Wednesday Night at the Dojo 6/21

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