Kazoku, 1/16/13

After a short review of our shomenate lesson from earlier in the week, Kim and I worked on release 1, focusing on:

• Timing your footfalls to coincide with uke's.
• Following uke from a safe position behind his arm.
• Synching up our feet, and recognizing when and in what direction to push, as determined by uke's steps.
• Not using strength to lift uke's arm in order to make the technique look like it's "supposed" to; rather, moving our body in such a way that the arms naturally come up, and the "bump" at maximum distance facilitating the rest of the components (lifting the arm, getting behind it, etc.).
• Evading in such a way that doesn't leave you in a dangerous position. I was having trouble getting this across, until I used Pat's patented "put-a-knife-in-uke's-hand-and-watch-tori-magically-learn-to-evade" trick. Realizing uke could be dangerous really helps you forget about "counting the steps", and get the heck out of the way.
• We briefly looked at how release 1 provides entries into other techniques. We specifically looked at a release-1-to-junana-3 combo.