Wednesday Night at the Dojo 1/24

Aikidokas: Tim, John, Raj, Keith, Oliver, Shiela, and Joey. Not sure what brought Raj out of the woodwork again. Had to check a couple of times and make certain I was in the right place.

Ukemi: ok.

The Walk: we did one normal and then we did one where we went right side then left side instead of the normal left side then right side. It wasn't too bad until the last couple of stones. My mind blew at that point.

Releases: Worked with John.

Techniques: Worked with John. We worked at 3-step distance tonight. That made a huge difference in the techniques. My entries went to hell in a handbasket, throwing the rest of the technique off as well. On my entries I'd run into John's fingers, I didn't get around them for the butterfly. I think this was affecting my ability to "commit" to techniques.

Kotegaeshi: went ok. I need to lean on uke more as I make my pivot. Also need to push for gake, not yank.

Kotehineri: ran this once. Entry was bad, but the rest of the technique improved.

Tenkai-kote-hineri: Need to work on reduce the floweriness of the takedown pivot. And the transition from getting uke on his toes to the takedown pivot.

Shihonage: I had a tendency to do San-honage. Shihonage is a four-step technique. I need to complete all four steps.

Randori: John and I then worked on randori for a little while. It went ok until the end. John was using a lot of force and trying to get me to realize that and counter it by letting the force flow. I was using muscle. He then thought to "teach a lesson" by counter my muscle with his muscle. He got me into a bit of a wrist crank that got me to yell out.

I stepped off the mat to assess the damage. I guessed that I probably wouldn't know until this morning. And that's the case. Last night the wrist was a little sore. This morning the shoulder, arm and wrist are a little sore. The pinky and ring fingers on my left hand are a little numb. That indicates a re-aggravation of my long-time shoulder weakness. I had managed to avoid a repeat of this little injury for about 6 or 7 months.

Aftermath: I'll be off the mat for a few days. I'll guess that Monday looks like a good return day. It'd be nice to make it on Saturday, but the in-laws are in town so I might stay off the mat. Ibuprofen will make an appearance in my life for the next couple of days.

At least I'll be able to work on web pages and baking bread for a couple of days.