Killeen Seminar - Friday Night 3/14/08

We pulled into Killeen and then around 2:30 after a nice, uneventful drive. The crew from Alabama were already there and recovering from their 11-hour drive. We had a chance to chill for several hours before the scheduled start of the festivities. We got the chance to play with "Lizard" and "Chance", Jeff and Gail's dogs. Lizard played far too hard and had to be tended to for a good portion of the afternoon.

The evening was devoted to exploring Riki Kogure's double hand grabs. These are a series of exercises meant to explore off-balances. There are 14 of these. We managed to cover the first 12 in the evening session.

Let's see if I can remember them:

double-hand to the center
one hand to the center
tenchinage
double-hand tenchinage
ushiro-ate
spinning armbar
waki-gatamae
double hand waki-gatamae
shihonage
kote-gaeshi
mae-otoshi
sumi-otoshi
wheel throw
hip throw

Sensei Mike (who has 3 dan grade certificates signed by Sensei Tomiki and two signed by Sensei Oba) had us switching partners every time we switched exercises, so I got to work with almost everyone there.

We broke up around 10pm and had an excellent dinner grilled by one of the attendees. I managed to get into bed around 12:30 and we were scheduled for a 9:00 am start on Saturday morning