"I thought i could instruct him....

....as well as Yoda. I was wrong."


So today i got up early and went to USM to do some aikido with my buddy Jessie. He's taking an aikikai off-shoot there at the college so every once in a while we get together and compare notes and work with a few things and basically uke for each other.

Today i actually went with the idea of us doing a few reps of tegatana with a few of the ideas from Pat's 100 terrific things to try with in tegatana and then working on hanasu.

With tegatana we went through a few reps focusing on:

1. relax
61. same hand same foot
&
3. balls of feet, heels slightly brushing

What made this more challenging than usual was the fact that our place to practice happens to be the volleyball court outside the college's fitness center. After doing a rep in the sand we did the second one on pavement and for the heck of it did another rep in the sand.

Hanasu is where everything felt like it fell apart. As we went through the first 4 back and fourth i had a hard time conveying how uke should generally move during each technique. Hanasu basically boils down into 2 things for uke

Either
1. uke grabs tori's opposite hand in an attempt to lead him off
or
2. uke grabs tori's hand on the same side and attempts to lead him off.

Somehow there was a gap in communication. Jessie would simply grab my wrist and just plant. It didn't stop me from completing the "kata" like continuation of the move.. but it didn't really move well at all. When i was playing uke i would follow through and things worked alright.

I eventually stepped back two steps away to see if i could maybe create what i was trying to relate and that seemed to solve it to an extent. It's so hard to get him to relax.

I'm not sure if it's just me not explaining things well (see subtitle at top of page) or the differences in style or his inexperience with aikido as a whole. It left me a little self-reflective, my thoughts as i repeated everything in my head became increasingly frustrating. I feel like at this point i should be able to show some of the simpler things of aikido but today that just was NOT the case.

Help??

Community

As i moved around in class last night trying to remember how this technique goes or how that technique moves a certain way something occurred to me that i thought i'd waste the virtual ink to share.

One of the new guys (i say new guy but he's been going for almost 3 months and having only met him twice that shows how good i am, plus i can't remember his name) and i were working on a chain of techniques that hover around shomeate and kotegaeshi and wakigatame. I had been having trouble all class with my wakigatames, still getting an "arm bar" but the grip felt wrong or this or that but we continued to move around and bouncing comments back and forth to each other and eventually it started to run a tad more smoothly for me.

The rest of the class went great. Pat had a loaded house so it gave us all a chance to work with everyone else. Everyone in class has variances in height and size and levels of experience but we were all communally working towards helping each other out.

It dawned on me during the car ride back home how nice it is to be able to participate in something (anything) where everyone is helping everyone else get better. Even (and i'm preaching to myself too though for appearance sake i choose to make the implications as to who vague) thought sometimes it seems like everything is getting frustrating and you might not be progressing you actually ARE getting better. Bit by bit.

I wanted to end off with a Doogie Houwer type revelation for this post, but all i can really say is it's just nice to be a part of that.

Our dojo has popsicles.

I made it to class yesterday and i convinced Jessie (the aikikai guy) to come along. We had class outside of the dojo this time, and it's always an interesting change. The parking area in front of the dojo has a decent slope upwards towards the street which makes movement on the balls of your feet quiet different from the norm.

Pat gave tegatana a bit of a switch up during the second rep. Going through the kata with a rubber knife in one hand causes you to have a different focus on what sometimes ends up as the "off hand" during the kata. I liked how it changes your ideas for some of the things you'd otherwise take for granted.

The rest of class we all worked on chains stemming off of hanasu #2 and a bit of a tune up for the first motion of nijusan.

A couple of things to ponder:

1) Even if tori somehow gets positioned further away from uke or an unexpected turn happens it takes very little for tori to turn this new situation into something defensible. Just stay aware.

2) I need to work on scaling back the "force" i try to apply on the first off balance of nijusan's shomenate by approaching it with a more agile footstep.


I'm hoping to get in some extra practice time this week. Jessie isn't working so that ought to allow for some tossing around at least a couple of times this week.

Also, you're always affirmed on your choice of places to train when you break between lessons for delicious frozen treats.

A moment of silence for a fellow aikidoka

I just wanted to let everyone know that Sensei Charles Crist passed away from his long fight with cancer today. Though i didn't have the pleasure of knowing him long, i considered him a friend.

He was a good teacher and a great person.

Hey kids, it's a new way to do the kote gaeshi!

Saturday's class was great and i was even able to bring my buddy Jessie along. We did a little bit of tegatana and moved right on into nijusan. The first motion was what we focused on the most, but the second popped up from time to time.

Class was really geared towards the different ways kote gaeshi can pop up. My favorite out of the bunch was done with a grip below the wrist. It squeezes down on the nerves just below the wrist itself, still producing a reaction from uke that causes him to lean to one side or the other. My favorite part of the whole thing is that it doesn't remotely risk hurting the wrist at all. I think it's the most aiki like of all the ways to do kote gaeshi.

Jessie seemed to be really interested in going back. He said the part he likes the most about Pat's dojo is that we work through what happens when one technique moves into another. The majority of his practice sounds like it's a strict repetition of kata moves. Hopefully with enough time in class, he'll be swayed over to our side. -=insert maniacal laughter=-

If i get there, can i give someone directions over the phone?

The last few posts my buddy John has made over on his blog show that he's gotten a lot wiser over the last year or so. He's teaching aikido one night a week at the YMCA and his classs (as well as his understanding of aikido) seems to be flourishing. The post he just made today got me thinking about goals.

In the martial arts, and in life in general, goals can mean and lead to a lot of different things. The reasons that drive us are as varied as the people that have them. I've had several different reasons for why i've been going to aikido over the (5+ off and on) years i've gone to class. I can't say one has really been greater than another or even if any of them would actually lead to an "achievement" of any tangible sort, but i kept going. In the times when class wasn't an option i'd noodle over some point or another or practice my footwork using our walking kata.

Eventually i came to terms with the fact that, for me, it's like playing with clay. You can mold something out of it but if you take a closer look at what you've made there will always be something that you can add on or shape differently. If you're dedicated enough or strict enough or if you love the thing enough to see what it becomes next your piece of clay will never run out of things to explore. Even when you place it aside and go about daily life the things you've done with that clay will carry with you. Spending that much time with a thing, i think, causes you to in a way become the thing or at the very least the experience of what you've done is a part of who you are.

Touchy-feely mumbo jumbo aside, and having lost all pretense of making a point i'll conclude with something of an idea.

I don't care about the next belt. I doubt i'll ever be "one of the greats" or even one of the mentionables. All i want for now is to become a potter that doesnt become so concerned with forming my best bowl that i forget how to translate potting to someone else.

Ok, i'm done with the psuedo wise man bit. Back to the ramble.

Quick edit

On that last post i put pluralsy when he actually had pleurisy. I'm sure there was no confusion, but i apologize anyway.

End transmission.