Aikido, 6/16/12

Today was my first day back to train after about a 6 week absence. I was excited to go back, and even went to bed early last night so I could wake up on time. Unfortunately, I woke up about the time I was supposed to be there, and it's about a 75 minute drive. I went anyway, and Pat was kind enough to accommodate me.

We started with the walking kata, with a training knife in one hand. The wrong-footed turns messed me up today.

We did releases with uke holding a training knife as well. Pat described the knife as "transformative", and it really was; it makes you focus and try to make sure the techniques are actually keeping you safe from the attacker. It's easy to get accustomed to our training and begin just going through motions, what Funakoshi called "jumping around like a puppet".  As Pat said, the knife removes the illusion that the attacker isn't dangerous.

Next we did Junana 1-5, and 6-9 in our "continuous movement drill". I was rusty, but I feel like I flowed ok for most of it.

We spent a good bit of time on Junana 6, 7, and 10.  Six is one of those techniques at which I feel I get continually worse. We worked on letting uke determine my movement and timing, and that seemed to help for the moment. My number 7 usually feels pretty effective, but it always feels like a strength or leverage thing, more than an aiki thing. We looked at again letting uke determine the timing, as well as using a more upward angle to make it more effortless and more aiki (similar to how we've practiced making release 2 more disruptive to uke's ability to come back at us).  My number 10 usually feels pretty weak, so we worked on that some too. Felt way better afterward.

We discussed ma-ai and how it sometimes gets things artificially out of whack. That can be corrected by extending it a little, or by starting much farther away and walking toward each other.

We ended by playing with two knife drills Pat picked up from one of Bram Frank's students. I always feel a little awkward practicing knife techniques. While I value them and want to know them, I always imagine police reports containing phrases like "over a dozen knife wounds". I'd never want to have to use a knife in a real situation. That said, the techniques are designed to remove someone's ability to hurt you, not to carve them up.