On Friday night I drove north to Carlsbad to have dinner and spend the night with my cousin Jason and his wife Jody. Jason cooked a great steak and corn dinner and as we sat and talked, sipping vodka cranberries cocktails, our conversation turned to martial arts and some of the challenges Jason has encountered when teaching Marines in martial arts. Jason is one of the best martial artists and overall athlete that I know and I felt privileged to have known him all of our lives. Military martial arts has a different focus of weapon retention and a much more brutal response from the civilian martial art of Aikido that I practice. I learned a lot as we worked on some typical scenarios that he teaches including pistol and rifle retention when an attacker is trying to disarm a Marine with 60+ pounds of gear. My perspective changed a lot and I hope to get on a mat with Jason to learn much more. Jody came home from work and we all visited until 2am.
Saturday morning I did not make the Tissier and Doran sensei classes but had a nice breakfast and visit with Jason and Jody before driving back to San Diego.
Ikeda Sensei taught the third class at 3. Ikeda Sensei returned to the same themes of connection and musubi, of establishing a connection between nage and uke. We worked on a number of different kokyunages as well as ikkyo when Ikeda Sensei had us practice a breakfall kotegashei and a breakfall kokyunage.
Murashige Sensei was the guest instructor for the last class of the night. He showed and then we practiced ikkyo and kokyunage variations where nage slightly collapses the wrist while moving his or her elbow into uke, the key for me when I was practicing with various ukes, was to make sure my arm that was grabbed and then as I collapsed the elbow towards uke was to make sure my elbow and wrist was connected to my hips. My technique was weaker when I didn't connect my arms with my hips and my throws were not as effective.
After class there was a mixer at the dojo and I talked to Doran Sensei about Jason and then asked Ikeda Sensei about what he would do if someone was grabbing a pistol as Jason and I were working on the night before. Ikeda Sensei showed me a couple of variations, one where the arm is hyper-extended that I wish I could show Jason. The night ended with a dinner at Thai Time II restaurant where I had a number of interesting conversations, in particular with my friends Adam and Craig from Sacramento.
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