I Tend to Forget

I keep forgetting or prolonging my posts...especially lately. There's not a whole lot to say, me and Rob have been going over the walking kata (Tegatana) and Honasu every Friday for almost 2 hours like clock work. It still amazes me how you never feel you're getting better at Aikido until you work with someone less experienced. I recently went back to Mississippi for my little sister's graduation and stopped by Pat's for my usual visit. Although we were only going over variations on Honasu, I felt I did better than I was expecting to. I even noticed a very rare instance Pat looking surprised. In extremely good news I should be getting a car soon which means I can FINALLY start going to Vero Beach Aikido. My plan is to have my Shodan by the end of the year.

Stupid Drill With Rob

The past couple of weeks during my Aikido class, me and Rob have been going over the "stupid drill" It's a series of movements transitioning between kote gaeshi and kote hineri, and occasionally kote mawashi. It's a repetitive but necessary drill. The better you get at it, the less you have to think about doing it, hence the name. We've also been doing the Nijusan chains to help Rob develop that ability to follow where you feel your opponent taking you instead of just trying to predict it.

Free Jujitsu Class...

Well I walked to where I work and changed over for the Jujitsu class being held next door. I arrived at 11:45 and the class was supposed to start at 12. There must've been 60 people in a space made for 30 or so. Apparently the instructor asked several of the members from the other locations around Orlando (they're a chain) to come to the first day of class. I've never seen so many gi's of different colors and patterns and patches before. Blue tops with black pants, or white pants with black tops and blue belts. Purple ones, ones with 20 or so patches on them, it was like a carnival :) and I felt a bit out of place considering I was the only guy weighing less that 190lbs and looking like I don't go to the gym religiously. That being said, the place is laid out more like a gym than a dojo anyway, there were heavy bags in the corner and a ring for MMA practice. After a light warm-up of 50 jumping jacks, some squats, push-ups, lunges, and lots of stretching class began and I got to know a lot of the guys. There was Ralph, the big former football player/wrestler with wrists as big as my fist, and Rachel the tom-boyish girl who wanted to learn to beat up her brothers. Everyone was really nice and respectful during class (and overly macho outside of it), but I guess that's part of the atmosphere. I learned as much if not more watching people do groundwork after class than what I learned during class...but we'll get to that. The first move shown was more of a self defense maneuver as it involved two people stand with one grabbing the other's hair. The defender is supposed to grab the attacker's wrist and push upwards stretching the attacker's arm out and move around to a waki-gatame position. I was used to just walking away with the arm until uke (the attacker) falls to the ground and taps out, but in class they had us fall straight to the ground with the arm-bar and roll on top of uke crushing his/her shoulder. It was an interesting experience. While working on most of my partners, Rachel is freakishly double (or triple if that's possible) jointed where her arm can extend abnormally farther back than it should when the elbow's bent. The technique still works, but it took some getting used to seeing the person's arm bent about 10 degrees farther back than it would on anyone else. We went over the guillotine, the triangle choke, the crucifix (MMA guys and UFC fans will know these advanced techniques) and I was surprised they had the beginners doing these on their first day. There was no rolling or shrimping, but I think they're just showing what people could eventually learn to do well in order to get everyone to come back. After class I was watching everyone doing randori and it seemed that not many people like to get into any side control position. It was acrobatic in how they threw their legs over to get a seemingly impossible arm-bar from their current position. The hardest thing for me to get was the terminology. They would say exactly what you should do to make something happen (move your feet 3 steps this way while keeping your legs straight and your shoulder on his head) but didn't really say the principle of what was happening. I luckily had a former judo guy to say "oh all he's saying is, keep your weight on uke's head while you circle around" and I would say "ah ha" and suddenly be able to do it. Also the differences between the "do" and "jitsu" mentality is very apparent. I had a wrist lock at one point and the instructor asked "now what are you going to do" and I said "well I have control, I'm going to let (whoever it was I was working with) up" and the instructor said "well they didn't tap, you might not have the submission" and I said "I could have it if I squeezed, but I've stopped them from being able to hurt me and that's all I care about". I know he was just making sure I was doing the technique right, it's just after it happened it hit me how much that "keep someone from hurting you" instead of "hurt someone who's trying to hurt you" mentality has stuck with me. Thanks Pat.

Getting Ready for Jujitsu

Well me and Rob have been neglecting our Ukemi so we're going to do plenty of falling tonight at practice. After an extensive warm-up I think we'll do the hold down cycle a few times so I can knock off the cob webs before the free Jujitsu class tomorrow. I plan on evaluating it and seeing if I want to join. It's also a place where a ton of MMA guys go so I'll have plenty of bodies to practice my groundwork on. I just need to make sure my transitions stay smooth. From what I've seen, Jujitsu guys seem to spend a lot of time in guard and mount but I hardly ever see any time spent in mune gatame or kesa gatame.

Honasu and Crazy-Man Randori

Me and Rob finished Honasu and did a dozen repetitions of the initial movements then we moved into the first chain. After flowing back and forth a few times, I talked about Pat's "Rolling the Ball" exercise and did a little crazy man randori. In this exercise, uke attacks tori's face (at a safe speed) and attempts to maintain eye contact and attacks with either hand any time uke gets an opportunity to. After off-balancing me a few times while backing away, Rob got the hang of it and we did a few movements of Nijusan, mainly waki-gatame and kote gaeshi.

Tegakana and Nijusan with Rob

Last night me and Rob did tegatana about 5 times then moved into Honasu. We had plenty of time so we did all 8 wrist releases. After beating those to death and exploring what happens if Uke changes his direction, we went into Nijusan....and that's when we hit Gedanate. I know a lot of people have problems showing this in kata so I did what I always do. I explained to Rob I can only show him what I know, and what I know is that Gedanate feels linear to me and I can only demonstrate it in a linear fashion i.e. Junanna. So after making Rob suffer through ramblings of me talking about the rise and fall of the body and what can be done with it, he got to practice Gedantate (the "look at your watch" push) and got one really good push with it. Couldn't do it again for the rest of the night and I explained that sometimes that's how Aikido is during practice. You get one really good move but can't seem to re-enact it. We'll try again next class.

First Night With My New Student

Well after work Rob came over for his first night of Aikido. I over-explained everything like I do with all new students. I just wish I could unload all the knowledge I've gained into their minds in one night. I always forget how long it took me to absorb what little I have :) We started with Tegatana (the walking kata) and moved into ukemi (falling techniques). We did some backrolls and a few triangle rolls. I think once Rob gets comfortable with rolling over in a circle he'll do well at them. We spent most of the night doing the first wrist release from Honasu and Shomenate (the first attack from Nijusan [or Junanna whichever you do]).