Date: 2006-11-02 16:39 Subject: Layover Bonus Class! Security: Public

I was supposed to pick my Dad up from the airport at 7:30, but found out his flight was rerouted and he wouldn’t be in until 11:30. Had cleared my whole night to get to the airport so now I had nothing to do …

Aw yeah baby! That means this week I’ve been to every evening class since last Friday. What can I say? I’m turning into an Aikido whore!

We worked on variations on morotetori iriminage. I worked on the ukemi and have so far managed to get up to relaxing as much as possible during the downward motion (and I was going straight down), but I’m still getting hammered down onto the may across my shoulders. I can do it, but it is pretty severe and I’m trying to make it softer. For some reason, it is my elbows that are a little sore today. The only way I can see to do it is start throwing my feet straight up to lessen the extreme bend in my back.

My biggest problem right now with irimi is trying to muscle the last motion where you bring your arm back for the ‘clotheline’. Technique doesn’t work worth a damn if I try it, but I still can’t seem to help myself. If I really relax, I can empty my arm and position it correctly where the throw happens without muscle, but I have to be concentrating like mad to do it.

I’ve realized that the body, the male body especially, wants that physical feedback. It really wants to feel the muscles straining against weight, otherwise it doesn’t accept that something is happening. Problem is that is completely counter to how Aikido works. Very often I can’t even really stop my body from going for the muscle, even through I know intellectually that I shouldn’t be. So what I’m really working on right is retraining my mind to accept “No Feedback’ as feedback. There is a definite empty feeling that happens in the brain when the technique is being done properly that I’m trying to isolate. If I can make that the ‘feedback’ my body needs, then I’m hoping I won’t be so eager to heave people around.

Ky was complaining of being tired just after the warm-up, then took herself off the mat after about a half an hour to sit down. That is actually a huge stride for her, accepting that limitation and then doing something about it. Fifteen minutes after that, and she is curled up on one of the couches snoring away while the rest of us are getting slammed around in a morotetori kaitennage (rotation throw) line not five feet away.

Of course after class, as I’m trying to fold up my hakama (leftover from lunchtime iaido), she was suppose to be folding Sensei’s hakama, but was more interested in tackling me. This time P Sensei got in on the act and showed us a counter to an armlock that C likes to use. He said that we all seem to toss the aikido principles out the window when we start to wrestle, and that we should be trying to incorporate them even when we’re grappling. Since I don’t have any formal wrestling training, I tend to go for weight underside smothers and the occasional dirty tricks learned from years of abusive at the hands of uncles and older cousins.

Sensei is out of town this weekend for another seminar, so Sempai S is running iaido on Friday and P Sensei is covering Saturday. Sensei asked if I could lead Sunday morning iaido (even through it will probably be just Ky and me), but that still left Friday night and Sunday morning aikido. Chances are C will do them (especially Sunday morning), but as of last night, Sensei hadn’t heard from him and we know that his work schedule this week is nuts and he’s also sick. So Sensei looks at me and asked if I could handle it if he doesn’t show!

Now there is very little chance that I’ll actually be running a class … but I am seriously thrilled to have been asked!

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