After attending Western's graduation this morning (Governor Ritter gave a good speech, personalized to Western and the people here), I came home and then went to the Gunnison Community Center for the final Aikido class with Jake.
After warming-up and doing some forward and backward ukemi, I got out my jo and we practiced jo-tori (jo techniques where uke grabs the jo and nage uses the jo to do a technique to uke), from katatetori and morotetori grabs with mostly kokyunages. With the jo it is easy to extend and throw uke, I also had us work on katenage and iriminage throws. After working with the jo for fifteen minutes, I put away the jo and we worked open-hand trying to replicate the same movements as we did with the jo.
We then worked on the five bokken katas and then I turned the class over to Jake to teach. Jake has talked about teaching Aikido this summer, so during his half hour, we first worked on katatetori pull attack to a kokyunage throw, the second katatetori with the other hand going for a punch to shihonage throw and pin. Jake then had us to a very interesting exercise where uke would tsuki acting in one of two roles: a drunk best friend who just takes a swing at you and a committed attacker who wishes deadly harm. Nage needed to respond in a soft way with the best friend and the committed attacker was more a hard response. I started off as uke and really attacked Jake as the committed attacker with a load kaia (a sharp yell as you attacked focuses and increases the realism of the attack) and committed punch.
After going back and forth, we ended the class with each of us being nage and uke for two minutes each. I was uke first and the attacks went well and Jake responded well, at the end I was nage for the final two minutes and after this intense Aikido practice, I was running on empty by the end and Jake caught me in a head-lock at one point before I found a sankyo that pinned him quickly to the ground. I wasn't able to much more when he was the committed attacker other than that sankyo, most of the time I just threw him with a kokyunage. The ideal of Aikido would be that your technique should not be different for either type of uke, being kind and compassionate regardless of uke's intent. From Jake's class, I have a long ways to go in my own Aikido.
Good practice today and I am going to miss practicing Aikido with Jake.
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