Tonight three new students showed up: Mandy, Ryan, and Gilbert. After warm-up, I spent more time introducing front and back ukemi. All of the new students were able to do a full-standing roll and were able to do back ukemi from kneeling position. I then introduced tenkan and irimi exercises from katatedori. I decided to do something different and brought out my bokken to illustrated the shomen cut (this is the same cut I showed my Dad this weekend). We then practiced an opening to shomenuchi kokyunage by doing a tenkan from the standing open-hand shomen strike. To finish the tenkan, nage slides forward, catching uke's extended hand for the throw. Uke takes a step and since everyone was able to do a front-roll, we got to re-enforce the forwards rolls practiced at the beginning of class.
I have been trying to improve my teaching and I was remindered about my own approach when I unconsciously chuckled at one of the student's tenkan movements. When asked why I had laughed, I first realized that I had in fact laughed, and then I to reassure the student that I wasn't laughing at them and then show how to do the proper tenkan movement. I enjoy Aikido so much when I'm on the mat, I need to refocus when teaching and be more mindful of even involuntary reactions.
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