And the real reason we're doing all this.. My brother Jason and his baby Lucas-- 7 days to go!

The backyard-- landscaping in progress.

Demolition in the kitchen. It's getting better...sort of :)

My brother the handy man-- poster child for Ridgid tools. Hurray for Home Depot

the finished deck yay

Saturday/Sunday classes

Today started my pre-vacation hiatus from work-- a four day weekend. Huzzah! I started my day off the best way possible: 2 hours of aikido first thing in the morning.

Was a good class. Strange dynamics though-- our Sensei was at the dojo on his regular "day off" and he wasn't teaching. I felt sorry for our yudansha instructors who were teaching while Sensei was practicing. LOL

I actually got to practice with Sensei today. That was a first for me. heh He caught me right at the end of second class and said "you can't avoid me all day you know!"

Apparently he thought I didn't want to practice with him "because he's mean"

Testing is just around the corner. Sensei asked me if I had an uke yet. (a partner to take ukemi-- or receive techniques) I sheepishly admitted I had not asked anyone yet.

A fellow dojomate testing for the same rank suggested we uke for each other, but I don't know if Sensei would allow it since it's our first rank test. Will ask him tomorrow at practice.

I honestly don't remember all the techniques we practiced, so I'll list what I remember:

Tai no Henko exercise

katatetori kaittenage

katatetori kotegaeshi (ura)

katatetori iriminage and iriminage kokyunage

ryotetori kokyunage

Sumi otosh (sp?)

It's all a jumble really... I've also slept since then (it is now Sunday) Guess I'd better post that before I forget.

Sensei taught this morning. I got there about an hour early (mainly because I was afraid I wouldn't go if I didn't head to the dojo) and watched Bill run through his test again with Ron and Sensei.

I didn't stay for second class, because I had a dizzy spell during warmups in first class. I had to excuse myself from the mat before the first technique. I think Sensei was a little irked.

When I came back I found a pair to partner with.

ryotetori tenchinage (omote/ura)
I was a little flustered after having to leave the mat, so I wasn't really focused.
Had a hard time with ura-- something I need to work on as it will be on my test.

shomenuchi nikkyo (omote/ura)
W/Ron. We don't practice this much, but you start like ikkyo and then change your grip to nikkyo before taking uke to the mat. Weird transition, especially if uke is resisting. Ron was doing a great job at that.
Ura is essentially the same as ikkyo ura, except you tenkan, switch your grip to nikkyo, let uke come up a little then scoop down on their arm, tightening the nikkyo grip, another tenkan and then bring uke to the mat.

Yokomenuchi nikkyo (omote and ura)
only real difference here was sliding in before uke gets the chance to strike, meeting the blow and getting him off balance then slip one hand behind uke's and either step through for omote or tenkan for ura.
Ron's a great teacher. I think I'll ask him to help me practice my test next time I see him in class.

katatetori kokyunage
W/Carlos. Not a whole lot to note except it was fun. I love kokyunage throws. Took some pretty smooth forward rolls. :) I was having a bit of a hard time sliding too far when cutting down to throw uke, but Carlos helped me get my feet straight. (SPACIAL RELATIONSHIPS! hehe)

katatetori hanmi handachi shihnage (omote)
yep, just as akward as ever-- Carlos did help me with my ukemi though. Sometimes I wonder if the suwari waza/hanmi handachi stuff will ever make sense to me... O_o

Overall good class-- minus the dizzy spell. Why does that only happen when Sensei is teaching? He must think I'm a nutjob. Hopefully he's not terribly irked at me. He didn't correct me once on the mat, which usually means he's not in the mood to bother. It certainly wasn't because I didn't need it. *sighs*

Ahh well, time to start working on the house stuffs... grrrr

Class Thursday night

I've been remiss in posting.. I don't think I've posted the last 4 classes. O_O

Testing is less than a month away, so most of the classes have been geared towards 5th and 4th kyu techniques and preparation.

Sensei taught Thursday night

Ushiro tekubitori//
W/Bob. We practiced the static version-- swinging up and turning your hips then cutting down to get into ai hanmi. Just the opening. Sensei came over several times to help Bob (who's prepping for 4th kyu)

shihonage (omote & ura)
W/Bob. Again, alot of help from Sensei for Bob. Actually, I didn't get much practice time for all the Sensei intervention, but it helped me alot. One of the things Sensei was adamant about was keeping your hands in front you you and not uke.

iriminage
W/Bob. We thought for sure Sensei was leading into kotegaeshi. lol But where there's an opening for kotegaeshi, there's an opening for iriminage. And the murphy's laws of martial arts is that whenever I'm even remotely tired, we will do alot of iriminage. :)

Let's see-- other stuffs...
Shomenuchi//

Ikkyo (omote and ura)
W/the Russian (who I thought wasth kyu-- turns out he's unranked at our dojo) I really need to ask him his name as we are regular partners. grr.
While practicing, a man came in w/ his daughter to sign her up for classes. Sensei left the mat for about 15 minutes. Ikkyo was starting to get pretty tiring (not to mention hard on the knees) When I complained about being tired, my partner said "it could be worse"

I said "yeah, it could be suwari waza"-- to which he replied "Thank god! I don't think my knees can take suwari waza tonight!"
Of course I should have kept my mouth shut, because as soon as Sensei came back to the mat he clapped and shouted "now suwari waza" O__O
My partner burst out laughing and said "it's all your fault!" hehehehehe

Come to find out, Bill requested it for his 4th kyu test. LOL My partner still blamed me :)

Afterwards we practiced a fixed jo form and then paired off. That was fun! I hope we get to practice that again sometime soon.
There was more to class than that, but I can't remember it all. I'm late posting, so I'll have to let this suffice. Now I've got to tally this morning's class. heh

Saturday class...

Or "Maybe I should have stayed in bed" O_o

Someone requested suwari waza (kneeling techniques) Saturday morning, and I think if my dojomates find out who it was, there might be a riot. Thank goodness class is an hour each on the weekends :)

Charly Sensei taught.

Shomenuchi iriminage (*groans* it's always iriminage in the morning..heh)
W/Paul. Who I've decided is a blast to train with after several months of indecision. He unnerved me a little in the beginning, but I've discovered he's got a quiet and goofy sense of humor that makes training interesting.
He kept speeding up, slowing down. Sometimes he'd whip me around like a ragdoll, other times he'd just drop me immediately. heh He laughed at the look on my face after a particularly startling execution of the technique and said "iriminage can be done many ways, and they all feel different"
Part of what I enjoy about training with him is that while he rarely gives me verbal instruction, he makes exagerated movements in order to help me get the feeling. I'm not a very verbal student. I think it makes more sense when I feel it and see it. Verbal instruction only really helps when it's reinforcing something I've already captured physically.

Suwari waza shomenuchi iriminage
W/The Russians. (I don't know their names yet-- they practice mainly on the weekends) While this was less tiring as uke, it was very difficult as nage. (and anyone who's done any suwari waza already knows it's killer on the knees.. O_o)
Charly Sensei said to try not to take huge "steps", but rather slide forward without raising up too much. I found the swing up difficult because uke is already down pretty far on the tenkan. It helped that one of my partners was making the effort to get back up though. He helped me with the swing up and also the pin.

Hanmi handachi shomenuchi iriminage
W/one of the russians. My timing was terrible here. Hanmi handachi means that uke is standing and nage is kneeling. On the shomen strike, nage has to swing up and then cut uke down while simultaneously moving in behind uke to tenkan. It's tricky because nage has to keep uke in front of him and maintain control. It's tempting to tenkan too soon, leaving uke behind. (at least from my perspective-- I got no Sensei intervention the entire class... O_o)

Shomenuchi ikkyo/suwari waza shomenuchi ikkyo (omote & ura)
W/ Scott B. Apparently my genetics kicked in again, and I found myself trying to enter directly into the attack instead of at an angle. Not much to note here except it was nice to switch back and forth between standing and kneeling. (my knees were really starting to kill me)

Suwari waza shomenuchi kotegaeshi
W/4th kyu. Major difficulty here was getting proper maai (distance) between nage and uke. The turnover proved difficult too.

Hanmi handachi shomenuchi shihonage
W/Scott H. This was fun. :) I don't think I've ever done shihonage from shomenuchi-- even standing. Usually we practice from yokomenuchi. It took me a while to figure out why I kept wanting to tenshin. ^_^
The shihonage pin was interesting. Scott tried to pin me to the mat then shook his head and said "I can't pin you with this technique-- you're too flexible"
I must have given him a look of disbelief, because he said "try to get up". Suprisingly, It was rather easy. It took a bit of an effort for him to pin me, and when he did get me pinned, he pointed out I could just hit him or kick him in the head. LOL
Of course, he did transition to another pin that DID work on me.
I also found out that he's just about as flexible. We worked on the pin almost the entire time before Charly Sensei called for kokyudosa.

Very fun class, though my knees decided to go on strike the rest of the day. Afterwards I told Charly I really enjoyed class, and I think my dojomates wanted to slap me. "Hey! I didn't say I wanted a repeat!" heheh

Just the basics

sometimes it's nice to have a class focused on basics. (A nice change after Tuesday's insanity... O_o)

I got to class a little early tonight, and Sensei stopped me walking in. "what's your name again?" *rolls eyes* ^_^

"I think today it's Liz"

"So when's testing?" He asked.

"I don't know-- isn't this your dojo? I thought you were supposed to know these things" (Sometimes I get a little cheeky with Sensei, but he's got a good sense of humor-- some of my fellow students would probably be mortified at that)

At any rate, he basically informed me testing is in August, and I will be testing. Okay, so it's settled... I'm testing. O_O Time to find an uke and start prepping.

Started class out with a nice long warmup. We had two new guys-- a father and son.
Did some ukemi exercises.

katatetori ai hanmi//

kotegaeshi (ura)
W/Don. Relatively new guy with a little experience in aikido years ago. Surprisingly, he's got a mean kotegaeshi.

iriminage
Same partner. Something clicked tonight. Sensei said not to focus on uke but to focus on the direction you want him to go. It seemed to flow much better than usual, and I didn't get as tired as I usually do. Sensei came over to correct my partner's swing up/swing down motion, but I think I managed a slight nod of approval on mine. huzzah.

ikkyo (omote/ura)
W/brand newbie, Fred. Sensei kept reminding us that we had new people, so I bowed to him immediately-- even though I dread trying to help new people. (I tend to confuse more than help, I think) Most of the time was spent helping him learn to move feet, hands..etc... Sensei told me to just do omote since it was his first day.
Fred seemed to be one of the macho types who has taken some form of martial arts before, because we got a few minutes into the technique, and he was trying to instruct me on how to do it properly. I just smiled and said "I'm still a beginner too, and this is a difficult technique for me-- I just try to do what Sensei says"
I did have to remind him to be mindful of the joints. He really pressed hard on my elbow a few times. eek!

Shihonage (omote/ura)
W/Fred. He seemed to get a little frustrated because he didn't GET the first technique. Not much to note here... Sensei came over and helped a little-- mainly with footwork. I managed to guide my partner without totally confusing him. He did try to tell me the proper way to do shihonage-- I just smiled and said "Maybe we should ask Sensei" (that's turning into my standard reply when someone says "is this right?-- "I don't know enough to know if it's right.... ask Sensei" *grins*)

After a while, Sensei switched focus back to ukemi and rolling basics. Actually, I really like it when he does that, because I always get some detail that I may have missed. (I think in the beginning, there were so many details that certain pointers were too much information) We practiced rolling backwards and forwards, focusing on feeling the mat roll across your back.
Afterwards, Sensei demonstrated the ikkyo kokyunage. After practicing with the newbie shihan, I was glad that Bill bowed to me. We always have a blast practicing together-- and we almost always end up working on kokyunage throws. whee :)

Sensei made one minor correction on our execution. On the swing up, nage should slide out at an angle then slide in towards uke on the cut down. I've never picked up on that detail, and I think that's why I tend to collapse my arms. It made a huge difference. Got to take some fun forward rolls-- yay! I love kokyunage. :)


Kokyudosa
W/Bill. He really made me focus on my extension. Some people rush through this exercise, because on the surface it's not very exciting. It's refreshing to work with someone who really enjoys kokyudosa.

Class again in 30 hours. heh
Liz

iriminage=lazynage.. Or

Beginner's class my foot! :)

Sensei taught last night. We had a really quick, quiet warm-up, and I realized Sensei was in "serious mode"

Shomenuchi iriminage (backstretch then ukemi)
W/Jerry. I was not really high energy last night, probably due to the migraine recovery. I didn't feel bad, I just could have done without iriminage. O_o
Not a whole lot to note except we spent alot of time on this one. Over the weekend I couldn't do a decent iriminage to save my soul-- last night it was actually OK.
Part of it may be that Jerry is a great uke. We typically practice in relative silence, and I usually feel more focused practicing with him than others.

Yokomenuchi//

iriminage
W/Aida. One of these days I WILL learn to tenshin. O_o Funny though, Sensei didn't really catch my problems with the tenshin. He came over several times to help aida. I've decided that the best way to get a quick rest on the mat is to botch something up so Sensei has to come over and help. (Bad lizard! heh)

iriminage with some sort of irimi thing where nage slides forward when uke goes to strike, atemi to the face and then pivot. Uke and nage end up in ai hanmi. From there slide in to do regular iriminage. Practiced with Michael. While we were practicing, a family came. Sensei left the mat to answer questions and sign them up for classes. Michael and I were doing okay, but apparently I was not doing the atemi to the face on the slide in. Sensei popped up and demonstrated it again on my partner, reminding me to atemi before pivoting and then went back to the family he was helping. My partner kind of grinned and said "Sensei came all the way over here to tell you that-- you should feel special. Especially since I wasn't doing it either"

We worked on that one for a while. MY partner pointed out that I needed to grab his free hand to get control of it on the tenkan.

Jo tori (or take away) yokomenuchi ikkyo (omote & ura)
W/ Sherry. For some reason, striking with the jo is strange. Sensei said it's because we are so used to striking with the bokken where no matter which foot is forward, your right hand is always on top. Even Sherry, a first kyu, was having problems. Sensei came over and corrected my hanmi several times, and I still couldn't get it right. heh. Sherry said "we don't do much jo waza, so even I'm feeling a little rusty" hehe.
Sherry brought me down for the pin and tried to take the jo away-- she found out rather quickly that I'm pretty flexible and was having a hard time rotating the jo out of my grip. After struggling with that (and much laughter on my part-- sherry and I tend to crack up training together) she calls Sensei over.
He asked to see what I was doing and then got that evil Sensei grin. *gulps*
I attacked Sensei, and he brought me to the pin. He said "it's not just about rotating the arm, you have to apply the pin to *encourage" uke to WANT to let go." he then proceeded to roll my elbow joint forward. The only problem was that I have nerves that are very close to the skin on that arm due to a break when I was younger. It sent a bit of a shock up through my arm, and I immediately let go before sensei tried to take the jo away.
"No! Hold onto the jo" I tried very hard to hold on, but I don't think he realized it was actually hurting...lol
When Sherry tried the same thing on the other side, it didn't work. I'm going to have to tell her about the nerve thing on my left arm, because she was really starting to get frustrated. hehehe

Sensei clapped and then got out the bokken. Uke attacks with a yokomenuchi while nage uses the jo to deflect with a tenshin then steps in for iriminage.
W/Paul. Paul laughed and said "this is a beginner's class? I've been practicing for a long time (paul is a shodan) and I've done this MAYBE 5 times" O_o On yeah, that was reassuring :)
The real problem was all the space between nage and uke after the tenshin. The maai (or safe distance) is a lot bigger with the jo. We both struggled with that. On top of that, I kept trying to step forward on the tenshin instead if back. Paul said I must be fighting my genetics, because he corrected me several times.
LOL He seemed to find it all highly amusing. :)

Sensei clapped and then demonstrated the same opening but after the tenshin nage steps in for kotegaeshi. This was a little easier than irminage.

Kokyudosa
W/paul. By that time I was pretty wiped out. Paul kept testing my balance-- apparently I wasn't as stable as I thought, because he was able to pull me over pretty easily. Hehe He told me it wasn't about pinning uke, it's about extension. I wish we could have had more time to work on kokyudosa, because so much of what we do comes from that basic exercise.

Good times :)

Class this weekend...

Class was pretty somber Saturday for the memorial. My Sensei was a longtime student of Tohei Sensei, who also made frequent visits to our dojo before he passed away.
Sensei talked a little about Tohei Sensei at the beginning of class- mainly his history and experiences with Aikido and with O'Sensei.
It was a very nice class.
Sensei demonstrated a technique and then would stop practice to talk more about Tohei Sensei. He shared his own personal experiences and anecdotes in between practice.

Sunday we had class in the morning. I couldn't stay for second class-- 3rd kyu and up class.
Bob Sensei taught. I've slept since then, so I don't remember everything we practiced. I know we did quite a bit of kokyunage.
Was a fun class overall.


Sunday afternoon, Scott hosted a July 4th party at his home, so that was a lot of fun. We swam, ate...ate more... swam...etc.. :) I made a pretty decent vegetarian chili which got kudos from the vegetarians present.

Went to see fireworks with Dena, her kids and my brother last night. It was spoiled by a migraine that had been threatening all day though. ugh. I didn't make it to work this morning-- I felt awful. I feel much better now tough. I slept in until 11:30 (LUXURY!)

On the bright side, I've had plenty of sleep and have recovered from the killer headache, so I can go to class tonight... huzzah.

kokyunage anyone?

Sensei was noticibly absent tonight, so Charley and Scott B. taught class.

First class-- Charley Sensei.

Morotetori kokyunage (omote & ura)
W/Klara. Swing up while stepping behind uke then swing down while turning your hips toward uke. For some reason I love this one. It seems so graceful. :)
Ura was basically the same only slide in, pivot to face the same direction as uke, tenkan and cut down then sane as omote.
Not much to note except Sensei caught me not swinging up. (UP IS UP!) This also had the not-so-nice effect of nearly elbowing my uke in the face. OOPS.

katatetori kokyunage (omote & ura)
W/David. Swing up, step through while cutting down--sending uke into a forward roll.
Ura-- slide in while swinging up, pivot and cut down like omote.
Davids a lot bigger than I am (which is a rarity-- I'm pretty tall.) and he's just a big guy in general. I love practicing techniques like that with big guys, becuase I really have to get it right-- there's no muscling my way through it.

katatetori ai hanmi kotegaeshi
W/Billy. (new guy who practiced aikido about 7 years ago in another tradition, so he's almost a newbie but not quite) Not much to note-- lots of akwardness on both sides. I still have a hard time helping people when even I don't feel comfortable with my own technique.

Tsuki (to the face, not our usual mune tsuki-- the punch to the chest)
W/Scott B.
Sensei didn't know the name of the technique, but nage slides off the line to the outside of the punch, grabs uke's wrist while the other hand slips over uke's elbow and grabs their own wrist then pivots towards uke while dropping their weight. Was a bit like a shihonage grab- very strange, but fun!

Charley called a quick break and then Scott took over for second class.


Second class--Scott B. Sensei

katatetori ai hanmi//

Shihonage (omote & ura)
W/New guy--about 2 weeks of classes. I tried to remember what people always tell me about shihonage. There's so much to remember-- don't swing down before you swing up. (Sensei caught me doing that tonight...grrr. :)) Swing UP! Keep uke's hand in front of you while pivoting. Bend your knees-- extend uke! Touch their pinkie to their shoulder. Don't slide in too far....So while I'm trying to keep all that in mind, I'm also trying to help my partner. ("kick your leg back in omote!" hehe)
I honestly think I could spend 10 years working on shihonage and still never get it.

Iriminage
W/Joshua. He's still pretty stiff. That combined with my utter inability to consistently do irminage correctly made it very difficult. Sensei had to tell me again-- "up is up!" (I'll hear those wordes in my sleep tonight)
I've got a love/hate relationship with iriminage, and tonight I was experiencing more hate than love. O_o

Ikkyoish kokyunage (omote & ura)
W/RD. Omote was fine, but I kept collapsing my arm in ura after sliding in. RD is another big guy, and it took me a while to figure out that I was trying to grab too soon.

Sensei called me up as uke for the next kokyunage. (eek! I'm still not used to that.)
It was the extend the arm out while using the other arm as a jack under uke's arm and slide forward bit (I wish they'd name all this stuff). I took about ten foward rolls from Sensei. (whew!) Paired up with Bob-- an older gentleman, fifth kyu I believe. He threw me 4 more times, and by then I was worn out O_o. I don't know how Ron does it-- he's a favorite demo uke for Sensei. I was out of breath by the time it was my turn as nage. The last few times I've been called up as uke, it's been kokyunage throws. I'm starting to think I should fall on my back a few times so they'll stop using me to demo kokyunages (it always wears me out.. O_o). I'll give myself credit by saying that I may not be good at anything else, but I can take some pretty impressive rolls. :)

After that Sensei demonstrated a seated throwing exercise. Uke runs up to grab nage's wrist from the side and nage swings down and across sending uke flying into a side roll. He told us to keep it moving continuously in sets of ten. I paired up with Charley who didn't let go of me on several occasions, forcing me to take some psuedo breakfalls. Surprisingly, I didn't kill myself. Huzzah. We were probably the highest energy pair on the mat. He even pulled my feet out from under me on a few occasions. I was wiped out after that.

Good workout class tonight. I'm beat. I'm glad I had the energy for tonight's class, because it was fun!

Scott asked me if I'd be going to the dojo party he's hosting Sunday. I asked him whether any vegetarian dishes would be appreciated. Found out Bob Sensei is a vegetarian. Yay, I'm not the only veggie in the dojo. :)