4/28/10 w [2s, 9v]
B 4 new vets, 1 new staff. Started about 10 minutes late. Did intro talk. Changed it a bit, asked people to think how they would react when someone came "up in their face". A couple of guys brought their hands up in an attack/defense move, one guy turned away and ducked. I explained that Aikido was a third approach to dealing with aggression and the feeling of vulnerability. This visualization seemed to help get the point across. I want to come up with more ways like this to "personalize" the basics.
Did my usual rap about relaxing, focusing, centering and how breathing can help. Started with warm-ups, stressing breath to center, did enter and turn [
irimi nage] solo and partnered. Worked from mirror stance [
gyaku homni]. Finished with simple wrist lock. The new staff person is a very petite nurse. For the wrist lock I had her work with a very large vet, six foot two or three. Everyone was a bit amazed at how well the move worked, especially her.
(Original blog post may be found
here.)