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.