Category: aikido

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aikido, life, and other stuff

It’s been a while since I posted here. I’ve actually been experimenting with a blog on my other website, writing mostly about Aikido, which I started last month. The weather has been horrible, so no skateboarding. I’m taking the 2nd part of beginning Spanish at the local community college. That’s twice a week and Aikido twice a week. So I’m busy.

I’m still sort of torn between continuing to use WordPress and this free blog environment or go completely back to my other Moveable Type stuff. The nice thing about WordPress is the spam control. It really works well. I also like the built-in community here and stat tracking. I also like the “blogroll” feature here. On the other hand, I am really good at customizing Moveable Type, and I prefer its categorization system. Overall I think the convenience of WordPress my outweigh the customization of MT. When I find the time I may download WordPress and install it on my server and see what I can do with it.

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Aikido Seminar

This last weekend I attended my first Aikido seminar at Aikido of Dallas.

The weather was horrible as I drove down there Friday, after work. I arrived, got changed, and stretched out. Mike Abrams Sensei, from New York, gave that first class of the weekend. We did a lot of stuff I hadn’t done before, so it was a little confusing. However, it was good to get exposed to some new techniques, even if I didn’t totally get them. We did a cool version of Nikyo — one with the Nage sitting and Uke standing. Very cool. (more…)

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Some techniques

The last couple of classes I and another relatively new student have practiced some of the basic Aikido techniques while the advanced students work on more advanced stuff. So I’ve gotten some addition practice with Shomenuchi Irminage, Shomenuchi Ikkyo (omote and uru), and Katatedori Kotegaishi.

At last night’s practice I got my first taste of Nikkyo, a wrist lock. Potentially very painful, haha! We did and exercise where we transitioned from Katatedori Nikkyo to Shihonage and finally to Iriminage. I also started learning to apply the Sankyo wrist twisting technique and pin. Cool.

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Saturday practice

Gonna try to remember some of the techniques we practiced last Saturday and make some notes. In general, I feel like I need clarification on the omote versions of these. Of course, I need tons of work on all of them. In particular, I have trouble with the first step of the omote versions – which foot to lead with. I guess it’ll all come with time.

Saturday we had a guest instructor, and I was lucky to get to practice a lot with our Sensei, who was very patient.

Suwari Waza — Shomenuchi Ikkyo — omote and ura.
Shomenuchi Ikkyo
Shomenuchi Iriminage
Katatetori Kotegaeshi – omote and ura: Need clarification on omote vs. ura versions.
Katatetori Shihonage – omote and ura: I am less clear on the omote version. Need to review the entry part.

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A short break

Well, there’ll be no Aikido class over the Christmas/New Year week.

In the meantime, I’m going to make sure I do some good stretching every day, and continue improving my flexibility. Going to try to also do plenty of cardio and eat right. I’ll probably also ride my longboards a bit, and try to film some stuff from Bob’s Trick Tips.