"There's something about that BELT you're wearing....."

I was the only one in class today so i got 2 whole hours of aiki to myself. I noticed in tegatana that with the way i'm currently walking through it my toes tend to point better on the turns than straight forward but that may be because i'm not falling through right. I'm not sure. When my knee is feeling a little less wonky i'll play around with it some more. Pat broke down the steps into shorter and longer ups and downs and showed that the forward and backwards naturally throw you into a diagonal movement.

We did hanasu and Pat asked which one i wanted to work on, which right now seems to be all the even numbered techniques. Since the ABG i've been trying to work on not anticipating which way i'm going and breaking #2 down through different parts of what can come out of it and what movements flow into helped alot.

So, the dreaded rank test! It wasn't as bad as all that, though it did appear in a form i didn't realize until class ended. We worked through 6-10(a&b) a bunch ending each with a pin. I'm still not real clear on which is actual "kata mode" though; each technique with a pin and disengage or 6&7 8&9 and 10&10? Number 9, ude heneri, is one i haven't QUITE gotten a total hang on yet. My arms sorta throw a wrench in the works. But in the end i passed.

Pat asked me what i thought and my reply was more or less that i can do the moves but proficiency seems to be something that weaves in and out of everything i've learned so far. It's hard to define proficiency from my end anyway but i'm more concerned with at least being able to apply the principles (or maybe just understand what the principles behind technique X are). Thankfully it was described to me that it's not uncommon to feel like the higher up i go the less i understand because i'm trying to measure up with what's on down the line than looking at how far i've come so far. On that point i can say that i do atleast feel more capable than i did at gokyu and that can be judged as improvement. On a 1-10 i think i'm at 6 on what i've learned so far. Pat thinks i'm doing good so i'll go along with that!