Your Demon Technique?

I'm testing for third kyu this coming Thursday (co-incidentally almost exactly three years since my frst aikido class) and while I'm pretty sure that I have already passed "the Test", I simply Cannot perform Shomenuchi Nikyo Ura in Sensei's presence to save my life! Just cannot get the hand changes.
So I'm not asking for help with my nikyo, its a little late for that! But just curious, what were all your demon tecninques, specifically for your mid-kyu grades. What could you Just Not Get when you were going up for your test?

Ooooooooooooooooh, good one, Jo! And I hope you have an awesome test!!!!! I'll be rooting for you from 3,000 miles away.

5th kyu - ushiro tekubitori kotegaeshi (Someone said they thought putting this one 5th kyu was Yamada Sensei's idea of a joke, LOL)

4th kyu - tsuki iriminage...not the tenshin one where you grab uke's hand, but the one where you enter right in (Just a month or so ago, Sensei was watching me with this one and said "You have trouble with this one." That test was over a year and a half ago...)

3rd kyu - shomenuchi sankyo (I still hate helping people with this one, because even though I can do it ok now, I still lack confidence)

2nd kyu - ushiro tekubitori koshinage (this test was two months ago, I am still haunted, ha. My problem on the test was rushing through it, not setting up the koshinage)

OK, so that's my list of buggaboo techniques. My next test is 1st kyu and in the USAF-ER, there are no specific techniques (it's all like 5 techs from katatori menuchi, 5 from yokomen, etc...), except I will have to do five different koshinages.....gulp.

I'll be thinking of you Thursday!

5th kyu - ushiro tekubitori kotegaeshi (Someone said they thought putting this one 5th kyu was Yamada Sensei's idea of a joke, LOL)

This is one of my favorite techniques to do and it can be quite beautiful.

When I was a white belt, which was a year and two months ago, I practiced with a black belt that really pushed me. There are a lot of parts to that technique and I had no idea what I was doing, so for much of the technique we worked on the lead. Man, he slammed me into the mat a whole bunch of times and I got the impression that he was taunting me a bit.

The experience really stuck with me, and rather than making me want to quit, I work on it whenever I get a chance and have gotten decent at it. I can't wait to practice ushiro tekubitori kotegaeshi with that guy again. Not for revenge--I just want to show him that I eventually got it.

I finished the kyu grades a few years ago. I recall many techniques I just didn't get. Shomen nikkyo ura was a hassle to smooth out. Tsuki kaitenage felt very unconvincing for a long time. I had trouble with iriminage too. Hell, I'm not sure any technique ever came easy for me, and a few of them haunt me still. Such as sankkyo. Doesn't matter which attack. I couldn't do a good sankkyo to save my life then, and I can't do it now. I've been trying very hard too. :/

Shihonage is also a stumbling block for me. Especially from hamni handachi ushiro ryokatatori. Koshinages of any flavor were a problem but I managed to cross one of my mental blocks a month or so ago and they've been coming along. I wouldn't say they're good, but they're coming along.

Good luck!

Anytime I have to let some one grab me, turn my back on some one, go under an arm, or down on one knee, my demons appear.

I think my hardest technique to overcome was kata tori sankyo on my 4th kyu test. It wasnt that i didnt know it... i just could not remember it to save my life. I would practice it for an entire class and then a few days later come back and i had forgotten the whole thing. Fortunately i think i have it now. haha.

For 4th kyu it was shomenuchi nikkyo ura -- never could get the timing and offbalancing right at the time.
For 3rd kyu it was tsuki kaitenage ura and shomenuchi sankyo because my sensei switch the variation of technique he wanted me to do right before the test.
For 2nd kyu it was hanmi handachi yokomenuchi kotegaeshi.

only one demon for me : kata guruma

Half a week before my fourth kyu test it dawned on me that I had always done shomenuchi kokyunage wrong--I had a completely wrong idea of how it worked--and so when my test came, I did this technique like I'd only known it for three days. Not very well, in other words.

Nothing on third bugged me that much, though kata tori nikyo remains very hard. The real problem on that test was cross-rolling. Ki Society has cross-rolls (rolling on the "wrong" arm for a given hanmi) on the fifth kyu test, but my entire fifth-kyu group, all six of us, resolutely did regular rolls instead. We passed, and I thought that was the end of it; but sensei didn't forget and asked for them again on my thirds! She looked at them and said, "Well, they're not unsafe, and they're sort of round, but they're almost completely weight-upperside." I sense cross-rolls in my future....

Mary Kaye

ushiro techniques are my biggest bugbear particularly ushiro kaiten and shihonage...i never quite seem to know what to do with which of uke's hands somewhere in the middle of the movement. And of course I picked the perfect moment to discover I didn't quite know how to do ushiro shihonage: in the middle of my last grading . My dear uke was trying to very discreetly prompt me but of course that didn't quite work either since I literally only a few feet away under the noses of the examining panel.

Jo Adell wrote: I simply Cannot perform Shomenuchi Nikyo Ura in Sensei's presence to save my life!

Maybe that's where the real demon is. I failed 4th kyu test twice because of this. My sensei told me that all that should exist for me at that time is just myself and my uke, nothing else, no test, no grading panel, nothing else. It worked for me.

When i was training for 3rd kyu i went through a mental block with jo waza, the only technique i could do for a whole 15mins (the class before my grading) was nikkyo, i found that i knew about 34,000,000 different ways but that was all i could bloddy do, it drove me insane. so on the day of the test i avoided nikkyo like the plague incase i got stuck in another loop. it nearly killed me.

True, I always get stuck on Shio-Nage from Yokomen, for days at a time, it's the only one I could do.......Then I realised it was the only one I know

Sokumen Iriminage used to be my demon technique. Never got the timing to do it effectively. After much practice and correction by sensei, only did it recently made it into my tokui waza (most valuable techniques list).

Boon.

Great question. I think it changes for me alot, generally when I think I can do a technique very well and then I just F*** it up, which makes it a demon as it disheartens me and I think:

'Man, I used to be able to do this pretty well. Now Im crap!'

Didnt really have any problems on 6th, 5th and 4th kyu, not that they were perfect or anything. But the jo tori/waza really screwed me up on 3rd kyu. Much the same as Steve, I could not get the mai or the feel of the weapon, which at the time I decided was just for hitting people. Now I appreciate it a bit more and find it slightly easier.

Steve Mullen wrote: When i was training for 3rd kyu i went through a mental block with jo waza, the only technique i could do for a whole 15mins (the class before my grading) was nikkyo, i found that i knew about 34,000,000 different ways but that was all i could bloddy do, it drove me insane. so on the day of the test i avoided nikkyo like the plague incase i got stuck in another loop. it nearly killed me.

Hi Steve,
Was this the grading when you did Happo Giri with the jo?
Classic.

twas the very same, that f***ing jo will haunt me for the rest of my life

thats partly the reason i left it on a train

Naughty.

I guess Im pretty consistent in my demons.Fifth Kyu it was iriminage. Any iriminage would make me freeze up, so I worked really hard at it and now its one of my stronger techniques! But for fourth it was the very same shomen nikyo ura. I had no problem with katatori nikkyo, just shomen.
And its funny how some people's demons are others' strenghths. Yokomen shihonage is my absolute favorite technique, it just flows for me. But I like shihonage so much it was the weakest part of my fifth kyu test, because the mind thinks, if I'm enjoying it, well, then, of course I'm doing it right...
And then there's jiyuwaza. Sensei has already told me that he will be paying close attention to my jiyuwaza on my test, and I do not feel it my place to remind him that it is not required on any tests until Second kyu...Enter. Turn. Pull technique up out of files. Keep moving. Enter. Turn....

Tai atari ikkyo vs tai atari gokyo. The hand position...oye.

Yokomenuchi shihonage irimi is a demon of another sort for me--if the attack is anything vaguely resembling yokomen, and I'm the least bit distracted or tired or unsure, yokomenuchi shihonage will suddenly appear. Okay for jiu-waza, but really not good when I am supposed to be helping a junior partner learn something else!

I tell myself, better the wrong technique than standing like a deer in the headlights. But I wouldn't mind a little more diversity in my wrong techniques....

Mary Kaye

It amazing how so many people have a problem with Shomenuchi Nikyo Ura. I don't have a problem with this technique, but, I have a problem with Shomenuchi Ikkyo Ura. I can't get uke off balance well enough to put them down in Ikkyo, but this deficiency on my part helps me with Nikyo. I also have a problem with Tenchinage. I know what to do but I just can't get it smooth enough to look like I'm not struggling. I'm glad I was able to skip this technique on my 5th kyu test.

I always have trouble with tenchinage as well. Not the form, since it's simple enough, but because it is so simple, it's a devil to get just right. The worst is tsuki tenchinage, it's like trying to throw air.

Another is receiving yokomenuchi. Somehow my maai is never right, and I seem to get conflicting advice on it. Probably the conflict is just in my mind...

I had to techs against jo on my last test, and kept ending up way too far from uke, groping in the air for an arm or jo that wasn't there. Pathetic....

kvaak
Pauliina

Anything that I'm expected to remember the name of is a real pain for me

I'm at the end of my first month and the only things I know off of the top of my head are "shihonage" and that "kokyu" blending thing... I don't even know the whole names... I feel like my head is about to explode.

I love training though! I figure just by the law of averages I have to remember something eventually if I just keep going 4x/week!

-Doug