Tuesday, September 21st at Aga Khan Sports Club

Ok, so after this very long break (over 1 month) we resumed aikido at the Aga Khan Sports Club. It was…insightful. Despite being only students, we covered a lot. In fact, I should say that fortunately for the 2 students who showed up (me included), the session was very personal, interactive and fruitful. Remember the big balls? Well, we didn’t use them but they are still there…

Anyway, first off was bokken practice. We did these basic exercises with the bokkens (I borrowed one since I don’t quite got one yet) that left my arms aching. Phew, using a sword is not as natural as everyone assumes it is. There was also this conditioning exercise where one has 2 dodge the cut of the sword by simply moving his body aside while the feet remain at the same spot. This alone was a full work-out. Really cool stuff!

Then we did this technique called katate-dori-kokkyu-nage (I believe), after which we moved to irimi-nage, both from ai-hanmi and gyaku-hanmi, with the attack being the basic shomen-uchi. In katate-dori, the attack is grabbing the shoulders with both arms. Without losing momentum, tori (the one performing the technique) simultaneously slides into the opponent while twisting his hips out of the line of the attack and throws the opponent down.

Most important for me is that I have the most fun with aikido at the sports club. Because of the yoga mats, we can, within reasonable limits, go all out and somehow perform the techniques as if we were practicing on tatami.