Armed vs. unarmed attacks: another pebble on the beach of discussion.

For saturday's class we took an extra minute to work on forward rolls. I hear what Sensei Pat is saying about that "point of no return" and then it goes in to the roll but i'm still not totally feeling it. I just can't quite discern that one missing piece that'll make everything fit together yet, it's still a step away at this point.

At the end of class Chops (whom is down from starkville for a while) and i did some knife randori where uke makes one dedicated attack (easy enough to avoid) and subsequent attacks (not so easy). We also did nijusan with a knife where we picked the response ahead of time but uke keeps attacking. Defense against a knife attack is a strange animal. I didn't care for using shomenate at all, i'd much rather move to the outside of the arm instead of the inside where it's easier for uke to slice and dice.

It will take getting used to the idea that i'll only be able to take my chances down from a "100% chance of getting stabbed to a 90% chance of getting stabbed". It's not quite defeatist, but it definately has an overtown of some kind of defeat. Maybe that's the point? I mean, i understand.. i'll get stabbed most likely, but i don't want to accept it as finality. I'm no sure... there's a lot about the concept i'm a novice to. Something to mull over.

During randori I got the impression (not saying it's correct) that the first attack is easy to avoid, the second one is considerably worse, but the third swing seemed to be a tad easier to discern. That doesn't mean i still didn't get the shiv but that bit floated in my mind on the drive home. Conclusion = i want to do more knife randori.

John and i got into a chat about being tackled or speared, part of a discussion that he had with Bryce. I don't recollect the entirety, but i believe he seemed to think it was much more difficult to avoid than i did (is that right John?). Since Chops and i had some time to piddle around with aikido at the end of class i asked his thoughts and if he wouldn't mind lunging at me and a side step and a shomenate seemed to be all it took to keep a Goldberg type off of you. He, Pat and i discussed a couple of different variations of lunging takedowns for a moment or two then it was off to pick blackberries for morning breakfast.