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We're sure doing a lot of randori practice in the run up to grading. I'm not grading but it's the time where in our dojo a lot of this practice gets done for those who are going to grade.
I really suck at this so it's really putting me on the spot whenever I have to go out there and take my turn. I actually got let off fairly lightly this time as sensei picked guys who were more controlled in the way they attacked but still I have major problems coping with the speed at which it happens. So the result is that I'm still committing all the common mistakes a fair amount of the time once the speed picks up: grabbing uke's arms instead of just letting them fall, not turning in a circle and instead getting distracted by the next uke coming, and of course, simply not timing my throws right ie I simply need to move a bit faster!
It helped a great deal that I had one of the best women in the dojo to practice with beforehand and she taught me a fine point about how to drop the uke to the ground and she said if it's one of the guys you really have to go for their elbow otherwise they won't go down. She taught me how to angle the downward cut so that uke would go down at a sharper angle whereas I'd tended to always throw out rather than down.
Anyway the ukes were all being really nice but also not letting up too much on the speed and force so I could learn, but it was still painfully obvious to me and everyone else watching and my ukes that I was doing really badly. So it was awfully nice that one of the 4th dan guys came up and told me I'd done well and my movement was nice. I think he was just trying to make sure I wasn't too discouraged. So here it is, I'm making progress in little marginal inches. And so it'll go, inch by inch and hopefully my ukes will continue to be patient with me until one day I finally get it enough to do a decent job of it.
08-01-2007 10:24 AM 