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...happy happy joy. Keiko was a blast tuesday! My inlaws are in town so I was able to make it to both the beginner class and the open class. I came home exhausted, energized, and thoroughly delighted.
I was able to show up early like I used to way back in the long long ago, which was kind of fun in its own right. I got to see the newly-lacquered lamps put in the heiden before warming up for the beginner class. We got to do lots of morote dori, which is one of my favorites for how it seems to help remind me to get both sides of my body involved. We did kokyu nage omote and ura and, I want to say, shihonage, but I might be mixing that up with the open class.
In the open class we trained outside until it got a bit dark. The white hakama and keikogi almost seemed to glow in the dim twilight; I love those kinds of semi-surreal moments. They seem to imbue a sense of the grand mystery of the world/universe, which for me adds to a sense of opening the mind and intent. As fun as that was, I still feel so "new" with regards to the bokuto waza. Certainly I feel more familiar than a year ago, but with taijutsu I have a lot more confidence...like I can "fake it" better.
At any rate, we went inside and worked on morote dori shiho nage ura before moving on to what I think was a tsuki kokyu nage variation. Sensei started the morote dori focus by showing a variation which brought uke's arm closer to the shoulder, using a bowing motion to facilitate the suppression. It was interesting to note how nage's upper body slid into position compared to the usual method we use, which more or less keeps the arm closer to the center line as in holding a sword in chudan.
I had so much fun and felt like I was on cloud nine the whole drive home...good times!
And now I'm looking forward to keiko tonight. Today has been a bit of a downer after hearing about some terrible stories that brought to mind some other recent and terrible stories I've heard/read...just can't seem to shake them from my brain. So much beauty and so much ugly...
...and so the training of living and refining life goes; I can almost hear my dad's voice: "keep your chin up."
Be excellent to each other, dudes and dudettes.