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| 2007-09-26 08:27 |
| Two days later and I'm still feeling it |
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Kat Sensei’s teaching style is different when it is more ‘advanced’ students. It was just Sempai C, Nert and myself last night, so instead of the traditional demonstrate/practice type of class, Sensei would call two of us up, call out a technique and we had to show him both omote and ura versions. He would let us go for a while and only stop us to offer some suggestions. We started with yokomen, looking at various responses, including the surprisingly difficult yokomomenuchi ikkyo. Yokomenuchi Ikkyo Ura, which is a very irimi motion for Nage, turned into looking at tsuki. We spent a good portion of the night looking at how to move into a tsuki, both from a punch and a kick. Poor Sempai C, having the TKD experience, was elected to be uke for pretty much all of the kicking practice and he worked up one hell of a sweat. It was a dangerous game for us as Nage, because as C said, he has total control over his punches, but he doesn’t have the same control over his kicks (partially because of the blown knee), so he was kicking slowly, but certainly not softly. We went on from punches, to kicks and then finally at the last ten minutes of class, Sensei has us get a jo. I was uke for his demon and on the very first time I lunged at his stomach, he moved in, his arm came up and his forearm smashed me across the bridge of the nose*. I was completely stunned. Then, as I was just fighting off that first wave of shock, the bleeding started in earnest. Then, as I was in the washroom cleaning up Sempai C comes in with a bleeding knuckle; Nert had grazed him with the jo. By the time we bowed out, there wasn’t a single one of us whose gi was not bloodstained.
Now that, is good class! *Not the textbook version of how to do that technique, but certainly an effective variation.
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| 2007-09-21 10:34 |
| An Unexpected Gift |
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Been trying to easy myself back into a more regular practice schedule (and into keeping this more up to date). The problem is that there are too many nights I’d like to go, but not enough days of the week to squeeze in all the practices between necessary things like getting groceries, working … sleeping. I’m trying to come up with a schedule I’m comfortable with and can stick too, while still maintaining some sort of regular life. I think I may start alternating Tuesdays and Wednesdays so I keep attending both yoga and one evening Iaido class, at least every couple of weeks. Speaking of which, I did Iaido for the first time in a month (!) on Wednesday night, and was totally, and completely lost on the Unnamed Series. Sensei has video of Sensei B from Montreal demonstrating it, and is looking to put them on computer or DVD, so I’m hoping to be able to get them in a format I can study at home to get caught up. Confused as I was, it still felt good to have my sword in my hand again. It is seminar season, which means the budget is being stretched between that, one last scuba dive for the season, and hopefully a late-Oct trip to Halifax … oh yeah, and get the kittens spayed. Xmus is cancelled this year kiddies! It is a busy time for everyone, Sensei has seminars almost every weekend this month, and Sempai C has been very busy at work ... which has actually put me in front of the class a couple of times … which was most unnerving given my spotty attendance in Aug. But I muddled through, with a lot of help from the Sempai that were in the classes. I TRIED to turn it over to them, but they all refused, saying Sensei asked me to lead the class, not them. My counter was I just happened to be the one there when Sensei was looking for someone, but they remained adamant. As always, I had the most fun running the Kids’ class. We’re trying to get some of them ready for testing so that means paying close attention to the Testing Requirments, which means not having to worry about what to show them. I was showing them the proper way to do tsuki, and took about ten shots to the gut as I tried to show them to punch straight and aim to hit dead on: not pull, track or hit at an angle. I had a very enthusiastic uke for this demo. Once he realized that I was actually going to let him sock me in the gut, he really began to warm up to the exercise … until it started to hurt and on the next one I finished with the kotegaeshi. The kids are so much fun because they are so easy to impress. My gi is over two years old now and has been patched and sewn up a dozen times. Lately, the armpits have started to go, wearing out to the point that they can’t be easily repaired. I keep meaning to get a new one, but the one MA supply store in this city is something of a haul to get to, and either I don’t have the money or they don’t have any descent judo quality ones. Wednesday night, Sensei surprised me with a new one for my help the past few weeks. I could only stammer out a thank you.
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| 2007-08-21 10:28 |
| How I Spent My Summer Vacation |
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The main reason I’ve been so tired this month is that I had signed up for scuba lessons. There is a dive-shop on the way to the dojo and I’d always pass it on my way to practice. Scuba is something I’ve always wanted to try and one day a couple of months ago I finally decided that I was going to go in give it go. Every Tuesday night for the last month and a half, I’ve been doing about two hours of class work then spending another two hours in the pool. Add in travel times, plus pick up and return of the equipment, and I’d be running from about 5:30 to midnight. Scuba, while not a tiring activity, is very taxing on the system and on Wednesdays I’d be a zombie. Last weekend I had my first Open Water dives and am I pleased to say that I am now a certified diver. The first time I the river when I looked down and saw a line of divers serenely passing ten feet below me, I knew I was going to love this. But what really struck me, being the aikido geek that I am, were the similarities between aikido and scuba diving. What I like best is that neither activity is competitive, and indeed both require a cooperative partner to work properly. The single most important part of both activities is breathing. In scuba, the effects of breath control are obvious; it regulates your air, prevents overexertion, controls your buoyancy and plays a crucial role in preventing injuries such as nitrogen narcosis, decompression sickness and the bends. You even learn to move up and down over small obstacles in the water simply by holding, or letting out your breath. In aikido, breath control doesn’t have such obvious effects. Nevertheless, it controls your movement and that of your partner’s. Try holding your breath as you throw someone and you’ll feel hard and locked up. Hold it too much, and your ‘buoyancy’ will be so high that uke can use it to unbalance you and reverse the technique. Lower it into your hara while breathing out and you’ll be as stable as a rock. Breathing is also important in preventing injuries during ukemi. When you’re diving, you have to keep your airway open at all times (never hold your breath is the NUMBER ONE RULE in diving), especially while rising to prevent your lungs from over expanding, even if the instinct at first is to hold your breath for as long as possible. The same thing happens to aikido beginners, as they want to hold their breath when being thrown because of surprise or anxiety. But a fall while holding your breath can result in getting the wind knocked out of you or even a cracked rib. Along with breathing comes posture. In scuba, you want to be as horizontal as possible. In aikido, you want to be as vertical as you can and not bend over. Both are to facilitate smooth movement and to avoid unbalancing yourself. The biggest surprise to me personally, was the similarity of zen mind needed in both activities. Sensei always talks about ‘conservation of movement’ and ‘no-mind’; moving continuously but smoothly through the techniques without exhorting yourself. Panic, overthink or freeze, and it is guaranteed you’ll blow the technique. Do it during an ukemi, and you’ll get hurt. In scuba, overexertion or panic while you’re underwater can quite literally kill you. Start breathing hard and you will deplete your air that much faster. Or you’ll start sucking down harder than your regulator can compensate for, and you’ll feel air starved. Most problems underwater are easily dealt with, if you deal with them calmly. That is what all the training is for after all. Forget the training, loose your cool and you won’t just blow the technique, you’ll blow your lungs and end up in serious, potentially deadly trouble. As a result, the few divers I’ve met tend to be very calm, mellow and generally very friendly people. Not unlike those I’ve met through Aikido.
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| 2007-08-21 10:25 |
| Now back to our regularly scheduled program ... I hope. |
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August has been such a rush that I turned around and realized that somewhere in there, I missed my second anniversary on the matt. After a rough spring, I decided that I was going to have a little fun this summer and so far, I’m pleased to note, it has been working our pretty good (some more on this later). But, during August especially, it has meant that I haven’t had the time nor energy to practice much. During the August Long Weekend, I taught the Monday night class, but only Ky and her brother-in-law showed up. He had trained in jujitsu, but hadn’t practiced in a year or so. He kept up for about a half-an-hour before he couldn’t take it anymore. To be fair, Ky and I hadn’t seen each other in a while and we kept trying to out-throw each other until we where bouncing each other off the floor. Ky has had some trouble lately with her confidence and her, always miniscule, attention span. It has come to the point where Sensei has nearly banned her from adult practices until she gets her act back together, so on that Monday I’d tried my best to address some of that. After her brother bowed out, we started with bokken practice. I tried to engage her in some light sparring drills, but she kept collapsing. So I told her to put her bokken away and we moved onto throws. She managed the throws fine, but kept breaking zanshin the moment I hit the mat, without disarming or pinning me. I told her once, warned her the second time, came back on my feet the third time with the bokken at the ready. The fourth time, I rolled when I hit the matt, came back up on my feet, put the point of the bokken right into her hara, and pushed her back until she slammed into the wall. With some students that might have even worked, but it was a move born out of frustration (I understand how Sensei feels now, and he’s been putting up with this for two years), and unfortunately, it is not a teaching technique that Ky responds to. She had no confidence left after that and any attempt at working on techniques went completely out the window. So we worked on our ukemi for a while, including koshinage falls (judo-type), which is the one fall Ky balks at. At the end of class, just for fun we put two jo on the mat, about half a tatami apart and had to do dive-rolls over them, spreading them further and further apart. My current record is (with a running start) a full tatami and a half doing a no-hands dive-roll. Quite proud of that, actually. Since then I’ve only managed two practices total, and I’m starting to feel very aikido deprived. I’m planning on going a couple of times this week, but next week I’m out of town again, so it doesn’t look like I’ll get back into a regular schedule until September. Before we left, I made Ky sign the dent she put in the wall. Written right in the middle of the crater of crushed drywall, it reads, ‘Ky was here’.
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| 2007-07-23 14:16 |
| Taken out by the smallest kid in class. |
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We were doing Ushiro Katatori techniques with the kids on Saturday, and I picked the smallest, youngest boy in the class to work with. At maybe ten-years old and 80lbs-soaking wet, I was easily able to lift him right up off the ground. As nage, he was to feint a kick at my groin, drop his weight down and backwards into my knees forcing me to bend over, then he would drop into seiza, bow and roll me over his shoulder. Worked like a charm, until I got my foot caught under his body during one roll and torqued a back muscle. It felt odd, but I was able to keep practicing and didn’t think much else about it, until later in the adult class, I was doing a simple sankyo pin on Sensei, when the muscle completely blew out. Spent the weekend smelling of A535 and hopped up on muscle relaxants. Chose to miss Sunday’s class, and now I’m wondering if I should go tonight or not. The muscle is stiff, but not sore. I’m torn between the desire to practice and stretch it out a little, and the worry that by going I might make it worse. As much as I think I’m gonna have to err on the side of caution. Tomorrow I’m going swimming anyway, which ought to help immensely.
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| 2007-07-05 14:55 |
| Real Life Gets in the Way |
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Ended up working over the long weekend, including a 15hour stint on Canada day. That day was very long, very dull and was capped by something that shouldn’t have bothered me, but did. By the end of the day I remember feeling that I really wanted to inflict genuine violence on somebody. It is not often I get that wound up, and as I seethed my way home there was still a part of me that was able to detach and look at myself rationally. From that point of view it was an interesting sensation; the nauseating knot that sits in your stomach, the heaviness of your limbs and shoulders, the senses that are vibrating on all the wrong frequencies … the sheer amount of effort needed to maintain that state. An interesting contrast to what we are (apparently) trying to achieve with Aikido. Anyway, I had to miss practice on Monday and Tuesday for personal reasons, and the kittens have not been letting me sleep well; by Wednesday I was exhausted. Still, I hadn’t been to Aikido since the Thursday before and Iaido a while before that, so when I got home from work, I curled up for a fifteen minute (interrupted by kitten every five minutes) nap before forcing myself to get up and go. This new series in Iaido (apparently unnamed, so hereby referred to U-series), continues to elude me, and combined with the lingering grogginess I only barely managed to yawn my way through the class. Almost everyone left after that, which left just left myself, Sensei and R Sensei (Sensei’s Sensei) for Aikido. R Sensei led the class, usually using me as uke, and Sensei and I practiced the techniques together. Sensei likes to ramp things up a little as we go, and it wasn’t long before he was expecting me to attack him full on and unless I was totally flubbing the technique, he would do the same. I’d like to say that I gave as good as I got, but that would be a lie. I can say that I think held my own… depending on how much Sensei was pulling his punches. Between being the demo uke, and getting slammed around my Sensei, I didn’t stop moving for an hour and a half. My lips dried out, my stomach cramped up, my chest was heaving and my gi was soaked through … but it was the best I’ve felt in two weeks. Sometimes, I think you just need to clear the vents a little.
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| 2007-06-21 10:05 |
| An Odd Aikido Happening |
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A friend of mine got roaringly drunk last night, and unfortunately, not a little violent. She was kicking and punching wildly at all of us and shortly after we finally got her home, she, for whatever reason, got upset at me. She started punching and clawing at my chest, which isn’t that funny with French nails. I tried hugging her, but that only made her angrier. Then suddenly, I realized I had a sankyo and loosely applied it. She didn’t like that much, and continued to lunge at me which of course, only made her pain worse. I did nothing, except hold her hand and talk calmly until she’d managed to drive herself down to the carpet. I know, it sounds like I’m congratulating myself on wristlocking a drunken, 120lbs woman; not exactly taking on a busload of ninja terrorists here. That wasn’t my point. My point is what I noticed was as I laid her down on the floor; her fight was gone. She wasn’t trying to hurt anyone anymore and seemed to be rapidly slipping into the ‘sleepy’ stage. Ten seconds from a drunken rage, to lying calmly on the ground. How many other martial arts can you gently kiss your opponent on the forehead after you’ve taken them down?
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| 2007-06-21 10:01 |
| I am such an Aikido Geek. |
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On Tuesday I missed practice because my sister took me to the humane society. I’ve been talking about getting a cat for months now, but wasn’t exactly going out of my way to find one. Both having the day off, she finally dragged me in, and despite my original plan to get a single, slightly older cat … I ended up with two, very, very active 3monthold sisters. So why post about them here? Because being the geek that I am, they are named ‘Nage’(black) and ‘Uke’ (grey and white).
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| 2007-06-21 09:42 |
| Ikkyo from the Ground Up, Again. |
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Last week was supposed to be getting-back-to-normal after the playoffs. But it is always when you are most trying to relax that the trouble really starts. It was so bad by Friday that I called in DEAD on Monday and Tuesday. Sensei also seems to be having a hectic time of things. He told us last week that he was taking the weekend off and that Sempai S, C and I could divide up the classes as we saw fit. I was supposed to teach Thursday, but Sensei pleasantly surprised me by showing up. He ran a very nice, light, Ki practice with me and a couple of the kids; which is what we both needed I think. C handled both Saturday and Sunday, which lead to some fun experimentation; especially on Sunday when it was Sempai S, C, Nert and myself. It was a very informal practice with us running through different techniques, experimenting with different variations while freely swapping ideas and working on our individual flaws. We also spent some time discussing what we didn’t understand/like from the seminar. Personally, I had issues with the irimi and kaitennage. For the irimi, we decided that ‘fishhooking’ uke’s jaw to make him stand after you have shoved him facefirst into the mat was, while a perfectly acceptable move, it wasn’t exactly Aikido. Nor was it entirely wise, as C demonstrated by sweeping my legs when I tried pushing him down. If Uke is already all the way down, leave him down until he tries to stand, and be ready to jump on top of him if he goes for the legs. A long time stumper for me has been the Montreal kaitennage. When I am uke, I always seem to become far to ‘aware of myself’ as nage steps back before moving through for the throw. I’m bent over with one arm stuck up in the air, but that doesn’t mean I don’t see nage coming and couldn’t grab for the incoming leg if I wanted to be difficult. It wasn’t until the weekend, while working with C and the others, that we found the solution (when moving Uke’s arm down, also cut forward, which seems to deflect uke’s attention forward). It is so weird comparing the little differences in style that emerge from dojo to dojo. I did teach C’s usual class on Monday, sort of. I only had two newbie students and they wanted to work on rolling, so that is exactly what we did for an hour. Both those students went home and left me alone with K Sensei for the last half. We worked primarily on rebuilding my ikkyo, quite literally, from the ground up. I did it about six different ways for almost an hour and quite honestly, that is the most excited I’ve been about Ikkyo since the first time I ever saw it. I just hope I remember all the tweaks the next time I see it in class. The highlight of my week however was the last half hour when K Sensei said we would work with bokken. We didn’t look at any particular technique, just showed each other some different movements he knew and some of the stuff I’d learned through iaido. Then we FREE SPARRED for a while! Sword fighting with a genuine Japanese BlackBelt (yondan)?! The little wannabe-samurai inside of me was just vibrating with joy.
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| 2007-06-08 12:28 |
| Seminar Photos 3 |
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I get to go over the hard way.
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| 2007-06-08 12:23 |
| Seminar Photos 2 |
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Because tossing around 14 year-old girls is why I got into Aikido!
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| 2007-06-08 12:18 |
| Seminar Photos 1 |
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Sensei Berthiaume puts me through my paces.
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| 2007-06-07 14:52 |
| huzzah ... 4th Kyu. Can I take a nap now? |
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The playoffs are finally over which means my work and practice schedules will start to get back to normal. Last weekend, in addition to having to me having to work very late last Saturday night, we had our Annual Birthday Seminar at the dojo with Shihan Berthiaume from Aikido de la Montange. First up on Saturday morning was an Iaido class. I had to miss it because we realized early that there was no one to lead the regular Kid’s Class downstairs and I was the only one available. So I tossed the kiddies around for a bit, then watched the last half hour of Iaido and took some pictures. Saturday was roasting. The humidity had spiked and even though we were practicing in the big judo dojo on the third floor with all the windows, we were all soaking through our gi pretty quickly. Then there is always that fun moment after the lunchbreak when you have to put back on that clammy, wet gi. I forget a lot of the stuff we did on Saturday, but I remember a brutal Suwariwaza Shomenuchi Yonkyo that left nasty bruises on some people’s forearms. I also practiced with one guy who did Iriminage Tenkan by fish-hooking two fingers under my jaw and dragging me back up to my feet; at the end of the day it looked like I had hickeys running down my neck. It was brutal but that wasn’t to be my roughest moment of the seminar. Sunday I was exhausted, but it was cooler at least. I was there for the Iaido class this time, but completely lost on the series they’d started the day before. In the afternoon it was test time!
I was paired with C for our 4th Kyu, which was an experience. I went first and personally think I blew the test … I wasn’t happy with my performance at ALL. Shihan Berthiaume had some pretty spot on comments afterwards (my posture sucked and I need to face more where I’m throwing uke), but he awarded me it anyway.
I had more fun being C’s uke. We slipped into old habits, which Sensei later described as “trying to kill each other”. At one point during Ushiro Katatetori Sankyo his TKD instincts took over and as I was coming around, my hand in the sankyo grip, my chest fully exposed; he drilled a punch into the centre of my ribcage so hard it blew my feet out from under me, and that is when he chose to cut down with my hand. I took the ukemi laid out face down, from four feet off the floor. That was the one move that got a reaction from the spectators. I’ll post some pics soon.
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| 2007-05-29 12:19 |
| Mourning a Good Friend and a True Teacher. |
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Last Thursday afternoon Peter Sensei died of unknown causes. He had some stomach problems of late, but this was totally unexpected. One moment he was with us, the next he was gone. The weekend has been both heartbreaking and joyous. Instead of practice on Friday, we sat around and talked about Peter and everything he’d brought to each of us personally, and to the dojo as a whole. On Saturday we held a special Kids’ Class, looking at some of his favourite techniques and trying to find that Ki feeling that he was so skilled at bringing out in everyone. His daughter, who we affectionately call ‘George’, presented the dojo with a hakama-wearing polar bear that summed up the man beautifully. It now sits in the window as a reminder that his spirit continues and remains infused into the very bones of the dojo, and in everyone who’d every stepped onto the mat with him. In turn, Sensei presented her with a posthumous black-belt, inscribed with the characters for Aikido, Peter’s name and the word ‘Sensei.’ Though he’d never ‘officially’ earned that title, there is no doubt in our minds that he was a teacher in the truest sense of the word.
Peter Sensei doing what he did best: torturing the crap out of me.
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| 2007-05-22 14:48 |
| What I've been up to. |
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It is always so bizarre the twists that life takes. My personal life tumbles into the toilet (which is why I haven’t been posting much), but my aikido seems to be doing okay as we ramp up into the last few weeks before our 4th Kyu tests. I have been working a lot with K Sensei lately, to the point where I am pretty much his sole uke on Monday nights. He said last week that my ukemi is fluid and responsive, and that I fall like a black-belt … but as Nage I am often still too stiff and pushing from the shoulders. Sensei, who was participating in the conversation, suddenly exclaimed, “that’s what I’ve been telling him!” At least I can feel it when I tense up now, and often spot what I did wrong when I blow a technique. As Sensei says, I’ve seen the ghost … now I get to spend the next thirty years chasing it. I was at the big seminar in Montreal this weekend and saw this demonstrated again and again. Tamura Sensei is this tiny old man and looks as frail as a twig. Yet he was tossing around Nidans half his age with ease. The thing about Aikido is that you really do have to watch the older guys. Unlike some of the other arts where your speed and strength will inevitably fail, the older aikido guys spend their lives learning to cut away the bullshit and distil it down to its purest forms. It was phenomenal to watch. Because I had to work I only made it down for one day, but next year I hope to go the whole weekend. What else has been going on? … Oh yeah, I’ve been named the ‘official’ substitute instructor for the Kids’ Class and the Monday night Beginners’ Class. Got my own keys to the dojo now and everything. Actually really taught Aikido for the first time last night. Not leading an Iaido class or an Aikido class that is basically just Me, Nert and a couple of regulars horsing around. This was a real beginners class with three noobs and none of the regulars. And what made it doubly nerve wracking was having K Sensei sitting at the back of the class for the last half watching everything I did. I led them through Ikkyo and Iriminage, making it as basic and simple as possible. K Sensei said I was friendly and made the class easy to understand. But I’m still not sure if he was just being polite.
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| 2007-05-04 08:36 |
| C's Knees |
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Last weekend Sensei dropped the bomb that Sempai C had fallen down a flight of stairs at work and had blown his knee again, probably for good this time; he was filing for workers-comp, had talked to his doctors about surgery and rehab and after a lifetime of practice, had to seriously face the prospect of ending his martial-arts training. Faced with this knowledge, I didn’t go to the dojo on Monday for C’s class. I did arrive in plenty of time for K Sensei’s class, and was chatting with him in the changeroom when we heard noises coming from the dojo. I excused myself from K Sensei and went to see what was going on, only to find Sempai C right in the middle of a forward roll ukemi as part of a very fast moving ikkyonage line. After a good night’s sleep and some basic first-aid, RICE (rest, ice, compression and elevation) he was, more or less, fine. He is counting his blessing and is going to take it very easy, but we’re all very relieved that he wasn’t more seriously hurt. In K Sensei’s class I’ve found the one ukemi I’m still a little reluctant to take; shihonage tenkan (or ura). Regular omote shihonage, open or closed it doesn’t matter, I’ll go over, but something about that tenkan motion and moving backwards that dynamically still can make me baulk. I managed it once or twice, and I understand where my body is supposed to go, but it has yet to become first instinct. I’ll need to practice with Nert some more after practice. Since yokomenuchi shihonage is part of our 4th Kyu test, (less than a month away!), and we’re supposed to be practicing that anyway it is just something else to add to the rotation.
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| 2007-04-24 14:00 |
| Just to reiterate ... it was HOT |
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There was a seminar on the weekend which I couldn't afford to go to. Saturday's class was cut short so everyone could head over, and there was no one around on Sunday except me all by my lonesome, swinging my sword around and trying to remember the kata without having Sensei to follow.
Monday night was business as usual though, Sempai C had class full of beginners, so we worked primarily on basic, basic stuff like footwork and centering. I’m not complaining though, it is good to get back to the real basics from time to time. At the end of class, he ran us through some crunches, teddy-bear rolls and leg lifts, which hurt like blazes, but I’m grateful for as I notice the middle age spread is getting harder and harder to hide. There are hot water pipes running around the edges of the floor of the dojo and more along the ceiling, which keeps the place warm in the winter, but might just kill us as it starts to get warmer. It was only around 22 (room temp) outside yesterday, but inside it wasn’t long before everyone was starting to drip. K Sensei remarked that at his old dojo in Tokyo they used to have to mop the tatami’s after class to soak up the sweat and condensation. It is not that bad yet, but I could see it happening here easily if the temp climbs another couple of degrees. Following some advise from Sensei, I really threw myself at K Sensei last night in the demos. Our dojo is not that big and the bigger, longer ukemi carries a real danger of bouncing yourself into the walls, a couple of corners and most dangerously of all, two radiators. So I’ve been having a real crash course (pardon the pun) on learning how to control my ukemi lately and last night I figured out a couple of new tweaks. The first was a kind of ‘pogo hop’ on a long front roll (from katenage), where instead of going out long and low roll, I took an extra step and pogo over the leg. It pushes the momentum upwards which makes the ukemi higher, but dramatically shortens the distance outwards, this is handy when you notice that you’re about to go sailing into the onlookers.
The second was for dynamic pins where you’re being forced straight down on your front like in a sankyo or nikyo pin. They’ve stopped being gentle with me, which means I’m often heading to the floor at full speed. I go down to my knees and slap with the free hand, but if they’re still racing to the pin, it is sometimes hard to pull my legs away in time. I started doing a ‘fish flop’ thing where the second my knees bend, I kick them out and flop onto my front. It seems to work pretty good, at least in the pins we were doing last night (mostly sankyo, but Sempai C found a reverse elbow lock out of katenage that was just NASTY).
The third was something Sensei pointed out I was doing it when the melee carried me too close to a wall for even a shortened font ukemi. I’d closeline myself to fall under nage’s arm so that I’d do a backfall instead of letting him throw me into something. Protecting youself is the first rule of ukemi, and I was instinctively balking if I could see that we’d run out of room.
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| 2007-04-18 11:08 |
| On being Uke |
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Been busy over the past week or so with family and personal issues, and missed a good chunk of practice last week, but I was back on the mat Saturday morning and ready for the kids class. Sunday morning, we had a long Iaido practice, then moved on to Aikido where it was just Sensei and I, so he ran me through the 4th Kyu test, looking at some of the smaller, technical details that can get lost in a larger class. Though it was only about five days without a practice, I was feeling pretty stiff by Sunday afternoon.
I’m being used as uke more and more lately, and seem to have found myself as the primary crash-test-dummy for both P Sensei and K Sensei. Now we can add Sempai C into that mix. C is a blackbelt and instructor in TKD, and Sensei has given him the hour before K Sensei’s class to warm us up through calisthenics and striking practice. I’m going to go because I could use the work-out, and I see the value in learning how to attack properly, even if punching and kicking rank right up there on my list of things that I least like to do. Since Sempai C’s class drew a lot of newbies, mostly C’s buddies, I was used as uke when he demonstrated a technique, and the primary pad holder when he was demonstrating the strikes. From there, it was K Sensei’s class and I was uke for pretty much all of it. Sensei told me after class that good uke’s make themselves. He explained that when he is ready to demonstrate a technique he is looking for those students he knows will match the technique, and unless he has someone specifically in mind, he will grab the first one who looks ready and paying attention. That K Sensei used me for uke in every demonstration save one, showed that I was alert and ready. Which didn’t save my lip when K Sensei was showing a two-person morotetori shihonage, I had one arm and Nert had the other. When we got thrown backwards, we were tangled up side by side. I had one arm across her middle, the other one slapped normally. She on the other hand, slapped with her free hand, and elbowed me in the face with the other. I was stunned for half a second, then got up and kept going. It wasn’t until I wiped my face with my sleeve that I realized my lip was bleeding.
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| 2007-04-03 08:12 |
| And the rule on corporal punishment is? |
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Monday nights is quickly becoming the class to attend. K Sensei has worked out his contract issues with his regular school and we are now, officially, a branch of the Toyko club on Mondays. Part of the appeal of Monday’s class is K Sensei, he has a very traditional style, but he’s very modest, very kind, devastatingly good and will come right out and say if he doesn’t understand something. Last night he wanted to look at something he wasn’t sure about, and asked for our indulgence while experimented with something (yonko kaitenage, I think). Since that is something of a theme for our club, he’s fitting right in. We were doing yonko last night, and moved into yonko kaitenage. K Sensei was using me to demo the technique. He got me into position where I was bent over with one arm in the air, then stopped to show which foot worked best to move in on for the throw. He started by showing the wrong foot, which he said left him open and in a bad position to complete the throw. I illustrated the point by faking a punch to his open groin with my free hand. I thought I was being helpful, but he wasn’t expecting it and flinched backwards a little bit. He laughed and continued with the demo, but when it came time to actually throw me, he slapped my butt as I went sailing by. It was so quick, only a few of the people watching caught it, but it was a source of a lot of ribbing in the change room after class. =) The other appeal of Monday nights is that Sensei is there just as a student. If you work with him, he is nice enough to offer a few quick pointers at the beginning, but then the gloves comes off and it is go as hard as you can, as quickly as you can. It is quite a work out, especially if he thinks you can manage to keep pace with him. Sensei just came back from a seminar and it seems he can’t help stirring up crap wherever he goes. The building we now have the dojo in is a three-story martial-arts centre. We, with aikikai aikido and iaido are in the basement. The second floor has hardwood and is used for karate and kendo. The top floor is all mats and is used primarily for judo, but there is also a yoshinkan club up there. Almost everyone has been really nice and we’ve received some attention especially from the kendo guys in regards to the iaido and from the judo club because one of their coaches practices with us. Now, we never paid much attention to the yoshinkan guys when we moved in. We knew they were there, and some of us wanted to go and watch a practice or two to see if there was anything we could pick up, but generally we were happy to let them do their thing while we did ours. Apparently, they don’t feel the same. In Toronto, Sensei was presented with a letter that the Yclub sent to YAMADA SENSEI bitching about us moving into “their” space. They didn’t talk to Sensei first, they didn’t even say anything to the owner of the building! They just jumped right to the end of the line and started whining to the head of the USAF. I’m surprised that the Doshu didn’t received a letter (not that they would do that, they took down their shomen portrait of O’Sensei and replaced it with Shioda). Still, other than being a little flabbergasted at the size of the hissy fit, it doesn’t really affect us, so we’re just going to let them rant.
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