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