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<blogEntries>
<blogEntry id="900">
	<title><![CDATA[Catching up]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[It's hard to keep up with this.  The days float by.  I'm going to every class we have at the dojo which isn't all that much, but I hope it will be enough.  I should do more work outside of class, but I already feel like the time commitment is pretty high and I'm also just shy about asking people. It's also hard because it's hard for me to really understand what I need to work on.

Charlie helped by pounding one piece of advice into my head:  5 techniques from each attack.  That's very concrete and seems like it shouldn't be too much trouble.  He also suggested writing them down, except that we don't really use named techniques all that much in the dojo.

Munetski: kotegayesh; zemponage; straight in strike; kaitenage; koshi (tenkan with hand underneath, leading uke around). ]]></body>
	<date>08-16-2004</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="863">
	<title><![CDATA[Friday afternoon]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[Lots of people came and Eric didn't show up, so I taught two classes.  I'm really focused recently on the idea of getting off line and entering.  In the first class we tried doing that with katate dori.  In the second class we did the same thing, but from munetski.  The problem that I noticed everyone had, including me, was when someone is coming very strong, it's hard not to bang into them with the approach.  I think the key to this is timing.  Good timing puts you in the right place (right in the hole) so that they have to respect your atame.  Bad timing against a strong attack allows them to subtly shift the attack so you are really no longer off line any more.

I think I hurt Xavier's hand in class today.  He was struggling with my shihonage, and I cranked it a little hard.  It's very scary to hear a crack.  He says he is fine, but I'm quite worried. ]]></body>
	<date>08-06-2004</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="862">
	<title><![CDATA[Thursday with Charlie]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[Charlie taught both classes.  In the first class we did a variant of the ikkyo/nikkyo/sankyo/yonkyo progression.  The attack was shomenuchi, and the idea was to really focus in on the way that kokyu can deflect the attacker and move him off of your line.  This is something that I need more work on.  It's hard not to simply pass my arm sideways, hitting ukes hand.  Instead, it's important to catch uke and then to use the turn of my body to turn my arm, so that uke rolls along it.  This is easy to say, and I've sort of known how to say it for a while.  I need to practice it before or after class in order to make it more of a part of my movement, especially when I'm feeling intimidated.

The second class focused on ushiro waza.  I think the key here (like so many places) is moving from hamni to hamni.  When things are moving so circularly (like they are in ushiro) it's hard to really keep a strong hamni. ]]></body>
	<date>08-06-2004</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="854">
	<title><![CDATA[Small class]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[Only Alan showed up for morning class. We worked on what it means to stay on center, both as uke and nage.  I wonder how this connects to what I need to be working on.  One thing is the basic way that flexibility and good hamni make it possible to hold a strong center line without getting rigid. ]]></body>
	<date>08-04-2004</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="850">
	<title><![CDATA[Floppy hands and strong hips]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[A big part of dealing with ski is finding a way to let it slide by me.  This means soft hands.  However, hands that are soft can lead to a weak defence.  This means: good placement and, even more important, connecting the hands to the hips.  You need floppy hands and strong hips. ]]></body>
	<date>08-02-2004</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="848">
	<title><![CDATA[Saturday and Monday morning]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[Trouble waking up Saturday morning.  Missed most of Brian's class.  However:

Noticed that the idea of getting offline BEFORE trying to tenkan worked really well.  This way of re-establishing the connection before any large or obvious movement is made gets at the heart of taking the initiative which is what I'm trying to learn.  Couldn't quite get it to work with Brian, though.  This has to do with feeling intimidated.  I thought about this later during the day and thought about the idea of 'seeing the holes' which I think is really central to making Aikido work.  When someone attacks, it's important to see it (from before the attack begins) in terms of the holes and open spaces towards which I can comfortably go.  Instead of waiting for Brian to attack, I need to see and go to those holes.

Chuck taught bokken kata #10 and I really noticed the way that the defence of the neck needs to be a block before I flick the sword away from me to the other side. Also, if you make the flick go all the way over to the other side (good because it locks the peron's arms up) you can follow smoothly into the shomen that comes next.

Monday morning with Tom Hickey, back from Colorodo Camp, teaching, again, a new way to look at the unbalancing at 'touching time.'  The basic idea is to try to settle uke back into his tail-bone but also to twist so the upper body curls up and back, away from the tail bone.

Another interesting idea was a way of leading a kosa dori around so that uke basically runs into your hand.  I liked this because it brings me back to the idea of keeping the hip movement going (otherwise uke get's stuck and doesn't keep moving smoothly into your hand).

There is always more room for work on flexibility and fluidity as uke. ]]></body>
	<date>08-02-2004</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="843">
	<title><![CDATA[Morning class]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[Morning class (Tom Zielinski): 
  Irimi and tenkan practice 
  Rondori practice 
  Jo practice 
    spiral block
    kata #1

And what did we notice?  

That ski rondori is much harder for us than shomen rondori.  I think that's because it is much easier for me to irimi straight in on a shomen than on a ski.  I think that's because when you irimi straight in on a ski, you really need to have your angles right or you are just walking into the punch. Shomen is more forgiving.

That I can do a spiral block, but only very slowly.  The key is to make sure that the block is coming out of my rear hip and not out of the hand.  This is hard to explain, but it basically means that I am trying to connect my rear hip through to uke's center through the two joes (heehee), and then to drive forward through that.  Hard hard.

Teaching tonight. ]]></body>
	<date>07-30-2004</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="840">
	<title><![CDATA[Upcoming Nidan test]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[My Nidan test in on Sept. 18, and I was looking for ways to help me focus and organize my practice.  This journal thing came to mind.  There's a lot of advice that I'm getting write now, and a lot of things that I'm trying to think about and integrate into my Aikido.  Just keeping track of it here might help keep me from feeling overwhelmed.

The test is going to be a stretch for me.  Even though I've been practicing in my current style for 5 years, since my shodan exam, I still haven't internalized a lot of the things that are important here.  My teachers put a lot of emphasis on a 'martial sense,' which involves a careful maintenance of a martial posture and an awareness of where my feet and arms are at all times.  Those are all good things, but they are different than the things I was really brought up focusing on.  

Anyway, here are the things that need focus:

1) moving from hamni to hamni. Almost every time I find myself struggling, I have also moved out of hamni.

2) keeping my shoulders drawn back in order to open up my posture

3) taking and controlling the first move.  This is just like back in Seidokan, but I guess it's time to take that to another level.

It's also worth noticing what, specifically, I want to be working on:

1) Rondori.  Worked on this recently and I am starting to feel comfortable with it.

2) Bokken and Jo kata.  I am at a place where I 'know' all of these, but they still need a lot of work.  The key here is finding senior students who are willing to go over them slowly with me.

3) Koshi.  When I'm doing well, I can do these well, but they just aren't as well practiced for me as they should be.  Not 'clean.'

4) Hamni handachi and swari waza.  I'm comfortable on my knees, but more work here, again, could just make it all much cleaner.  I certainly don't move like some of the people who are really comfortable on their knees.

5) Basic waza. This always needs work. ]]></body>
	<date>07-29-2004</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="331">
	<title><![CDATA[Teaching atemi]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[So after trying to teach atemi, I took a bunch of poor students at my dojo and gave them a class on atemi.  I've got such a 'soft and gentle' Aikido reputation that one of our sandans actually scoffed when he heard that I'd taught a class on atemi. "THAT I'd like to see," he said.

At the end of the class I usually ask for questions.  Xavier asked, "What are the points to concenrate on when doing atemi."  It was a nice question because it let me sum up the points I was trying to make in the class:
[list]
[*]Atemi should not interrupt the flow uke's movement
[*]Atemi should be used as a check of positioning and stance
[*]Effective atemi should not rely on the 'respect atemi' agreement between partners. Truly effective atemi commands respect
[*]Effective atemi should not rely on hurting uke.  If you can not influence your partner without hurting them then your positioning, stance, timing, or intent need work
[/list]
These are easy things to say, difficult things to demonstrate, and nigh-on impossible to teach, I think.   ]]></body>
	<date>10-13-2003</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="330">
	<title><![CDATA[Teaching Randori]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[It's amazing how ideas that are simple and everyday in one dojo can be revolutionary and inspiring in another.  Sunday at Capital District Aikikai is an open-mat day.  I showed up hoping just to throw and be thrown.  Still, I was the only yudansha and we had a circle of 7 people working techniques and it seemed like people were pretty much following my lead, so I started to turn it into an informal and simple randori class.  Now, anyone from my home dojo can vouch for me when I say that my randori is nothing to brag about.  Still, we do randori very regularly and start on it from the very beginning, so in my 4 years at the dojo I've at least learned the basics of how we teach it.  That was what I brought to the class.

It was a lot of fun helping the students let go of the break that came up for them between one uke and the next and helping them let go of the tendency to get stuck on one uke as they tried to complete a technique.  I'm not a big fan of the 'randori as fear inducing threat to high level students.'  I like much better the everyday randori-as-meditation.  Finding the flow of moving from uke to uke and feeling that you are still at the center and in control is a wonderful and exciting feeling. It was fun to share it. ]]></body>
	<date>10-13-2003</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="310">
	<title><![CDATA[Visiting in Albany (Latham)]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[This isn't the first time I've visited the Capital District Aikikai Dojo in Latham near Albany, NY.  It is the first time that I've had a chance to show up for a large, well attended class.  Unfortunately, the sensei -- Irv Faust -- didn't show up today, but the man who taught the class did a very nice job.  The dojo was welcoming and warm and beautiful.  The class was very active and dynamic, and the mix of students was delightful.  I'm not used to lining up by rank or to having the group work separate out by rank / willingness to breakfall, and I admit to feeling a little uncomfortable with that.  On the other hand, I love the way that the teachers at this dojo give a lot of time for each technique (is that characteristic of Federation dojos?).  Combine that with the fact that almost no time is wasted on lengthy explanations and that the techniques usually involve a lot of flowing and movement, and you can get a pretty good work out in during an hour.

The thing I work most on learning when visiting this dojo -- or most other Aikikai dojos I've been in -- is managing to pay attention to the detail of the form and to put aside the tendency to improvise (from ASU) or to cut corners (from Seidokan).  This is great practice for me. ]]></body>
	<date>10-04-2003</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="309">
	<title><![CDATA[Teaching koshi nage]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[I don't teach koshi nage very often:  I'm just not all that comfortable with it.  Still, yesterday it sort of 'popped up' in the flow of the techniques and I found myself focusing on it.  The idea I'd most like to get across when teaching koshi nage is that koshi is continuous with other Aikido techniques.  That is, when people go to do a hip throw, they almost always approach it differently than other throws (which may be because we don't do them as often as we should and it may not).  I like to show how there is a continuum between a regularly throw and a full koshi, and along the continuum there are different degrees of allowing your hips to unbalance and unweight uke.  I find that this is easy to demonstrate, but not always easy for the students to grasp, so I'm still working on it. ]]></body>
	<date>10-04-2003</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="308">
	<title><![CDATA[Teaching a small class]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[I think that small classes are harder to teach than big classes.  On Friday, only two people show up, but still 4th kyu and under.  Two, I think, is the hardest class size because one person is always just sitting around.  It doesn't 'feel' right to run it traditionally:  demonstrating and then simply letting the students practice.  I almost always work it as a threesome, rotating the technique whenever I feel like it is going smoothly enough.  Still, any time I stop to explain things, one person is left just sitting around.  That means that the techniques need to be pretty high energy in order to keep the class energy up.  On the other hand, with only two people doing a lot of high energy techniques, we all get tired pretty quickly.   ]]></body>
	<date>10-04-2003</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="304">
	<title><![CDATA[Moving the whole body]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[In Seidokan, teachers are trained to be very clear about what they want a student to be learning.  In ASU, there seems to be less of this.  So, I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out what it is that Chuck thinks I need to learn.  On Tuesdays  class, it seemed like it was the idea of keeping the whole body moving.  The two-sword katas are great for teaching this, as they force you to move your hands in opposition to one another and to communicate that to your heaps and feet.  I want to learn to visualize my techniques as though I am holding two swords. ]]></body>
	<date>10-02-2003</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="281">
	<title><![CDATA[Hurricane day]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[Only three other people showed up to class.  I love weather.

The thing to work on today was extending your arm all the way down when you bring it down towards your center.  This is sort of  like emphasizing the down hand in ten shi nage, but we were doing different katatedori receiving techniques.  It's so easy to bend your elbow, drawing uke in perfectly balanced! ]]></body>
	<date>09-18-2003</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="276">
	<title><![CDATA[Learning to attack]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[Thursday is usually 'sensei day' when our two 6th dans teach back-to-back, but for some reason they were both teaching yesterday.  Chuck Weber has been working on me pretty consistently recently.  Apparently, his desire to see me test has overcome his feeling that I'm probably hopeless.  

In any case, today he pointed out the weakness in my attacks.  During his class, when we were doing a yokomen with a tanto and later in Charlie Page's class when he and I were paired up for a katatedori technique he came back to it.  The idea, as I understand it, is to make sure that the movement of the hand, foot and hip finish the movement together.  The idea is familiar to me from Tai Chi, but I'd never really thought about it in the context of Aikido attacks.  If your hips and leg have stopped and your hand is still moving, then you are throwing your shoulders off balance.  

It's always amazing how powerful my attacks feel against beginners and how weak they feel against students who are much more advanced than I am.  ]]></body>
	<date>09-17-2003</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="267">
	<title><![CDATA[Teaching beginners]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[Fridays are my day to teach.  I teach first class and Eric teaches the second class. The whole class was three beginners.  I remember there was a thread not too long ago on the qualities necessary for teaching beginners, but I have to admit to finding it more challenging than teaching more advanced students.  I guess my ideal student is still a low enough rank that I feel like I have something to offer, but high enough rank that they won't have so much of a tendency to copy my mistakes.  

Anyway, there was a specific request for mune tsuki kotegaiesh, so we spent the whole class building up to that.  It turns out that mune tsuki kotegaiesh is a fairly complicated technique that really makes the most sense with a good uke.  I felt like my demonstrations were miserable, like the students had only the vaguest idea about what I was on about, and like I'd generally made a mash of it.  So, of course, they were all very happy and felt like they'd learned a lot.  Go figure. ]]></body>
	<date>09-13-2003</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="256">
	<title><![CDATA[Catching a baby]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[Yesterday, Jonathan Klopp taught a class which I named 'catching a baby.'  The class was focused on the idea of receiving.  The central idea was that when you want to catch something precious (like a baby?!) you first reach out to it, and then, once contact is made, allow it to fall towards your center.  You soften your arms and use them as cushions while bringing your body towards the thing you are catching.  I found the metaphor -- thinking of catching rather than connecting -- to be a powerful one.  

The combination of techniques was also very nice.  Most of them don't have any names that I know of, but the idea was to work mostly with very direct attacks (katate kosa, ryote dori, mune tsuki) and in each on to reach out towards the attack while getting of the line irimi or tenkan and bringing uke towards your center.

Very nice. ]]></body>
	<date>09-09-2003</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="131">
	<title><![CDATA[Pilates and Contact and Aikido]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[My girlfriend just bought a couple of Pilates CDs (Brooke Siler) and we've been playing with them.  It's a lot of fun.  Mostly it seems to have a lot to do with grounding the center of your body and then using extending out through different parts of the body in a way that engages core muscles.  For me, what's really interesting right now is this idea of grounding and extending.

In Contact Improv class yesterday, we workd on strength and lightness.  We focused a lot on the idea that some part of our body had to be connected to the ground (perhaps through our partner) and that other parts were not.  If we could 'rebound' (or yield and push or connect solidly) from the parts that were supporting our weight, we could try to extend that out into the parts that were not.  Any limb that was not actively being used for support was free to feel light and float up and away from the ground.  This was actually a really powerful idea, because it put me in touch with how little I tend to think about the other limbs and also how much  potential for lightness they have.

In Aikido, I guess the same ideas apply.  I generally think of Aikido as being all about heaviness ('weight underside'), but, in fact, the goal here is also to work the strong connection to teh ground against a mobility, lightness and freedom in the rest of the body, particularly the limbs and the head (which I'm now used to thinkin of as another limb). ]]></body>
	<date>05-29-2003</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="113">
	<title><![CDATA[Finding mobility]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[The two senseis at my dojo, Chuck Weber and Charlie Page, are not the kind who burden you down with an excess of direction.  So, when Chuck tells me something I really try to listen.  Sometimes it's not that easy to understand, though.  I think that for a long time he has been trying to get me to work on integrating the movements of my upper and lower half.  When I move, my feet lose connection to the ground and then my upper body loses connection to my feet.  This shows up a lot in shomenuchi irimi nage, when the lack of connection leaves my upper body hanging back and square to the incoming blow instead of turning and slipping past like it's supposed to.

Anyway, yesterday morning, Chuck gave me an image to work with the might be really helpful with this.  He had been trying to show the class something about it by having uke simply push on nage's shoulder with a bokken and telling us to allow our body to turn effortlessly into iriminage.  Then he had us try the same thing when uke just walked towards us with the bokken raised, allowing our body to be turned effortlessly in response.  After class, he pulled me over to work with me on it for another couple of minutes.  Then he told me to imagine that my head is being hung by a string (I learned something about this recently:  it helps the image to connect the string to your ears and not just the top of your head), and bend my knees a little so that my bottom part sinks down.  This will cause my hips to float, with a feeling of being slightly disconnected from both the top of my head and my knees, but still pulled between them.  With this floating hip feeling, it is easier to move and turn without losing connection.  At least, I hope it is.

One thing I liked about this image is that it may help me find lightness in my hips which is something I really need for dancing. ]]></body>
	<date>05-11-2003</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="108">
	<title><![CDATA[Comments]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[By the way, I see that people have been viewing this journal a little.  I just wanted to say that comments are welcomed. I wasn't sure, reading other people's journals what the ettiquette was, but I'm happy to hear the thoughts of others.

It even surprises me a bit that anyone would be interested in reading this. ]]></body>
	<date>05-08-2003</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="107">
	<title><![CDATA[Visiting Latham, NY]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[My girlfriend lives in Troy, NY, so I occasionally find myself at the Aikikai dojo in Latham, [url="http://www.albany.edu/~er8430/play/aikido/"]Capital District Aikikai[/url].  They have a very nice dojo, and I've always felt quite welcomed there.  It's also nice to feel the Aikikai style every so often.  Anyway, on Tuesday there were no yudansha.  I showed up a little late, and a guy with kyu rank named Rob was instructing the class.  I haven't been there often enough to know everyone or for everyone to know me, and Rob and I hadn't met before.  Still, he saw my hakama and came over and asked if I was yudansha and then asked if I was visiting the dojo.  He seemed a little conflicted and a little embarassed, and then finally said, "well, I'm instructing right now."  I said, "that's perfectly acceptable to me," smiled and got dressed and joined the class on the mat.  At about 6:55, Rob came over to me and told me that he had to leave at 7:00 and he asked me if I wanted to teach the last half hour.  Actually, he didn't ask me.  He said, "maybe someone else can teach the last half hour ..." and so I volunteered.

It was interesting.  I felt very off center as I started to teach.  Actually, ever since making the transition from Seidokan to ASU, I've found teaching to be a confusing experience.  I feel like I have one foot still back in the old world, and the other in the new world.  I respect both traditions, and I wish I could show that respect by teaching my classes firmly in one tradition or in the other, possibly choosing to bridge between them when that seemed appropriate.  Instead, I bring a mish-mash of stuff that often seems to have no lineage at all except my imagination.

They had been doing munetski, so I stayed with munetski.  I taught them about the Seidokan idea of unbalancing simply by positioning and applying a soft touch. I mean, that's not a purely seidokan idea, but I guess the way I taught it felt Seidokan:  non-martial, focused on gentleness, focused on natural movement.  Then I taught them the ASU idea of simply coming in along the center line and using the directness of irime (and atemi) to unbalance uke.  Again, I guess that's not purely ASU, but it is, nevertheless, ASU at its purest.  I also taught them some other stuff, hopping back and forth like a jack rabbit between styles.

I wish my own ideas had been more crystallized because then I could have helped them see the differences and similarities of the techniques more clearly.  As it was, I think they had a great time and seemed to enjoy the slight detour from their regularly scheduled programming.  I know I had a good time, but I always have a great time when I'm teaching. ]]></body>
	<date>05-08-2003</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="100">
	<title><![CDATA[Dinner and a Choate Seminar]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[Last night I had dinner with my dance instructor, Daniel, and our friend, Deborah. Daniel and Deborah meet on Wednesdays at Starbucks when Daniel and I are between dance classes and Deborah is on her way from work to Yoga.  The evening was very lovely, but after dinner they offered to make up for the fact that I'd had to miss my Aikido class in order to attend, and that I'd teach some Aikido.  Actually before that, Daniel showed us a 3-minute Feldenkrais exercise he developed.  It wasn't my first time doing it (an exercise the develops the connection of the head through the spine and into the legs), but I'm always amazed at how much straighter I stand after doing it.

I taught them two simple things.  I taught them a simple kosa-dori ikyo, basically inviting uke in without moving the feet.  Then I taught them a lovely little demonstration that I'd learned from Eli Landau.  The 'attack' is katate-dori, and we start static.  Nage just steps off line (changing hanmi) and then lays his hand on uke's shoulder. It's very easy, that way to achieve an unbalancing. It was a lovely little 'party trick' type of technique and Deborah's apartment was set up with a soft couch on one side of where we practicing and a bed on the other side, so it was a soft landing either way and both of them had fun falling and playing with how easy it was to let someone else fall.

I find, generally, that finding a way to bring friends into Aikido really helps me feel connected to them.

That was last night. Tonight, Kevin Choate started a weekend seminar at our dojo.  Kevin has got to be the most frustrating seminar instructor I've ever met.  He is interested in such subtle issues that it is usually a long weekend of having only the barest clue of what is going on.  Interestingly, though, afterwards I often find that my Aikido has really been restructured in some important way.

Anyway, this time we seem to be working on upper-lower connectivity (it's fun having these new terms I learned in Daniel's Fundamentals of Movement class).  That is, he was emphasizing this evening the connection that Aikido has to martial arts that use a more set 'fighting stance.'  He seemed to be saying that in Aikido, we also wanted to sort of reference or pass through a similar stance.  That led to a strong connection of the hands to the ground through well planted feet (imagine a Karate 'readiness' pose).  

Another really interesting point he was bringing up was more related to body half.  For instance, in a karate stance, it is the arm that is still in by your body that is the one where the power is focused.  It has the potential to strike. So, I guess, in Ikyo, it is the hand that is still back that is the powerful one.  As soon as you bring out that back hand, you lose the power unless you transfer it to the other hand by drawing the other hand back. This notion of finding power in the drawing back of the hand or the saving it in readiness was sort of a new idea to me and I really like it. It's hard to remember though.

There were two other ideas that are also worth mentioning.  I'll just jot them down here to remind myself, although I may try to describe them more fully some other time.  One was the idea of drawing in the arm as though you were drawing in a rope that you had braced against your back (one hand goes in and one goes out).  The second idea was the importance of compressing a screwdriver back into your palm in order to stabilize it or connect to it. That's true whether you are screwing things in or out.  A similar compression of the palm can be really powerful when looking to screw the arm in or out with uke.  ]]></body>
	<date>05-02-2003</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="92">
	<title><![CDATA[Scheduling]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[The hardest thing for me right now seems to be scheduling.  I want to go to Aikido at least 3 times a week and perhaps 4.  That includes once a week of teaching.  I also want to dance and I want to work out at least twice (perhaps thrice) a week.  I wish I could add, also, a pilates class or a yoga class or a tai chi workout, but I think it's better, for now, to focus on Aikido, dance, and exercise.

This week will work right: I was at Aikido Thursday, Friday and Saturday.  I worked out on Sunday and Tuesday and I will work out again tomorrow, Sunday.  Dance is Wednesdays.  I hope next week will be much the same. ]]></body>
	<date>04-26-2003</date>
</blogEntry>


</blogEntries>