Saturday Afternoon at the Dojo - 5/17/08

Aikidokas: Tim, Randy, Trey and Brad.

Ukemi: One big fall, right-sided. Wahoo! I did land kind of hard on the left calf, and it cramped up a bit.

I'll probably add static big falls on both sides next week, then back to my dynamic attacks on Tim that result in big falls the week after. Did the full complement of left- and right-sided falls otherwise.

The Walk: As usual. I counted the pace once. Faster than I normally like to count for some reason.

Releases: With Trey. Went ok.

Tim gave me an alternative approach for 5 and 7 to make it so I don't have to kneel and pivot with shorter ukes. The key is to push up, but stay very close to uke to prevent getting clotheslined.

Techniques:

1-10, except 9, for Trey. I served as uke all night. 3 step approach for all. We reverted back to 1-step when he got stuck on a technique, to try to resolve the issue a little quicker. That happened on ushiro-ate, and ude-hineri.

We also did some detail work on left-sided initial off-balances at the end of class to improve that basic skill.

Aftermath: Sore calf, slightly sore ankle. Generally sore overall. I took a bunch of falls, and got back up. Ibuprofen was called for.