Michael Zartman

My sensei is 58, and he fully participates by taking all ukemi. However, he has arthritis, a bad arm, a bad thumb, etc. from over 40 years in MA, including all 40 in judo and many in aikido. I am nearly 48--so far, the only limitation (if you can call it that) I have is that I no longer feel exhilarated after practice--I now feel just tired. I am reluctant (evil grin) to apply sankyo or nikkyo to him as I would to a younger uke because he winces. On ikkyo, I cannot extend his arm more than 60 degrees or so from his body without obvious pain to him (evil grin). He says he needs to feel the technique to be able to understand what may be going wrong with his student's technique--he says you see alot, but feel much more. It has taken me many years of "perfecting" technique by eye, but I am finally "feeling" the technique too. He is teaching me so much that I probably would never learn if he was not my uke. If he would only stop throwing me judo-style--I might live to be 58 too.