Way of the Warrior - Aikido and Kendo Pt4

Way of the Warrior - Aikido and Kendo Pt3

Way of the Warrior - Aikido and Kendo Pt2

Major point of interest in this one is his ideas on "cultural movement". I really enjoyed the insight of it. It's not something one thinks of often but it's so true. His insight on the difference in breathing is another good thing to listen to, i thought.

Way of the Warrior - Aikido and Kendo Pt1

Aikido on thursdays

I made it to class last night, and we went through the usual tegatana and hanasu. Pat is turning those into general warm-up practices instead of actively working on them in class. We worked on oshi taoshi, kote gaeshi and kote hineri by first breaking down the initial off balance and getting the feel for how uke is balanced and which direction he could be leading the technique. It also helped illuminate how timing effects both tori's and uke's positioning.

For anyone curious as to how these techniques begin (if anyone's reading) all of the moves in this kata (where oshi taoshi, kote gaeshi and kote hineri can be found) begin by checking mai and uke moving in with a shomenate. As uke moves in, tori responds by making a small forward step, his hands raised to guide uke's shomenate off his line of attack facing into the gap created between his feet.

One of the two main ways this will end up (if i'm not mistaken) is either uke's off balance will leave him "idling" on the balls of his feet with his mass leaning in some direction or he'll get his footing right after the "push" and that will leave him flat footed and stable.

Anyhoo, we worked with those three techniques for quite a bit...how they work and interact with each other. This all ended up in some cool sensitivity drills akin to the tai chi push hands exercises. All in all another good class.

What's going on.

You know the story: i haven't been to class. A preveously held job was keeping me busy but i freed up my schedule (unemployed). Now that Pat's got class 3 times a week i'm looking forward to going back and much more often. I haven't gotten to practice that much, but i have gotten into an email chat with some aikikai guys in town that want to start a small club. Getting to chat about aikido has been nice, and if their club ever gets off the ground i may stop by between McComb class.