to present to the experts. I don't really remember much of the questions.

I do remember working with Carla on my techniques. I was consistently not getting the first off-balance on my techniques with her, I'm not certain why. I may have been too tentative.

Aigamae-ate: She called Mike in watch me as I tried to execute this technique. He tweaked my approach and was amazingly enthusiastic when I got it right.

She had different approaches to Shomen-ate and Gedan-ate.

Shomen-ate: Our technique is to cup uke's attacking arm at the wrist and move him off-balance from that point. Carla teaches to make contact with uke on the forearm, near the elbow. Her reasoning is that there is more leverage at that point.

Gedan-ate: Our technique is to always keep and unbendable arm. When uke raises his arm to block the eye flash, tori's arm slides off of the rising arm and across uke's chest. Carla's approach is to get tori's arm from the shoulder to the elbow on uke's chest, but the hand and wrist are a approximately perpendicular to uke's chest. I tend to think the unbendable arm is the way to go.

We did some very simple off-balance exercises. Keith came over to me. He seems to like exploring the height difference. The exercise was to lightly grasp uke's gi with between thumb and forefinger of each hand while standing a few inches apart and feet parallel and not in strong positions. Then, while keeping unbendable arm, step in each of the 8 directions and notice the difference in your ability to move uke in that direction.

I then worked with Carla some on the same exercise. I tend to work with my upper body and not my center. It was actually effective when I worked with my center.

We did some hand randori, changing partners every few minutes. I worked with Drew and Randy and someone else. Drew had just learned a technique from Matthew in which uke attacks the chest of tori and tori lays both hands over uke's hand while it is on tori's chest. Tori, then kneels down, supposedly causing uke to fall to his knees. I didn't feel any compulsion to kneel down, but I might not have been reacting properly, or Drew might not have had everything correct. Randy was pleased with my reactions, I think.

We broke for lunch. I would have loved to have joined them, but I had to get back to work on the shelving units, which I managed to finish.

tag : Aikido :: Woodworking