Aikido for 06/30/2011

Tip taught last night and we worked on the following techniques:

• Moritori kokyunage (3 variations)
• Moritori iriminage
• Two person moritori kokyunages (3 variations)
• Jo Kata #1 (3 variations)

After class a group of us went to Old Chicago for beer and food. I'll be teaching next week's Thursday class.

Aikido for 06/28/2011

Ken taught Tuesday night's Aikido class. After warm-ups, we worked on nage getting out of the way first from a shomen strike and then doing either a kokyunage or some other technique after uke has already extended and committed to the attack.

Towards the end of class, Ken had us work on the initial opening for most of the jo katas and we worked on the "cat" stance that blocks uke's strike over nage's head. Nage then rotates and spirals the jo down while dropping center to create an effective counter-strike. I needed help on this so it was great to be able to practice.

Fishing trip with Dad, Judd, and Casie

This past weekend I drove to Grand Junction for my grandmother's 90th birthday party on Saturday. On Sunday, my brother Judd, my father, and myself along with my dog Casie, drove up to the Mesa Lakes on Grand Mesa. We arrived around 1:30 and stayed until 5:15 or so. It is was a fun time; each of us did something that cracked everyone up. Dad started off by casting his line up and it got caught in a telephone or power line that crosses the lake. The first photo is of Dad explaining what had just happened to Judd and pointing towards the telephone line.


This second photo is Judd fixing his line, for about twenty or thirty minutes every-time Judd would cast out he would snag his line and have to redo his gear. Once or twice in a row is unlucky; to have it happen ten or so times in a row is very funny, at least for Dad and I. My funny screw-up occurred when Dad was texting Devon, Judd's partner, comparing our trip to the three stogies when as he was reading it aloud for Judd and I, I buried a fish hook deep into my index finger that caused me to immediately start yelling. As a family with small children was boating nearby, I had to censor my language as I forced the hook out of my fingertip. When I finally extracted the metal hook, I slipped and stuck myself again. By the time I finished, I was bleeding all over.

A very positive point of the trip was that I was able to catch my limit, Judd caught 3 and Dad caught a couple of fish as well. This final photo is of Casie by my fishing spot. I didn't look hard enough for her leash in the truck (I thought I had left it at my Dads) so I created a makeshift leash out of a green fish stringer.

Aikido for 06/23/2011

Tip taught tonight and there was only two other students. The class went well although I was tired by the end being the full-time uke for Tip and then going straight to practicing techniques with the other instructors.

Aikido for 06/18/2011

Today I taught both the open and beginner's classes as it was Garry's daughter third birthday. During the warm-ups for the open class I made sure we did rowing exercise and ikkyo undo exercise. We practiced a number of techniques including a number of the ni-waza techniques I practiced in Austin.

For the second beginner class, I had four students along with Clint and the class went okay; I need to teach more beginners with a wider range of abilities than the college students I normally teach.

Aikido for 06/16/2011

Thursday night there was only three of us for Tip's class. After warming up we practiced the following techniques:

• katatetori kokyunage tenkan
• katatetori nikkyo omote and ura
• katatetori kotegashi ura
• Tip then finished class with kumtachi 1-5

Aikido for 06/14/2011

Last night Ken taught class and after warmups we practiced the following techniques:

• katatetori kokyunage tenkan
• tsuki to the face kokyunage variations (during one variation I was uke while Ken demonstrated a tsuki elbow atemi and the timing was slightly off and I got nice forearm to the face)
• jo kata opening where nage goes into a cat stance with all of the weight on the back foot, I still need work on this because my natural tendancy is to distribute my weight between my legs and doing that means it is not as fast or as smooth with the jo counter.

Let sleeping Dogs Lie and Diet adjustments...

I have been thinking about how to make adjustments to my diet through changing the circumstances and approaches of the type, quantity, and variety of the food. So, during a typical week, I'll not eat processed beef or pork. So, starting today Mondays will be Vegan Mondays. I had an egg sandwich for lunch and for dinner I had a mixed salad and cooked lentils in my rice cooker. Wednesday's will be Paleo-Wednesdays with every other Wednesday being locally harvested paleo Wednesday.

I've been inspired by a couple of trends and I want to start looking for native foodstuffs and try to harvest over them over summer. I'll be taking very liberal interpretation of the paleodiet. It is merely a chance for me to develop a different skill set and start exploring some different areas with my Casie sleeping on the right.

Aikido for 06/09/2011

I am currently in Austen Texas for the Open Repository Conference and last night I took the bus to the Jo Birdsong Sensei's Aikido of Austin dojo. After warm-ups, James the guest instructor, told the class that we would be practicing techniques from the 1st kyu and shodan USAF tests as two students are testing next month. We started off with doing shihonage, iriminage, and kokyunage from katatori attack. We then did five techniques from katatori tsuki (I was uke for the demo) followed three moritori ninage (two uke attack) techniques, one of which I had never seen before and I wasn't doing it quite right until James came and corrected me. We finished class with two randoris for the testing students and I was one of the ukes in the free-style attack.

I really enjoyed the class and everything felt familiar from my time practicing at Central Illinois Aikikai. This was the first time I visited another dojo as a full-shodan and I found that I didn't have to worry about my ego related to ranking as much although I couldn't slack off either! The practice was rigorous and did find my internal Aiki development under Ikeda Sensei really made it easier to throw and break the balance of my ukes and allowed me to be more relaxed.

After class I walked out of the dojo and I noticed that I had missed the bus I needed to take back to my hotel. Instead I walked the 3.5 miles in the 90 degree plus heat. It was a good introduction to Austin and although I am having a good time here, I don't think I would ever want to live in Austin. Maybe it is because of my Colorado bias or maybe it is because I prefer cooler summers and winters.

Aikido for 06/04/2011 and 500th Post

Yesterday for Aikido, Garry started right away as is his practice for the open class. We started off with these techniques:

• katatetori tenkan kokyunage
• katatetori irimi kokyunage
• shomenuchi free-style
• shomencuhi iriminage
• shomenuchi yonkyo omote
• We then finished class by working on the bokken kata #5

This is my 500th blog posting. I started the blog in 2007 as part of some "Web 2.0" training I was doing for the Savage Library at Western State College by my then supervisor Beth. From just a general description of my life in Gunnison including the books and movies I was seeing and the many photos of trips friends and family made to visit me or the trips I went to other places. For a while now, the blog has been pretty much focused on my Aikido training and while I realize that it is repetitive, I find it part of my training to write at least an acknowledgement of my Aikido training.

I would like to continue to write and maybe I'll try to expand again and become more inclusive in what subjects and topics I cover on this blog. Next week I'll be Austin Texas for the first time, attending a conference and participating in a panel discussion. My life since I started this blog keeps improving but I feel that there is a deep loneliness that isn't necessarily explicit. I hope that as I continue to write and chronicle my life my next blog postings, that I'll become more social.

Aikido for 06/02/2011

Tonight for Aikido we had an abbreviated class because of two adult kyu tests. After warming up, Tip had us practice most of the techniques from the 6th kyu test along with the ushiro techniques from the 3rd kyu test.

Aikido for 05/31/2011

Last night Ken taught class and after warming-up (I actually lead the warm-up because Ken was having some knee problems) we worked on the following techniques:

• katatetori tenkan kokyunage
• Ken then had us do the same technique only as a jo dori where nage needs to make a deep tenkan movement
• kosadori ikkyo-style kokyunage where uke blends into the attack before it arrives; doing this from static is a lot harder