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12/9/04
Morning class:
Worked on Nikkyo and the cutting down bit. Sensei explained it more, demonstrated it more and the like. We ended up with a group of three, and he came over took me aside and worked with just me for about 15 minutes on Nikkyo. It was really neat, and about as long as I could do a private lesson, my whole brain got filled up with just the details that he was showing me. The part that sticks most is that I have to work on the angle of Ukes wrist, not pushing down. And that there is actually a little draw toward you that makes it even more effective. Imagine that you are trying to stay where you are in space, and close the gap between the edge of Ukes hand, and your shoulder, (Classical positioning assumed). One of the openings is that if Uke ends up above you they have the force to use their arm as a whole and negate the nikkyo. The best thing to do is to take them as low as possible and then back up, so that you are going up quicker than they are they come up and nikkyo themselves. So the order would look like this if I can write it. You receive the left hommi shoman strike and blend with it, cutting down with your right hand on their left hand blade, where it meets the wrist. Then you grab their wrist with your left hand, and stabilize it as you continue to cut all the way to the mat. At the bottom you allow the position of your hand to rotate with respect to theirs so that you now are grasping their left hand in your right hand thumbs together, hopefully you have gathered their thumb in the process of the rotation. You start up, holding their hand firmly, and their wrist firmly. They start up from the mat, and put themselves into Nikkyo. This of course is amazing and worked like you would not believe….Until I start working with Noel, who can't seem to get it to work well with me. Sensei comes by and tells him that it is my wrist flexibility, and that he has to work extra hard on it because we are trying to get my wrists to be more flexible, we know they are strong, but we need flexibility too! Then Sensei demonstrates on me a bunch of times, the last two doing something other that Nikkyo, once a Kokyu Ho, and the other time a strange forward plant your face if you don't know how to roll thing. (Of course he knows that I know how to roll!). He states to Noel, maybe you wouldn't do this move to him at all as he is doing both of the alternates.
Evening class:
I wanted to stay for both evening classes, but M was not feeling all that energetic, so we only stayed for the basics class. In retrospect this was a good thing. After being wadded up in a ball all day inside a boat bilge I was feeling physically tired and strained.
Worked with M on the nikkyo movements, she did awesome! Sensei came by and helped, and I tried my best to help with making my wrists easier to move for her. We worked together the whole class, that seemed to be what M wanted, and it was as good as anything. The class was pretty evenly split between people 3rd kyu and up, and newbies. So everyone had someone to work with that could help them.
12-10-2004 10:00 AM 