Since I mentioned Ledyard-sensei, well, he was pretty cool about being addressed as "George" too; I might as well describe the little lunchtime show-and-tell he gave me.
We were chatting about various things related to the seminar weekend, then at some point the conversation turned to the uke-nage connection when uke takes hold of nage's wrist. So he offered to show me what he thought should be a good uke-connection. He took hold of my wrist and said "Feel that coming up your arm?" I said "Holy shit!" Whatever he sent up my arm did not feel like electricity or heat. Then George would periodically ask "Ok, where am I now?", and I would tell him wherever I felt he was - the near shoulder, the far shoulder, the near hip, etc. Basically, George's idea of a good uke connection on a wrist grab is a clean path to the nage's center via the point of contact.
Next, George invited me to do the same to him. Well, first he had to fix my grip on his wrist. The palm heel needs to be in solid contact with his arm. Then he stated the usual admonition to relax the arm and the shoulder. Then he said, "Ok, go for my center". So I set up the Ground/Up force from my back foot to the hand holding his wrist, then imagined it continuing towards his center. He said "You're stuck at my shoulder." Apparently without realizing it I lost a "connection" within my own body - I let my shoulder - or was it my elbow? - whatever, something slip out of alignment. He helped me fix it, then I got a little closer but stuck in his chest or whatever - again, more coaching/fixing... finally he said "Good! You've reached my center! Now try my far shoulder..."
So the rest of the show-and-tell went like that, with George encouraging me to connect to various places and coaching me along. I've since tried to connect like that in regular Aikido class, but as Ikeda-sensei says "Connect yourself, partner goes!" - before I can to fun stuff to a partner like that, I need more work to
connect myself. Then after that I probably need George again, or another comparatively skilled individual, for another literal hand-holding session.
