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 :)