Aikido for 08/27/2008

Jake and I practiced from 7:25 to about 8:30. BT could not make it but I did talk to him about next Wednesday's class.

Here are the techniques we practiced:

• Katate-dori Kaiten-nage (uchi-kaiten)
• Katate-dori Kaiten-nage (soto-kaiten)
• Tsuki Kaiten-nage
• Ushiro Ryotekubi-dori Kaiten-nage
• Free-style practice focusing on kokyu-nages
• Shomen-uchi suwari-waza irminage (2 variations)
  

Next Monday there is no class, on Wednesday class starts at 7:30. I believe that there will be more people so I plan on focusing on the fundamentals. I am headed to Aspen tomorrow for the Bob Dylan concert. Ziggy Marley opens, so I am excited. I am meeting my friend Floyd there and then on Sunday we are driving to Park City for another Bob Dylan concert. I should have some good photos from this trip. I'll be driving back to Gunnison from Salt Lake on Monday. Onward to Double Dylan!

Aikido for 08/25/2008

Jake and I were the only students practicing tonight. I added more warm-ups and I still need to create a portable shrine before we can do more of a formal start to class. I am trying to take Jake's advice from last class and include more formal etiquette into our practice. I also added Tai No Tenkan Shiho-giri omote and ura turns to the beginning stretches.

Here are the techniques we practiced tonight:

• Tai no Tenkan kokyunage (2 varations)


• Shomenuchi iriminage (ikkyo opening)


• Tsuki kote-gaeshi (omote and ura)


• Yokomenuchi shihonage (omote and ura)


• Shomenuchi irminage suwariwaza - a quick variation I picked up from Ikeda Sensei's DVD on suwariwaza with naga entering deep and grabbing uke's center before finishing off with the iriminage.


• Tsuki kote-gaeshi suwariwaza

Erin and Brandon's Wedding...

This weekend I drove down to Grand Junction for a friend's wedding. I stayed Friday night with my brothers Jarrett and Jesse. My brother Judd dropped off his son, Keegan, for us to watch until Saturday. After crying for about an hour, Keegan stopped and the rest of the time Jarrett and I constantly watched him get into everything. Here is a picture for Keegan from Saturday morning.

Later in the morning, I drove and bought a present and some clothes for myself. I swung by and picked up Jesse and we drove to Powderhorn Resort on Grand Mesa. My sister-in-law Lisa's sister Erin was marrying Brandon Taylor. I had met Brandon before, but hadn't met any of his family. My nieces Aura and Emerie, were flower girls. Here is a photo of them with my brother Jesse.

The wedding ceremony was held on the outdoor deck and I snapped this photo of Erin and Brandon as they were presented to all of us as a married couple.

Jesse and I rented a room and stayed the night at the resort. The next day, I dropped off Jesse and drove back to Gunnison. I had a great time and congratulations to the Brandon and Erin.

Aikido for 8/20/2008

Jake and I practiced tonight from 5:15 to about 6:20. We started off with me trying to remember Doran Sensei's katatetori iriminage. I didn't get quite the technique right but here are the techniques we practiced.

• katatetori iriminage (4 variations)
• katatetori ikkyo omote and ura (hombu style)
• katatetori ikkyo omote and ura (alternative varation)
• katatetori shiho nage omote and ura
  
• utemi to the face ikkyo omote and ura (hombu style)
• shomen uchi iriminage (3 variations)

Jake and I talked after class and I'll be spending more time warming up (this class I didn't go though a complete warm-up but with beginners starting again on Monday, I want to be more complete) also Jake recommend a more formal start to class. I will need to come up with a portable shrine because Jake is absolutely right, formal bow and start to class will improve our practice.

Aikido for 08/18/2008

BT, Tank, and Susie came for the Aikido class they are just beginning Aikido, so I started off with brief safety and etiquette talk. We went through the wrist exercises and some other stretches before introducing tenkan. Next, I went through forward and backward rolls. All of them were able to do sitting and kneeling rolls.

Next I went over the following two techniques:

• katatetori kokyu nage


• katatetori ikkyo omote (I am following the fundemental Hombu dojo style from the current doshu's Best Aikido)

The next class will be next Monday and I am excited about practicing Aikido after a great summer camp.

Fishing with Dad

On Sunday, Dad and I went to breakfast to Gunnysack for brunch we then went fly-fishing on the Gunnison River, starting at the Neversink recreation area. When we parked, I got out and saw this doe.

Dad and I split up and I walked through some brush surrounding one of the small off-shoot of the Gunnison. Here is a picture:

I walked to where this stream emptied back into the larger river and started fly-fishing when this man walked up and started fishing at this rock overhang. We started talking and he is a barber in Gunnison. Above his head is Highway 50. He told me in the Spring he caught a 22 inch brown. I was only able to get my line out to left of the bushes in the middle of the picture a few times with a couple of different flies.


After about a half-of-hour of fishing at this spot, I walked back to my SUV. Dad was there and we decided to drive to our usual fishing spot. We fished at the bank until 4:00 p.m. before Dad left for Grand Junction. I caught two small rainbow trout, not more than five inches, which I released back to the Gunnison River.

Trout fly-fising with Dad..

My Dad came up from Grand Junction on Friday night. We went to dinner at Sugah's and then watched a fly-fishing DVD that came with his new gear. I learned a key tip from the DVD: tip, top, ten. Tip, for the tip of the fly-pole. Top, bring the pole to 12:00 o'clock position and pause. Ten, bring the pole tip to the 10:00 o'clock position to cast the line out.

The Saturday morning we drove up to Taylor River to start testing out the DVD's advice. Here are some photos, the first is where I walked out on some rocks to free Dad's fishing line.

This second photo is Dad with his fly pole. Just after this photo, Dad caught and released a small rainbow trout.

Here is a photo of one of the other places from the Taylor River.

We then drove up to Taylor River. We stopped at the Nugget Cafe for lunch. Storms went through and rained but then when we finished lunch, the sun was back out. We drove around the lake and then stopped to fish. The wind whipped up the water, here is a photo of Dad on Taylor Reservoir.

The wind continued so we decided to leave. We stopped at the dam at Taylor Reservoir. Here is a photo of Dad looking down at the bottom, similar to the view from the second photo.


I'll post some more photos from Yesterday's Gunnison River fishing trip (where I actually caught some fish). I am also teaching the Aikido Basics class at Escalante Fitness Center at 5:00 today.

New niece and mother news

I talked to Mom last night and my sister Jill and her husband Lance just had their second daughter, Adelaide, on Tuesday. Congratulations!

My mom also told me that she just got engaged to a fellow Jehovah Witness and they are planning a wedding within six months. This news kind of blew me away and I am still recovering from this news. I am happy for my mother but it seems quick given I haven't even met my future step-father.

Interesting times.

Post 90, Las Vegas, and Chicago

This is my 90th post on this blog. Nothing special to report, my workload is increasing rapidly with the start of school in a couple of weeks. We want to release eLibrary, chat reference IM, and the federated searching product by the time school starts. All of these projects are my responsibility and although I have been working on them through-out the summer, there are always last minutes delays and problems that need to be addressed. With the director leaving for a week and half vacation on Friday, I will the interim director so more management fun. I am also working on a limited release of the institutional repository for the faculty on campus.

My brother Jarrett turns 21 on September 21st. I am renting a car in Grand Junction so he and I can drive to Vegas for his 21st. I am taking the 22nd and 23rd off, our plan is party hard on his birthday and then have Monday to recover and Tuesday to drive back to Junction. I have never done a full Las Vegas debauchery experience before, so I am looking forward this trip.

I also purchased plane tickets for trip to Chicago in October. I haven't visited Illinois since 2005 and I want to reconnect with my old and new friends in Chicago and hopefully a quick trip down to Champaign to visit friends there as well. October in Illinois is one of my all-time favorite times of the year and place. My friend Irving just had his second son so congratulations are in order!

Aikido Summer Camp Day 7

Today is the last day of classes. I'm planning on checking out tomorrow morning.

All of the classes were abbreviated to an half of hour, with the first taught by Ikeda Sensei, the second taught by Doran Sensei, the third taught by Ushrio Sensei, and the forth by Saotome Sensei. Saotome Sensei equated Ai Ki = Budo, with all of them emphasizing harmony and responding to uke.

Here is a photo of Ikeda Sensei and I with another student. The second photo is of my roommate Taro, and third photo is a quick photo of the main dojo.

Aikido Summer Camp Day 6

The first class at 6:30 in the morning was taught by Blitz Sensei. We worked on tenchinage and kokyuho variations

The second class was taught by Saotome Sensei and we did paired jo practice. A notable technique involved throwing your jo and uke, uke then swatted your jo to the ground while stepped in and did a kotegashi throw. I learned a lot from my uke with the all of the jo variations although I did get yelled at by a couple of senior udanshi because I didn't warn my partner although thinking back, I wasn't the only one who had a responsiblity to my uke. Funny, how ego gets involved and the power dynamic between senior and junior students.

The third class was taught Ikeda Sensei and his focus was on moving oneself even when uke is strong. By counting to three and moving oneself, it opened up uke's center and ki and made uke much easier to move.

The forth class was taught by Doran Sensei and we did a number of ryokatatori techniques with the focus of getting out the way and then moving one's body to move uke.

The fifth class was taught by Ushiro Sensei and we again worked on a number of ki exercises, many of them from earlier in the week. At the end of class we performed a variation of the crack the whip that flung people around. Ushiro Sensei helped me personally at one point and I really felt the ease of ki moving through my body which helped me move my partner. We advised a "po" breath exercise to get one's ki flowing and advising doing this every day for practice.

I am now off to take a shower for tonight's Dinner and Party at Hotel Colorado in Glenwood Springs. Today was the last full day of practice and tomorrow we have classes in the morning and then mat moving and early check out. My plan is to stay the night and then leave for Gunnison on Sunday.