Braving regular class...

:\ Went to AM classes this morning. First class was beginner's class w/Steve Sensei.

We practiced our rolling, forward and backward. whee.. he mentioned that you shouldn't try to bring your back leg up in ushiro ukemi... I had to grin at that since I'm the only one who tries to do that. heh It was much easier to kick your leg back. DUH....

Had a nice long warmup, and then went into katatetori grabs.

Ikkyo
W/Neda. Sensei's big thing today was moving before uke grabs you, so we spent alot of time working on attacking and performing the waza at verious speeds. (I'm still not that cool yet..O_o) Transitioned to nikyo after getting uke down into position for ikkyo. Not much to report here.

Shihonage
W/Ron. Sometime shihonage makes sense...other times, it doesn't. Today was a no-makey-sense day. He did ask me if I was preparing for 5th kyu test. I must have given him an "are you out of your mind?" look.
But I said, I wasn't even close. He asked me how many more days I needed... umm... I'm not halfway there. At the rate I'm going (3-4 days a week) I'll meet the 60 practice days sometime in July. He shrugged a little and told me I could pass the test *if* I'd remember to swing UP! Like Bob Sensei says, "up is up" :)

Kotegaeshi (ura)
W/John. He gave me some pointers on bringing uke around without muscling through it.

I know we did more, but I've worked since then, so am a little fuzzy.

Second class: Sidney Sensei
EEK! first time I've left the confines of the beginner's class save the mini-seminar. I felt REALLY out of place. All the beginner's, including most of the 5th kyus, left. O_o
Lot's of throws I've never done before. Sensei worked on alot of dynamic kokyunage throws. We also did a very stylized sort of shihonage. Much faster pace than usual, but all my partners were very helpful, and some of the more senior students even had a hard time with some of the techniques.
Sensei helped me out alot, and I found it really helped when he came over to me and demonstrated the technique on both me and my partner.

I practiced with one lady (yumiko.. I believe she said her name was) yudansha. She was so petite, but very strong! She kept telling me to grip harder, and she had a grip like iron O_o But she walked me through a really difficult technique (which I won't even attempt to butcher with a terrible explanation) giving me lots of technical pointers. I was really impressed with how she made everything make sense to me. :D

After class she introduced me to her husband and said "she's very good! She's been practicing, what 4 months?" and looked at me... lol Try 2 and a half. She also said I had very good, strong ki. I felt like saying "me??? strong ki?" but I thanked her for the compliment. I do have to say that as difficult as the class was, it definitely helped my confidence a whee bit.

We also practiced a little jiyuwaza. That was interesting. "you mean we get to do what we want?" LOL I was still as lost as ever, but it was fun nonetheless.

I may not venture out of beginner's class again for a while... we'll see. I felt like I held up my partners a little, but I'm glad I stayed.

On a sidenote, I was working tonight, and someone dropped a 10' pvc pipe on my head (don't know HOW, but they did! ) Now I've got a knot on my head. I told my manager that I take a relatively dangerous MA and somehow I end up getting more injuries at home and work. LOL Go figure... :)

Ah well, class again tomorrow in the AM.

Liz