Ponderings

I've spent most of the morning thinking about some aikido stuff. It has mainly centered around initial off-balances, ushiro ate, and waki gatame. I think it would be fun to just have a class about the little brush off bump from inside the arm, the one that happens on the outside that "drops uke into the hole" as the intro to quite a bit of junana, the "cow catcher" as a brush off and using ushiro ate and waki gatame as the two ways to finish all these off balances. Then some multiple uke randori to use what we've learned.

So that's what I plan on doing next saturday. IF i can trick/beg people into showing.

As concerns the last post I decided that not advancing doesn't mean i can't progress. I'll just work with what i have. If Karl can become a super judo player with just a couple of sweeps i can be a decent aikidoka with just a hand full of nijusan/ junana.

In case you were wondering.

It has been some time since my last post. This could very well be the last one you see. Class eventually declined into a series of nobody showing up leaving me to sit in the park, wait 15 minutes, then go home. I made attempts to get students to show but after weeks of no shows it felt like i was only begging. So for now, the little study group I had named Konwakai is defunct.

I guess the real problem is I don't believe i'll be restarting it.

I recently tried to demo for my shodan with dishearteningly lackluster results. I wasn't ready and not really great at the material I was familiar with and was rightly so denied the promotion.

But it got me to thinking. Maybe from a bad frame of mind, but thinking none the less. All this time i've been trying to learn aikido it's been at a progression best illustrated as a snail through molasses. Students that started years after I did have gotten shodan in far shorter time than I. They simply live closer to the dojo and have the fortune of being able to train more diligently. Something that I, living an hour and a half away from class, just can't commit to. And with something like a martial art any practitioner NEEDS practice. To maintain skill and to improve on it. And in that i have been found lacking. My attempt at finding others to practice with didn't work out and there is really very little one can do in aikido solo.

I feel that i'm really the only one holding a torch for my continued training but even that is getting dimmer as time goes by. I haven't fully decided, because i really enjoy aikido, but i think it is time to simply acknowledge things the way they are and close up shop so to speak.

Anyway, that's all for now...just wanted to see my thoughts in print more than anything else. To reflect on.

See you when I see you.