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Training on Friday was interesting. I arrived late and feeling extremely frustrated with the cab company so I missed the beginners class but was in time for the intermediate class. I saw one friend whom I'd not seen for at least two months and it turns out he had a newborn son so of course congratulations were in order. So that calmed me down a bit before class and fortunately since class went well, I finished feeling very happy.
I practised with one of the guys who was wearing a white belt but after one move I realised he was definitely better than I was...after class I figured it out that he was actually black belt so no wonder . Anyway, he very obligingly taught me stuff in silence when I couldn't figure out the one handed sankyo from a wrist grab. I still had to be shown that once I duck under the arm and turn around to face the uke, I should turn quite far in pushing the uke's arm towards him to achieve the lock before then bringing him down. I realise that in a lot of my aikido moves I'm not really going far enough literally...failing to extend far enough in the movement. I have to consciously remember that to give enough room and space for a wider movement until it becomes second nature.
We did a whole series of one armed movements as the instructor figured if we can do it with one hand we can definitely do so with two. I'm not entirely sure my ikkyo's worked that well as I felt I didn't have sufficient control over the uke particularly when trying to get them to go down after the initial tenkan and grab uke's wrist.
I did have a lot of fun though with the shihonage as doing shihonage with just one arm means a lot more freedom in manouvreing the uke to where nage wants him to go. I just got slightly worried at one point when my ankle gave a twinge as I was taking a fall as uke. Not at all my nage's fault but I figure I need to be careful when I land. Then I went more slowly after that as uke.
I should find out the name of the guy I practised with and thank him again. I so rarely practice with the guys in the class I invariably learn a lot from them when I do...they keep my practice very honest particularly for the techniques from a grab as then strength comes into play and I'm forced to improve my technique to take them and of course all the holes in my technique are really glaring. This guy was slowly ramping up the strength quotient so I could adjust.
Anyway, the one thing I will try to remember is to turn in more towards uke when doing sankyo and to remember to extend more in a tenkan generally and particularly in kotegashi.
05-01-2005 08:25 AM 
so of course congratulations were in order. So that calmed me down a bit before class and fortunately since class went well, I finished feeling very happy. 