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Well - I had my first Aikido class today and it was certainly interesting.
Dojo name : Lower Providence Aikido
Sensei: Jeff Bowden
The dojo was nice, lots of mats and a spring floor. The Sensei and I had some good conversation before class, setting my expectations a bit and then the class began.
There were about 15 students on the mat, with a range of ranks from white belt to black belt. We started the class with some stretching and then right into "rolling". I have some experience here from my Judo backround so a forward roll and a breakfall were no problem. This dojo does several additonal falls that I started to leran but don't recall the names of. I do recall variations on front and back fall and everyone including the white belts was doing this so I figure I should be picking this up quickly.
We practiced several techniques from a "side" attack. Yokoman is what sounds correct but I'm not sure and was not ready to start asking a lot of questions at this point. The foot work was reviewed and we spent some time working on the initial movement.
I found this part of the practice to be very interesting in that the Sensei stressed that we move forward during the attack and I had to keep adjusting to not back up or turn to the side. In addition to the forward entrance, we stressed taking the balance which I am used to from Judo and then eventually, we moved to a wrist throw that seemed very effective.
Utilizing the torso (hip) turn as a larger circumfrence
...More
11-13-2005 04:01 PM 
