Aikido for 10/2/2010

On Saturday, I decided to attend the Fundamentals class at noon so I could focus on some weapons training with Garry. After a brief warm-up and ukemi practice, we worked on a few bokken shomen, yokomen, and the yokomen to shomen spiral block into uke. In one exercise Hal and I practiced yokomen strikes back and forth across the mat. I found that I handle the quicker strikes if I felt and blended with the uke's blade by the best I think of, making my blade "sticky" with uke's blade. It was about maintaining connection for longer and controlling the outcome. After these bokken exercises, Garry had us go through kumitachi one through four that will be on my shodan test. This was a good class and I feel more confident about my understanding and growth in knowing these ASU weapon katas. I need to now learn the kumijo katas for my test training.