Monday Night at the Dojo 4/23

Aikidokas: Randy, and Kim.

Ukemi: Not bad. I made a correction of dropping the chin instead of dropping my shoulder for the left side big falls. It was quite a different sensation than what I'm used to. It felt different than the right sided falls. I did not garuma though, so it made an improvement. Just have to get used to how it feels.

The Walk: Twice, with eyes closed.

It was kind of a free-form evening, so I'm not sure if I can remember everything.

We did some work with a jo resting on the belt knots of two people and those two people then trying to move in a coordinated fashion without letting the jo fall to the ground. Not bad for a first time.

Did some two-handed work. Mainly a heaven and earth throw. Randy threw me once on this and it was supposed to be a roll-out. I felt him still holding onto the wrist (don't know whether he actually was or not), so I felt inclined to take a big fall. It went fairly well, even with little to no support. No pain.

We also spent a lot of time exploring hand randori. Move from the center at all times is the gem I took away from the session. Yes, I've heard that several times over the past year. No, I don't know why tonight it stood out in a glaring light.

It was interesting seeing Sensei Randy (rokyudan) doing hand randori with Sensei Raymond (hachidan) and almost before they started a sequence of randori, Randy was already falling into a hole. And this was at a glacial speed.

Aftermath: Muscles are a little stiff this morning.