A recent wind storm broke a branch off a tree in the neighbor's yard. The branch ended up in our yard.

Test

On Saturday I will take my 2nd kyu test. In the United States Aikido Federation it means I will be testing for my brown belt, albeit low brown. I am excited. We did a practice test last Saturday, and overall, I think I did well. I had some issues with shomenuchi shihonage. I wasn't getting my leading hand up to block the way I should have, and I wasn't getting off line the way the technique is supposed to go. My first try at randori was terrific - I think, anyway. I had a ball. I kept throwing one uke into the other oncoming uke. I remember once specifically throwing one uke into the other so well that uke 2 had to literally jump out of the way of uke one. When I threw uke 1 into uke 2, I saw the look of surprise on uke 2's face. I don't think he expected to see uke 1 coming at him that way. That gave me one or two extra seconds to move around and move into uke 2 as much as he was moving into me. One of the non-participating students said that I looked "fierce" while doing randori.

I am also practicing my jiu waza (sorry about the "jiu" - don't know how that's spelled phonetically). I'm going over katatedori, morotedori, ryotedori, ai hanmi katatedori, and whatever else I can think of including all the "ushiro" attacks. It's not "technically" on our test, but Sensei called it Saturday, so I'm trying to think through it as much as I can. It has been his practice to call requirements from higher rank test just to see how the test person does. How many different techniques can I come up with for any single attack? I have to have more than a few. On Saturday he called ryotedori, and I missed some really basic kokyunage techniques, and went for several of the more complicated techniques. I think it's better if I at least start with the basics. I even missed tenshinage. I can't make those types of mistakes when I test.

I am excited, and very much looking forward to wearing a brown belt.