Friday's Class

It's Friday!

Today's class... From the start.

We began with some ukemi (rolls). As usual, at least for me, the roll was not as smooth - the sound of contact with the ground was occasionally heard. I really need to master this otherwise the floor with smoothen me :) Anyway, remember that the head goes to the side and avoid touching the ground with the knees.

We then covered AiHanmi Ikkyo Omote in 3 versions, namely:

1. KatateDori (single wrist grab),
2. MoroteDori (single wrist grab with attacker ie uke using both hands),
3. RyoteDori (both wrists being grabbed).

The concepts are all similar and once the KatateDori version is understood, the others will follow.

From there came JujiNage (if I remember right). It starts as RyoteDori Ikkyo but uke's hands get crossed; one hand crosses the other at the elbow. Kind of entangling of the arms - interesting!

Finally, we ended with a wrist plus elbow lock (not sure of the name but something of the form Hiji Garame Rokkyo). It starts from MoroteDori Ikkyo but the movement changes direction and locks the wrist and elbow. The straight arm is then made vertical thereby pushing, or should I say obliging, uke to lower themself to the ground. Talk about persuasion!

Remember, keep elbows close to oneself, uke's elbow goes over & through their head, and roll smoothly (for your own sake).

That was the class today.

Important notice to those who did not attend: there are no classes on Saturday & Tuesday.

That should be all for now - until Friday!

At Goan Gymkhana

So, quite a number of people showed up and this changed the course of events. I think some had gone out of Nairobi for one reason or another, but as one can imagine, most of those who have missed the action for a while had quite some catching up to do. For the benefit of those who were not there on Tuesday, we reviewed juji-garame. Then followed another whole range of techniques including yokomen-uchi shiho-nage, ryote-dori kote-gaeshi, ryote-dori shiho-nage. I honestly didn’t keep tabs on the names this time round, but whenever possible we did both ura and omote versions of the techniques.

Again a few pointers were added. One was stepping sideways when doing yokomen-uchi shiho-nage omote, as opposed to stepping backwards like we used to before. Others one just has to take advantage of them on the ground.

Of particular note was that there was no ken-jutsu, so some people were disappointed to have carried the bokkens and not use them. Next time guys!

At Aga Khan Sports Club

This time we concentrated on ushiro ryote dori techniques. Ryoute(両手) in Japanese means both arms, so basically the attack is such that uke grabs both arms of tori, this time from behind. The beginning is from the front, like in a sword fight, facing each other. But then, tori opens and tricks uke into grabbing the hands from behind. Sounds theoretically simple, but there are lots of details too. Sincerely, the range of techniques was such that I cannot recall each and every one, but one could do kote-gaeshi, shiho-nage and irimi-nage. Cool stuff. I remember marveling at the expanse of aikido techniques because even after a full year, we are still encountering new variations on a constant basis. Like this one called juji-garame. Karamaru(絡まる) means to twine, like to twine a rope, so the technique aims at entangling the opponent’s hands and throwing him/her forward. Its tricky since (1.)it involves tori reversing the attack in order to grab uke’s hands, and at the same time one must do several turns, the ten-kan being one of them, and (2.) it is a high break-fall technique. Another one is whereby uke does shomen uchi, but tori somehow sweeps uke off the feet. I am yet to wrap my head around this one.

Saturday at Kenyatta University

This Saturday we again entered the premises of KU to take benefit of their mats. We did 3h of Aikido and then one hour of bokken. After usual into to ukemi (mostly mae-ukemi) and breakfalls we went to uchi-kaiten nage (both omote and ura). Students were exposed to this technique before, but due to lac of proper conditions in other venues there was no way to perform this technique in full aspect. At KU you can throw your partner (remember - first hand, then step). This made the technique more real than dry practice at Goan Gym Khana or other places.
Then we tried ude-kime nage (a.k.a. juji-nage), some kiri otoshi (ach, the bliss of throwing the partner just down!) and various versions of irimi-nage.

Bokken part consistent of usual basic forms which are suppose to familiarize students with the feel of shomen. Some initial practice forms allowing interaction with the partner, playing with various maai and timing were also repeated.

The 3h of Aikido left most of us a bit exhausted, the equatorial heat is not very forgiving - you just have to hydrate...

Saturday at KU

The Saturday class is all it is famed to be, I can now say, having attended one. The floor is quite something. Though it gives one a false sense of security (in my opinion), it allows for more dynamic, aggressive, real-life-situation-like actions. This is the kind of floor where movie scenes are created, I think. I just hope am painting the right picture here. Suffice it to say one can perform the aikido techniques without having to worry too much about injuries.

Ok, so we basically went through techniques that involve a throw (nage in Japanese), as opposed to pinning/immobilization techniques. These included juji-nage, irimi-nage, kiri-otoshi, uchi-kaiten-nage and ten-chi-nage.

I kinda got carried away and before I knew it, we had done 3 hours of aikido, non-stop. We did ken-jutsu(剣術) the last hour. We also reviewed the katas(型)and I added one more, so that now I can manage 6 of them on my own. Am getting there. I got so tired, you can imagine the strain on the body. Next day my arms felt like they were pulling out of their sockets, and I slept like 10 hours. But am ok now.

Friday's Class

Hello all!

It's Friday once again. Today's class began with a down pour of rain - a welcome blessing, just as the hot weather is.

As the rain poured outside, we got underway with the class. Right after the warm up stretches Sensei gave us a surprise... a mock exam! Basically, we all initially sat in seiza, as pairs were called out to perform various techniques.

If I recall correctly, the techniques for the mock exam were:

• SuwariWaza AiHanmi ShomenUchi Ikkyo Omote
• TachiWaza GyakuHanmi KatateDori ShihoNage Omote
• TachiWaza GyakuHanmi KatateDori Ikkyo Ura

We then practiced (in TachiWaza KatateDori)

1. GyakuHanmi Ikkyo Omote
2. AiHanmi Ikkyo Omote & Ura
3. GyakuHanmi ShihoNage Ura
4. plus a variation of AiHanmi Ikkyo Omote with an arm lock

Before I forget, we were reminded about the following:

1. Stances: MigiHanmi (right foot forward) and HidoriHanmi (left foot forward).
2. Techniques: remain close to tori and don't expose oneself (you could get tickled)
   

That's a summary of today's class. I'm still recovering from my mock exam results :)

Until next Friday!

Wednesday at Goan Gymkhana

Despite Wednesday being a holiday, we had our class as usual and this time we focused on how to deal with an attack called kata-dori(肩取り). Before that there was this technique whose name I have to first confirm with Mateusz. It starts with an ai-hanmi attack and tori leads uke in such a way as to close uke for a technique like shiho-nage for example.

Anyway, we started with gyaku-hanmi kata-dori nikyo omote(表), moved to gyaku-hanmi kata-dori nikyo ura(裏), on to gyaku-hanmi kata-dori sankyo omote, and finally gyaku-hanmi kata-dori yonkyo omote. One common challenge in all these techniques (at least for me), was how to grab uke’s hand while twisting one’s hips forward after the initial neutralising of the attack. Basically, the transition between neutralising the attack, and counter attacking (I don’t know how to put this in words). The rest after this is very basic.

Another note is on yonkyo. It is not a very straight-forward technique like the others because of its application. Unlike all the others where one is sure of the point at which to apply pressure for pain, this one is kinda tricky. There is a nerve to look for on one’s arm just below the elbow, and this one is not easy to find in most people. Please note that this does not make the technique any less effective as one can always improvise when in doubt, to the detriment of uke of course.

Then there was ken jutsu(剣術), where we constantly try to learn the proper way of using the bokken. For me it is still a challenge since there are all these minor details that I know I have to work on. And of course there is the rhythm with one’s partner, which doesn’t come easy. The class ended with a review of the 8 katas(型), but so far I am only confident with the first 5.

On a side note, we went for a beer after class where we continued with aikido on an intellectual level. That was nice!!!

Tuesday at Aga Khan Sports Club

On Tuesday’s class, we mainly focused on different versions of irimi-nage. This is because we can use the yoga mats to fall safely, so we can try to go all out in attack and defence.

But first was gyaku-hanmi kokyu-nage(呼吸―投げ), where tori(取り) has to do the ten-kan and stand beside uke(受け) in the exact stance (kamae/構え) in such a way that tori is still in control. We then did ai-hanmi irimi-nage. This was after Mateusz demonstrated three different ways of doing irimi-nage, that is jodan(上段), chudan(中段) and gedan(下段). So we started with ai-hanmi irimi-nage jodan, after which was ai-hanmi irimi-nage chudan. At some point I remember uke doing shomen-uchi and tori responding by doing irimi-nage jodan.

Last of the technique was this type of irimi-nage which I doubt would work on a mush stronger opponent, but what do I know… in this one, tori has to time his defence/attack and get to uke before uke gains full momentum. There is no time for much hip movement. As uke moves forward, tori also counters the same force by leading the attack sideways, and at the same time opens uke forwards and does irimi-nage. The end result is that uke falls down backwards where he came from. Its hard to explain this in writing, so better just join the class and see it for yourself.

We finished with a demonstration of the 8 katas(型). I can only do four so far, but in time I hope to somehow do all of them. There was this demonstration of two muso-shinden ryu techniques in tachi waza, one called iwa-nami, and the other whose name I can’t recall. Amazing stuff. Something happened during this demonstration, which I choose to keep to myself for now…

Of course Mateusz gives us all these tips he has learnt from Chiba sensei, Piotr sensei and Daniel sensei which are very useful. An example is a different way of doing ushiro-ukemi. It is supposedly not supposed to be very comfortable for the one falling, coz in a real attack one does not have time to fall so gently. So, one absorbs the shock with the hand before his body hits the ground, and he twists his body sideways and lifts the legs such that one is ready for a counter-attack. Again this is not something I can explain on paper.

I look forward to the class at Goan Gymkhana, it being a holiday and all.