Keeping in the same line

Two weeks from now will be my brown belt exam, this opportunity did not come easily, it's been more than 15 months since my last blue belt exam. Both sensei have made very clear that this test is meant to hold higher standard than any of the previous tests, they will go over everything that we have learned so far. Most importantly we need to demonstrate the principle through techniques from tangible and intangible standpoint. The intangible part is what has been taking most of students so long time to be eligible for exams. Now that I am given the chance, I am excited that I can show what I got, at the same time, I also know that I am far from perfection, need continuously practice and learning.

Today is Saturday, we had four people showed up in the morning practice. It was a good practice, we covered quite a bit of material, one of the key things I learned today is keeping in the same line.

1. Tenkai kotegaeshi:  The typical thing I don't do well is when I finished rotate myself, usually find myself too far from uke, ending up chicken-wing the uke. Today Tim mentioned that if in initial kuzushi, I were to direct the uke towards the line straight in front of me, after I rotate, as long as I stay in the line, the uke will be at the same line. This makes a  lot of sense. Uke was kept to stick to one straight line, it enables me make the final throw much more accurate.

2. Ude-hineri: On the same train of thought, sensei has recently corrected us that it needs to happen on one straight line, we should not short-cut the technique by throwing uke on a angled line. Only with hip engaged turn, then the throw will be 180 degrees, and that is what they would like to see that we comprehend the technique both physically and mentally.

3. Hikiotoshi: This is another technique that requires staying on the same line. Engage the hip to connect is the key to success

This afternoon I went over my past two exam's video, found a lot of things that I have improved, I also found  that the speed and crispness in my previous two exams were very poor, there were many casual steps and little things that does not make me look good as a martial artist. I need to watch out for zanshin, maintain awareness, be crispy in between techniques.



Terminology:

Zanchin	State of awareness  残心
no	of  の 的
Tsukuri	Stucture, physique
Hiji	Elbow
Mochi	Must not
Hijimochi no Tsukuri	Elbow grabbing movements techniques

Let us talk about tote bags

In general, I don't like large size handbags, they are heavy and clumsy, most of them are designed with partial  closure such as hook, hinge or snap, which is far less secured for me, I will much prefer a full closure like a zip-around or zip-top. The only place I think it suitable to wear is when travelling, you can stuff clothes, books, small items in one giant bag. Very few totes will leave a mark in my memory, below are those exceptions.


Came across a very nice Gucci tote, vibrant color, classic bamboo handle, large enough for travel bag. This Gucci Bamboo Shopping Tote would go with anything! Sale in NM for $1890



Valentino continues to perform with their Rock Stub collection, more and more innovative pattern, it gives me fresh looks every time I look. This red Punkouture Medium Allover Stud Patent Tote Bag is listed for whopping $3795 in NM



This pink version is less provocative, more affordable and most importantly fully zippable, Rockstud Double-Handle Shoulder Tote Bag ask for $1595 in NM



Prada recently emerged quite a impressive number of tote bags, but the all seem to be similar, size and shape slightly different, when I browse throught the catalog, they are actually quite confusing. Neverthless most of them seem durable and good quality, the designs are conservatively lady-like. This cobalt blue Saffiano Executive tote bag is elegant, smooth, has a lot of zipped pocket, very practical. Listed for $2100 in NM
   


Another cobalt blue Saffiano Large Tote Bag doesn't have as nice as the form, but it is zip-around closure! Listed for $1960 in NM
   


Alexander McQueen has a tote bag similar to the below one, it is two-way zip top, they meet in the middle to his signature skull padlock. I remember seeing it in Nordstrom, my heart beating, the leather was also finer than the one in the picture, it was on sale for $1200 or less, I was in such urge to own it. Eventually decided to let go, but my head still can't let go of this bag after at least two years.

06/25 After practice thought

On this Tuesday night, we have a almost full class, everyone seems to be in good spirit. 

After warm up, we did sword practice, walking straight line with sword in hands. It sounds easy, but it is difficult to do. Holding the sword make you sensitive of where the weight is, you have to be very careful maintain the balance so you walk straight and steady. We also did some hip turn exercise, shift weight to one side, rotate on the weighted leg with arms wide open to your side.

Then Q&A time, I brought up that I felt Kotehineri is the hardest technique of all, sensei decided to test all of us how well we do on this technique, not surprisingly we failed. We spent the rest of the class rotating through sensei, correct our kotehineri one by one. My takeaway is use thumb rather than fingers to do hineri on uke, and really need to see uke's arm as a stick, drive it to uke's center, maintain it throughout.

Been a while

Wow, my last post was more than a month ago! I admitted being bad. Here is a quick post to capture a few thoughts.

Over last week, we spent a lot of time on kotehineri and kotegaeshi which triggered by a question from Ilya. Both sensei felt that we did horribly on those two techniques, they dedicated half a class time to train us for just these two. My take away are the following: 

1. Kotehineri:  Must get hineri firmly at the beginning, lock the elbow, create connection to the center, then use the other hand to push into the center, once you moved to the weak line of the uke, it is important to maintain the connection, so that creates the double back kuzushi, avoid collapsing arms, avoid lifting the uke's arm, if you do, that means you didn't have the good connection to create kuzhushi on uke, thus one tends to push them back with their arms. After double back kuzushi is created, pull to front leg and turn, thus throwing the uke, avoid push with the arms again, use the maintained kuzushi.

2. Kotegaeshi: Go with uke when he retracts the arm, use idoryoku, take him to his weak line, then take his hand to gaeshi, extend arms always, adjust footwork if needed, but be sure to maintain my own structure.

Tuesday (6/18) nights's class, we did some bokken draw. Sensei determined that our structure is horribly corrupted during practice, doing bokken exercise should help our structure problem.

• Holding bokken, left hand on bottom, right hand on top, loose grip
• Shoulder down, raise the elbow to raise bokken, think of it extending elbow out vs. lifting shoulder
• Blade should be pointing towards uke's eyes
• Never lay bokken on floor, bad luck and dangerous
• Never let bokken tip touch the floor
• Right hand holding the bokken, arm relax, hand next to body is the least threatening pose
• Bokken in left waist position, both arm relax, both hand next to body is the a bit more threatening pose
• Bokken in left waist position, left hand on bokken, right hand ready to draw, most threatening pose

Thoughts from Saturday Practices

This Saturday was a very hot sunny day, surprised that Summer came so quickly. As usual we have the practice in the morning at the gym. I ran a few errands, so I was quite late when I got to gym. Robert and Tim were practicing already, it was nice of them that they worked with me on my mirror hand grabs junanahon, gave me correction and good suggestion. Thanks so much guys!

Below are some of the notes that I remember.

1. Shomen-ate: question - should aim the attack directly to chin or from chest to chin?

2. Aigamae-ate : swing back leg, open hip, then I can face uke, position both hands in my center

3. Gyakugamae-ate: meet uke's grab, avoid collision.

4. Ushiro-ate: tough one for me, uke seems to run away from me. Robert pointed out that I can catch up with Uke a bit by doing extra shuffle step, don't let uke get passed me too much.

5. Oshitaoshi: top hand should come down on uke's back hand, you should grab the meaty palm with mawashi grib as soon as my hand being grabbed.

6. Hikitaoshi: I did horribly on this one. One of the tips from Tim is once move to the weak line, need to swing the back leg, thus open and twist the hip, which will create kuzushi, then immediately drop. I think it is important to step and swing the back leg, that way hip will be opened much sooner. Fish the uke a bit will break the balance easier.

7. Udehineri: once I have uke bend over, immediately i should start to do the next, don't wait. The comment was had too long pause.

8. Wakigatame: lower my center by lower the elbow not by bending over. this can only observed by a third person, thanks Tim and Robert! Connect hip with the pushing hand, then drive the hip to push uke's hand to his weak line, very effective if done correctly to me. A lot of time I felt not able to move uke, that is because not using my hip to drive them.

9. Hikiotoshi: another weak one, after extensive trial run and discussion, we discovered that I am missing the leg swing again which allows the hip to be opened, which will enable connection much easier and sooner. Basically I need to do shuffle steps before I got the hand blade up, after the blade up, two hands connect to uke with un-corrupted sturcture, then swing back leg to create the second kuzushi, drop immediately

I have some additional notes from RMR seminar in Denver back in Feb, post below.

1. Shomen-ate cross hand grab: turn palm over and drop slightly with dead wrist, stick to uke's belt, make him stuck, then slide up turn blade, push and drop.

2. Ushiro-ate cross hand grab: first it is jodan kuzushi, then drop. Why is it not gedan kuzushi?

3. Ushiro-ate mirror hand grab: it is a different application of hikitaoshi, elbow bend.

4. Wakigatame: think about pushing uke's hand, not pulling.

Two handed practice:

1. Ushiro-ate: kimay first, cross feet, drop wrist and switch hand.

2. Aigamae-ate: left hand go deep, breaks balance, bring uke to your side, makes right hand easier. Tori can kneel down if needed, but two hands in center.

3. Gyakugamae-ate: flip plam side up, then tasakbaki the same time

4. Oshitaoshi: Once had the initial kuzushi, need to keep it all time, control elbow. When moving forward, right foot step side way is ok, use idoyoku moving sideway, then step the other foot to take uke's place.

Mat abuser are gone!

Before I forgot what we did in week of April 22-27, I want to run a quick recap here.

First breaking news, after putting up new yellow signs on the mats, our mats stay intact each time when we came in, we didn't catch the mat abusers, but it seems that the new signs scared them away, hopefully it will keep this way.

Tuesday night class, we have both Morgan sensei and Branch sensei. After warm up, we did several round of tasabaki drill. Then followed by a lot of kuzushi waza practice. At the end of the class, we did self kuzushi practice, what it means is that we pretend being attacked by a invisible tori, so we have to show all the kuzushi and fall ourselves in each technique, it was a funny scene that all of us act like zombie. :-)

Thursday night class, we have Branch sensei. More kuzushi  waza and tasabaki practice, and again we practiced the self kuzushi uke, it is fun and it is kind of reminder of all principle of the techniques. Then on the extension of that practice, we added with tori, the goal is that the kuzushi made by the tori should match with those as if the uke does the self kuzushi, that way you can easily tell whether tori is doing a good job or not, uke can teach tori by telling him whether he has the right kuzushi or not.

Saturday morning practice, we did quite a few things, mainly focus on suwari waza, cross hand grab junanahon and mirror hand grab junanahon. Branch sensei stopped by, and gave up some advices on suwari waza.

1. In general, meet uke before he raised the hand, meet early, use that connection for kuzushi.

2. On 1,3,5 and 7, don't forget to do the full shikko step so you end up close to uke when he falls, get the knee up and pull on to it.

3. On 2 and 8, body torso should turn 180 degree 

4. Last but not the least, use live toes the whole time.

Found a interesting site where those pictures display actions and kuzhushi very very clearly and precisely, http://www.shodokan.narod.ru/sports.htm. They have old but clear pictures of the techniques performed by Nariyama sensei. Below pictures are from there. I guess that is where the source of those animated pictures I found earilier.

Noticed in pictures marked 2, in both pictures, uke was twisted by the kuzhushi.
I am going to try to practice for that kind of effect

Not a good week for our Aikido club

Let me start with something good this week. On Tuesday night, we had a randori focus class, Morgan sensei led us doing drill after dirll, primarily working on moving the feet and keeping the ma-ai. The requirement was to block attack and be gone instantaneously. The other requirement was to block attack with corner taisabaki, establish ma-ai behind uke, at the same time uke turned around, immediately attack with Shomen-ate. I think this drill is a very helpful randori practice, it teaches a lot of principle and setup some chain reaction in the mind. To me, if the system is not in the mind, the body will never be able to do it.

Other not so merry thing includes I missed Thursday's class, since I thought no one will show up, but turned out two did show up. Our tatami mats have been used by unknown person in the gym for the third time in a row, they stacked the mats in the wrong ways, which makes mats very dirty, and most importantly they don't know how to handle them right, it will definitely shorten the life of our expensive mats. We have found  three occurrence of which all happens on Friday, this week, it happened on Wednesday. Today we took turn to patrol in the gym to find out, but somehow we haven't found anything yet, maybe this week, those people changed schedules. It is very frustrating, and sad to think of our mats were abused.

I hope we can catch those group of people soon.

At the mean time, below is another excellent demonstration of all 6 of kuzushi waza performed by Kobayashi sensei and Charlie back in 2009 in Waseda university shortly after the international tournament.




Terminology:

Maai	Proper distance 間合
Irimi	Entering 入身

Mirror hand grab Junanahon is still the weakest link

Thursday night's practice was led by Branch sensei. After the warm up and routine exercise, sensei decided to tackle our weakest form of junanahon, the mirror hand grab, which is also called gyakugamae katatedori. We start backward from the last technique to the first. After each waza, we paused, sensei would point out the common mistakes that he saw, then we did the waza again with the instruction. After we have finished all 5 waza, there was only 15 minutes left, which were spent on randori practice. It is the same the tegatana attack from the uke, tori will attempt to do same technique 5 times, then switch tori and uke. I liked the repetition idea, that you get 5 times to make technique better.

Takeaways from mirror hand grab junanahon.

1. Tenkai kotegaeshi: use free hand to "pat the kitty", the purpose of it is to make sure uke's elbow doesn't bend. While turning, don't need to extend uke's arm to the sky, which I found some of my partners tend to do it, my arm almost felt like pulled out of socket.

2. Hikiotoshi: free hand should come up as gyakutedori, thumb pointing to the uke's palm.

3. Tenkai kotehineri: hineri needs to be there the whole time, especially true when you change the locking hand, one trick the sensei showed was you can try to do atemi while exchanging the hands.

4. Kotehineri: hineri needs to be established at the beginning, only when you get a hold of the hineri, then the uke will be able to turn in any direction that you want him to. I asked a question at that time because I felt my uke was bending forward from initial kuzushi, he bent so much that I felt like I had to use my power to fight against his weight in order to get him backward for the rest of technique. Sensei immediately asked where is the hineri, then I realized i should have a good establishment of the hineri kuzushi, then uke would retract back automatically.

5.Wakigatame: sensei emphasized that the grip should be about at the tegatana, that is best place to turn the hand over, which is even more true for small hand person like me.

6. Aigamaeate: keep both hand in center, tori should not step in a parallel-to-uke position, but rather hip facing uke, a more diagonal position.


Terminology:

Dori	Grab 捕,取
Katate	One hand 片手
Gyakugamae katate dori	Cross single-hand Grab
Aigamae katate dori	Mirror single-hand Grab
Junte dori	Normal Grab 順手捕
Gyakute dori	Reverse Grab 逆手捕
Atemi	Strik 手击

116 falls + 116 throws = Very Sore Butt

Tuesday night was one of the few nights that we have both sensei in the class. Having both Morgan and Branch sensei means we get to work with them individually more. Now I do have a love and hate emotion towards working with sensei individually. I love the fact that they are better uke and much more knowledgeable on techniques, they can always point out the problematic areas. One the other hand, sometimes problematic areas became overwhelming , it makes me feel everything I do is kinda wrong, even raising a arm was wrong. I begin to feel nervous, afraid of doing technique freely because of afraid of making another stupid mistake. While busy absorbing the all the points, it tends to make me less focus on doing next techniques, thus more mistakes :(.  I even feel that I did worse with sensei than working with peers. Well, I probably did it wrong the same way, but the peer might not point out as much as sensei do.

Let me get back to what we did in the class. Right after warm up, we did shikko (knee walking) and rolls. Then we did routine exercises two of which Morgan sensei gave corrections on. Now the busy night officially began, we started with 6 direction drills in repetition of taisabaki, return, kuzushi, throws, left side and right side, right there was 12 falls and 12 throws already. Then we did the tegatana version of tanto junanahon no kata, basically uke attacks with tegatana instead of the tanto. Shortly after that we did the mirror hand grab and cross hand grab of all 17 junanahon techniques, both left and right hand. Whoever worked with sensei always turned out to be the fastest pair, not surprisingly! So if we do the math again, 17x2x3=104, plus the 12 before, we certainly have raised the bar this time.

Two points from routine exercise.

1. Shotei awase: means tension exercise. Keep arm straight and fully extended, the arm should really be at the shoulder level given no height difference. Below is a picture from JAA, you can see that most of them has the arm leveled with shoulder, the taller person might lower the arm a bit to compensate the height difference.


2. Tegatana awase: means hand blade exercise, this is a sensitivity drill, arm again should be on the same level of shoulder, square up the shoulder, straight arm should be connected to your own center. The goal is to be able to synchronize with your partner. I still find a lot trouble doing this exercise, most of the time, just catching up with partner, sensitivity is hard !

Morgan sensei demo the taisabaki of all 17 techniques after we finished the tanto randori kihon waza w/o tanto. I wished I have camera to capture those. I recalled a few of them being called out specifically.

1. Ushiro ate: taisabaki start with both hands, one tegatana blocks the arm, the other aims at elbow, feet could be cross and coiled, ready to move to the back of the uke.



2. Udegaeshi: I didn't realize this until I saw sensei demo it, it should start the same way as Oshitaoshi, uke should then try to recoil the elbow, then I should do the rest of the technique. I completely skipped the first part.



3. Hikitaoshi: I personally think this one is harder, since tori needs to be able to get a hold of the uke's wrist, sometimes I missed. Now a second thought came to my mind, it wasn't meant for me to catch uke's hand. With the right taisabaki, I should be able to block uke then grasp the kote. What was I thinking ?!




4. Tenkai kotegaeshi: taisabaki start with both hands, too. Butterfly your hands so that you get the twist later.

Last but not the least, I found those really cool animated pictures that are very similar to our practice of  tegatana junanahon with the ski, from there you can see the taisabaki very clearly, Nariyama sensei's technique are so precise. All the awesome pictures are from The Trinidad and Tobago Aikido Club (Shodokan Trinidad).
Atemi Waza are HERE
Hiji Waza are HERE
Tekubi Waza are HERE
Uki Waza are HERE


Terminology:

Kote	Wrist also called Tekubi
Kote-Hineri	Wrist throw – Wrist twist
Kote-Gaeshi	Outer wrist throw – Wrist fold
Idoryoku	locomotive power; the power of movement

Hiji Mochi no Tsukuri - Demo Video

Hiji Mochi no Tsukuri is one of my next exam material, I came across this clip today at YouTube, courtesy of Paul Herbert from UK.

His YouTube channel is HERE, looks like a lot nice video there.

Valentino: from Petale to Rockstud to Girello

It is probably since 2009 Valentino started the handbags with the Rosette on front design. The Petale Dome bag made of nappa leather in a feminine floral design, it was a big eye opener and pricey, even back then it retailed at Nordstrom for $2495.

There were also less sophisticated design with much smaller rosette on front, like this small black one.

Around 2012, Valentino's new pops are the Rockstud collections, stud on bags, shoes, clothes and everywhere else. Well, I personally think that the Rockstud shoes are better looking than the bags.  

 

However the bags that really made me gosh are 'Girello' Embroidered Nappa Shoulder Bag. I could hardly believe the beauty of mixing lace and leather when seeing them in person in Nordstrom, retails at $2595. The laser-cut floral flap rests atop a lace lattice backdrop. I really love it in Fuxia color,  it is so romantic! It seems that the lace pattern are different depending on which bag, notice that latter two lace patterns are different, but I prefer the original one, which is shown in beige color, could not find one picture with Fuxia color.

Fuxia color

Red Color

Gasshou no renshu is like Suwari Waza

We have Branch sensei leading us Thurs night. After the warm up, we did our usual routine practice like Gasshou no renshu.  Sensei has taken some time to clarify this exercise with a new analogy, I find this analogy very appropriate . Then we did kuzushi waza, spent extra time on the double handed grab one after sensei's demonstration. Since we have all blue belts tonight in even pairs, we did the Kihon ura waza Atemi waza no ura with the slow, medium and fast repetition. Last but not the least, we spent the last 15 minutes doing randori with tegatana.

1) Gasshou no renshu: it is a blocking exercise with the hands joined together. Uke starts with yokomenuchi strike, this is really a sword attack, but done with an unarmed hand. Hand needs to go straight over the head, before come down diagonally to the side of the head. Tori needs to block before Uke's hand comes down, the analogy was that it works just like the block we do for suwari waza, blend with the Uke, and block him before the hand drops.


2) The 7th of go no sen no kuzushi waza: famously for two handed grab. I learn two key things.
A. I need to be a better Uke by not stepping with the Tori, hold on to Tori and let my structure corrupts, I unconsciously followed Tori by stepping in, hence Tori don't feel the right kuzushi.
B. Two hands must act together, upper hand tries to do hair brush, body turn, hairbrushing hand remain in center. The throw is really done by the lower hand by drilling the hand deep to the floor.

I found my old video taken back in 2009 during the Japan international tournament trip, amazingly I taped all techniques of kuzushi waza. I still recall at that time, I had no clue... The second video shows how it came from the sword motion, both hands are on the sword, little swirl around the sword in the center, Uke gets thrown.

Terminology:

Kihon ura waza	Basic Counter Technique
Atemi waza no ura	Striking Counter Technique
Kansetsu waza no ura	Joint Counter Technique
Hiji mochi no tsukuri	Technique of grasping arm with both hands

Blue Paraty

Recently I have my eyes on this blue paraty bag, it is available in NM, I haven't seen it in person yet, I am wondering if it is the same shade of blue as before.

Paraty Medium Shoulder Bag, Blue

$1895

Back in 2012, I saw NordStrom has one of Oceania Blue, it was gorgeous. It is slightly different from Peacock Blue, the latter has a green undertone, I have actually have a bag has the exact color like peacock blue. 

100 Throws + 100 falls = Exhausted

Tuesday night's class was a very intense class. After warm up, we immediately come to a fighting mode. Morgan sensei had all of us lined up, and he started to throw everyone one by one, after he finished, the next one started to throw the rest of us, we called it a line drill. So each every one of us has take 5 falls for one person, and got to throw the other five for the same technique, we did twice for each technique in Atemi waza and Hiji waza, you do the math, that comes to total of 100 falls and 100 throws. At end of the practice, I was completely exhausted, legs and but started to protest.

I remember last Tuesday was also very exhausting, took me several days to recover. What did we do last week? We did 17 kata for Kihon and Grabs continuously.

But, it was good, it was what we needed, more practice!

I want to be able to write down what I learned in the class, if I can just recall at least one thing, that should be good.

1) Shomenate: don't forget to have initial kuzushi, make sure you break Uke's balance. And no grabbie, both hands push with shotei. 


2) Gedanate: don't need to bend Uke's elbow unless you are in much height disadvantage, see Uke's arm is straight


3) Ushiroate: Don't forget the initial kuzushi, lower Uke's hand; Don't use finger to throw, put the whole hand down on Uke's shoulder, get behind the Uke, not too sideway and throw using idoiyoku


4) Udehineri: Know which hand is the throwing hand, the hineri hand got thrown, not the other hand, See which hand is Tomiki Sensei throwing?


5) Wakigatame: Minh got sensei's praise on his performance on this one, he dropped the right shoulder and have good control of the Uke. The initial kuzushi should emphasize extend the Uke out to the weakline.

My first BLOG

I thought the first post will start with a Aikido memo back in Feb 4th, it was just after a exciting trip from Denver, I could not help myself writing a long email about my take away, here it is.

Take away from Denver trip

kate	Feb 4
to Aikido

Hi guys, the trip was awesome,  met old and new friends,  most importantly learn Aikido. Many things have been shown and taught by our senseis, somehow this time I have so much better understanding than before, the perspectives that i start to see became much different.  I would like to share some of my thoughts as well as serve as a reminder to myself.

1. I have been doing all wrong in all of my techniques! it has never occured to me that how bad they are. I am lack of control in my techniques, it may appear I got some kuzhushi and throw the uke with movement,  but I was not completely controlling the uke from the head to toe. Many times, my excuse is i don't want to hurt uke, i didn't even attempt to do it to the full extend. The truth is i missed the whole point of practicing martial art,  simply wasted my time. Kuzhushi is more than weight shifting, it is a matter of control and make uke feel stuck all the way to the toes.

2. Small hand twist made big difference, many techniques shown by senseis begun with a hand turn or twist, I  unconsciously or consciously ignored them a lot of times, thinking it doesn't make difference, the truth is big difference. The hand turn provides so much leverage for the rest of the techniques, it is amazing how much it makes sense to me now.

3. Body drop tend to be abused, it is a way to finish the technique, but not the technique itself, I emphasized or used my dropping so that it feels like i can throw uke with bigger or quicker drop, but by doing that, again miss the point of the kata, forgetting in controll is the most important thing.

There are so many things to remember, Endu sensei is a great teacher, his demonstration is amazingly precise and easy to follow, it may have something to do with him being Nariyama's students,  I can tell in every move the uke is under controll and nailed to the toes. I can't wait to see them again in DVD.

sorry for the long email, I really need to share my excitement. See you all on Tuesday.