Thanksgiving in Grand Junction - Shooting in the Morning

I drove into Grand Junction on Wednesday evening. Thanksgiving morning all five of us brothers drove out west of Mt. Garfield to go shooting. The first photo is Jesse, Jarrett, Jake, and Judd is cleaning his .22 to the right.

This photo is of the cliffs as the clouds came over, we were able to shoot for about an hour, each of us shooting Jesse's semi-automatic and Jarrett's .30-06 along with the two .22s.
Here is Jarrett after shooting the AK.
Here is Jake with a big smile after shooting.
Here is Judd after shooting his .22 for the first time.

Here is Jesse shooting Jarrett's .22 while Jake is shooting the .30-06.

We all had fun, morning was cool and it rained for the next couple of days. We have decided to the morning shooting trip should become an annual event. Likely, we'll go small-game hunting next year.

Aikido for 11/24/2008

During last night Aikido class, Jake and I practiced the following techniques:

• Kata-tori (one hand shoulder grab) ikkyo
• Kata-tori irmi-nage (3 variations)
  
• Ryokata-tori (both hands shoulder grab) ikkyo
• Ryokata-tori irmi-nage (2 variations)
• Ushiro Ryokata-tori ikkyo
• Ushiro Ryokata-tori irmi-nage

At the end of class we did some stretching before finishing with kokyu-ho. On Sunday night I was checking out plane prices and I purchased a plane ticket with hotel to the Aikido Bridge Friendship Seminar in San Diego. The Seminar runs from January 15th - 19th and I also placed a deposit for the seminar. I am excited about this opportunity to attend this seminar. I am headed to Grand Junction on Wednesday so there won't be a class then. Jake will not be able to attend Monday night, I'll show up on the off chance of someone showing up so the likely next class will be on December 3rd.

Aikido for 11/22/2008

This afternoon Jake and I practiced at the Gunnison Community Center.

We started practice with an extended warm-up. Jake mentioned the recent study regarding too much stretching the major muscles is counter-productive to the following work-out. I didn't change that much in the beginng but we did agree to do some more stretching during the cool-down at the end of class.

After doing forward and backward ukemi two laps each up and down the mats, we did one lap of shikko and then a second lap of shikko doing a shomen strikes with our jo.

We then spent about twenty minutes doing 13 jo kata from both left and right sides.

We practiced shomen-uchi dai-sankyo omote and uri.

We then went through the 3rd kyu test requirements from the United States Aikido Federation.

• Yokomenuchi Iriminage (2 ways)
• Yokomenuchi Kotegaeshi
• Tsuki Kaitennage (uchi & soto)
• Ushiro Ryokatatori Sankyo
• Morotetori Iriminage (2 ways)
• Shomenuchi Sankyo
• Suwari waza Shomenuchi Iriminage
• Suwari waza Shomenuchi Nikkyo
• Hanmi handachi Katatetori Shihonage
• Hanmi handachi Katatetori Kaitennage

We then practiced jo tori (jo takeaway) Irminage and jo tori kotegaeshi. We also practiced jo tori Ikkyo. We did do some strectching at the end of the class and I really enjoyed being able to practice for an hour and half.

Aikido for 11/20/2008

Jake and I practiced the following techniques:

• Kata-dori nikyo (omote and ura)
  
• Ryote-dori Kaiten-nage (omote and ura) both uchi and soto variations

Aikido for 11/17/2008

The focus of last night's Aikido class was tanto-tori (knife takeaways). After warm-up, Jake and I practiced the following techniques with the tanto:

• tanto-tori tsuki kotegoshi
• tanto-tori shomenuchi irmi-nage
• tanto-tori yokomenuchi shiho-nage omote and ura
• tanto-tori yokomenuchi Gokyu omote and ura
• tanto-tori ushrio kubishime

We won't be having class the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Jake talked to Joey and he is likely out for the rest of the semester. Jake and I also talked how to increase participation and we might do an Aikido demostration along with advertising that the class is free to take at Escalante Fitness Center.

Aikido for 11/15/2008

Today I purchased an adult membership to the Gunnison Community Center. There gymnastic room is large and covered with at least an inch and a half tumbling mat, making them great for Aikido too! This morning there was another martial arts class so started class at about ten minutes until 1:00 p.m.

Jake and I warmed-up and practiced a number of different types of ukemi for about forty-five minutes. We then went on to practice a number of irmi-nage, focusing on 180 degree turn on the heels that I studied this mornings. The turn was from Ikeda Sensei DVD on irmi-nage.

We then practiced four different styles of kosadori koshunages. We moved a larger mat to fall on but the regular blue tumbling mat where fine to practice break-falls.

After a second water break. We practiced tenchi-nage omote and ura before ending class we practiced kokyu-ho and the back stretch. We finished up at about 2:30. I enjoyed myself and got a good work-out as well.

Aikido for 11/12/2008

At the beginning of last night's Aikido class, Jake and I worked on tenkan foot-work, both sliding and stepping variations. This lead to examination of the our different kamae, Jake tends to have a wider stance while in my own basic left or right kamae, my back foot ends up near 45 degree angle from my forward foot and directly behind me. While this kamae presents a narrow forward profile, it is weaker from attacks at the side. I only end up in this exaggerated kamae after doing tenkan. The final techniques we practiced was shomen-uchi irimi-nage both the basic technique and then a more irmi-nage advanced form. Irmi-nage, after working on our tenkan footwork, reinforced how important foot-work is in irmi-nage. During the initial turn, there is a dead-spot where unless nage has uke sufficiently connected, shifting nage's body weight from forward to back foot creates balance problems for nage.

After class, I walked over to Ute hall and watched part of a Godzilla movie while enjoyed California, Vegetable, and Salmon rolls at an event by the Asian Club at the college.

On Saturday Jake and I are meeting 10:30 a.m. at the Community Recreation Center for at least an hour and half class. I am planning a more in-depth training session as the mats are better for break falls an sura-wazi techniques.

Aikido for 11/10/2008

This morning there was about 1/2 inch of snow. This photograph I took before I left for work. The snow melted off by the time I arrived home.

Last night at Aikido, Jake and I practiced 3 different Koshunages kosadori variations. We then worked on katate-dori shiho-bage (ai-hanmi) omote and ura. Jake wants to practice more so he and I will meet at Gunnison County's Community Recreation Center at 10:30 on Saturday morning for an hour and a half class. This weekend class will have a longer warm-up and because we will be able to practice on better mats, we will spend more time on ukemi.

Write or Die Results

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lab.drwicked.com

My results after responding to a verbal snippet from a cell phone commercial I heard on television :

Get in the loop, meaning in a broader sense that we (as the object of the verb) are trying to become part of a conversation between two or more parties. If we are outside the loop, is really a matter of information asymmetry, that the external parties are privy to information we are not, that we want to become at least a passive recipient of these messages. We may or may not want become more active in creating or responding to these messages but we do wish to join in a variable (but I would guess predictable along some common distributions) continuum of participation among the members of the of aforementioned loop. Loop is just a convenient linguistic modeling of these relationships. I can participate and create actions for responding to these messages, a foundation for the creation of large networks of agents, both original and models of reality. The loop.

Aikido for 11/05/2008

Last night I arrived late from Grand Junction. While I was warming up, Jake mentioned that he wanted a more active class and be thrown around. We started off with katatori irminage and after working on the head position in the initial turn and also throwing each other around, we stopped for a water break and then started practicing kokyu-nages, specifically uchi and soto variations from katatori.

I am sore this morning so even though we didn't practice for the full one-hour class, I did get a good work-out.

Aikido for 11/3/2008

Last night Jake and I focused on foot-work. I started off the basic Central Illinois Aikikai exercises, we ended up doing the following different styles that varied only with the footwork from a katatori ikkyo omote technique.

• Basic step back with the forward foot and cut down with the forward hand
• Basic back foot step back while sliding the foward foot. This style was more difficult to do with the ikkyo omote technique, it is better suited to the ikkyo ura variation
• Forward foot slides to the side while back-foot steps forward
• Back foot slide and meets forward foot while doing an atemi to the face, the final movement is the stepping back on an angle with the former forward foot. This style is what is shown in the "Basic Aikido" book by Doshu, so I call it the hombu dojo style.

I am headed for Grand Junction after work. I am attending Gold Rush training tomorrow and I should be back for Wednesday's Aikido class.