Aikido for 10/30/2010

Garry taught the 10:30 class and he started us off on moving out of the line of attack by moving into uke's omote and ura sides and nage can vary his movement by doing either tenkan or irimi. We progressively worked on just moving out of the way of the shomen attack, by learning to just disrupt uke' balance but not doing a technique. Eventually Garry had us add an additional uke attacking nage, still using a shomen attack but he emphasised how doing a committed attack requires uke to reset and not just flail around trying to hit nage as quickly but ineffectively. For a few times, Garry had us practice different bokken and tanto takeways, ending the class with a series of more randori practice where nage could do any technique from the shomen attack. This was an enjoyable class and a good practice day.