Aikido for 07/27/2010

Tonight I taught the 6:00 Open Aikido class at Pikes Peak Aikido. There wasn't very many people; Garry, Nate, and two beginners. I started with the basic warm-up exercises. I did add rowing exercises and the foot-work exercises I practiced when I started Aikido at Central Illinois Aikikai. I explained that tonight's class would be the basic techniques for 5th and 4th kyu at CIA. After practicing forward and backward ukemi, we worked the following techniques:

• katatetori ikkyo omote and ura - front-foot step back variation
• kosadori ikkyo omote and ura - back-foot step back variation, I also mentioned Dan Messisco Sensei's martial ukemi from Friday night as a way to connect and improve your own practice
• moratetori iriminage two variations; front and back foot step back for the opening. I also demonstrated how off the mat application where nage is armed with a sidearm and a common response would be to grab the nage's arm to prevent the weapon from being withdrawn from a holster, and how iriminage from moratetori gives nage an opening to draw a weapon from a better tactical position.
• 2-person restricted randori practice, uke could only attack with katatetori or moratetori, nage should respond with either iriminage or ikkyo but more importantly get out of the way to be prepared for the other uke

We finished class with kokyu-ho exercise. I hope I'll have more opportunities to teach and having Garry and Nate there made the practice more of an advanced class even with these 5th and 4th kyu techniques. I hope that many years in the future I'll still be learning and teaching ikkyo and iriminage.