Fast, Slow, Fast

I really enjoyed last night's class. I got to work with lots of different people, which improves my Aikido, because not everyone moves the same. Some people don't move well at all, so learning to move with them takes patience, and more importantly skill. My "skill" seems to come and go like the weather, although it's staying around a lot longer than it's gone. I think there were eleven students, plus Sensei, so the mat was crowded in a good way. I think I worked with eight or nine of the eleven.

We had the opportunity to do suwari waza ikkyo last night. It's been a while since I've done any suwari waza, and as usual, I was having trouble getting going. I felt more centered than before, since I'm focusing more on my center and less on uke. I bought the two-book set, Best Aikido: The Fundamentals, and The Aikido Master Course: Best Aikido 2 with the gift cards I received from my students for Christmas this year. Both are written by Doshu Moriteru Ueshiba, with the former also written by Kisshomaru Ueshiba, the former Doshu. The point being that in those books, the photos clearly show Doshu doing suwari waza techniques, and it looks to me that he is paying almost no attention to uke. He is simply staying as centered as can be, doing the techniques as though there is no uke present. Actually, to me it seems that he does all his techniques that way. So for me, when I have that opportunity to do suwari waza, I try to focus on staying centered, and it seems that my techniques work better. Duh, one might say, that's the point of Aikido: Stay centered. Well, that A-ha moment was important to me, but we've not had too many chances to do suwari waza. Staying centered while doing our standing techniques seems much less of an issue for me. The osteoarthritis in my hips and knees seriously slow me down in suwari waza, or hanmi-hantachi.

Sadly, my knees and hips were working against me, so that when it was my turn to be nage, I was having trouble blending with my uke - a first kyu who is also 100% military. He is very good. I think he said he studied with Toyoda Sensei from Chicago, and of the American Aikido Association. Fortunately, when he saw me struggling, he slowed his attacks way down - almost to the point of being painfully slow. Once he did that, however, my technique was not bad at all. A couple times he said that I was taking his balance, and really moving him around the mat. I also notice that I've stiffened up a bit while on Christmas break. I move around a lot more when I'm teaching. On break I spend much more time sitting, even though I'm reading and grading papers, and developing enrichment projects for my students. I also need to start working out again while off the mat; school and family kind of take all my time off the mat. I do not mind this, however, as I love both my family and my teaching career.

Among others, we also worked on a kokyu-nage that began like a shiho-nage on a yokomen-uchi, but added another circular movement. The technique ended with uke doing a forward roll without the leading arm. I am humbly grateful that Sensei decided to use me as the demonstration uke. All night long he stressed quiet, relaxed no-arm rolls, and this was no exception. Forward rolls, no leading arm. I had trouble with these when we first started practicing them in earnest about one month ago, but I'm at the point now where I can get into them pretty well. I must have done about six or eight when Sensei said, "Two more, and listen to how quiet he rolls," or something like that. The second of my rolls did not go well, and I slid away from him at the end of my roll. "Two more, and he better roll quietly," Sensei half-joked. The other students laughed. Luckily, both rolls were very quiet, although I was really out of breath by this time. I then practiced with Sensei, who said I did a very good job.