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I've been deferring the first entry for some time, trying to compose it mentally. Time to act rather than to plan.
I'd been looking forward to class all last week; it was a stressful week, and I really needed the tension relief that comes from sweating. but when I woke up, things began to go wrong. First I found otu that the dogi had been washed, but not dried. Then breakfast rice caught on fire in the microwave and burned through the rice cooker. THen I discovered that the dogi were not drying - two hours in the dryer and they were still soaking wet. I called my daughter and cancelled class.
Then I remembered that I had a spare dogi. So I called the daughter and told her that if she would be willing to wear sweats, I'd really like to go. I put my spare dogi in the bag & grabbed her wet uniform. Picked up the daughter and headed for class. Then I had an idea. I rolled down the window and hung the uniform pants out the window, and the top out another. Between the dry air and the speed of the car (bernouli effect ), the uniform dried. My daughter thought this was the funniest thing in teh world. She still gave me good natured grief - as did everyone when we got to class.
Sensei started work with hand grab releases - stuff I haven't worked on in close to 20 years. I found it marvelously fun, but the effort of trying to get the first one right drove all the others from my mind, and my partner had to remind me. My daughter worked in with us (we had an odd number of people in class), and then my partner had to go teach others, so daugther & I started working together.
Now it is important to note that I'm the largest person in the class, and daughter is the smallest person in class. This causes Sensei some amusement. In a sense we practice two very different styles of Aikido - I have to adapt all my techniques to avoid relying on my mass; she has to adapt all her techniques because her hands aren't large enough to encircle a wrist. (try doing kote hineri when you can barely span the tegatana of the hand!).
One of the infrequently scene black belts pointed out two changes to my technique to help me do shihonage on my daughter - (in addition to being tiny, she is insanely flexible, and this guy is the first person I've ever seen control her with shihonage). One of the two works, but I still can't get low enough to get below her center of gravity.
Then we switched to preparing her for her Ikyu test. Heavens above, she has improved since the last time we worked together. Remember what I said about adapting the technique for small size? She had some variations that were scarily effective.
Class finished and one of the other regulars pointed out that I was even more sweaty than usual - my daughter had worked me hard.
[And for teh record, I washed our uniforms that night & hung them to dry during the week.]