Thursday Thoughts 5-21-09

"The belt only covers 2 inches of your ass, the rest is up to you."

~Royce Gracie, on belt rank

Judo 5/16/09

Saturday I was finally able to make it back to the dojo. We ended up doing 2 hours of judo rather than mixing it up with aiki or karate. I have a friend who has been interested in judo for a while, so he came to my lesson with me. He currently holds a 3rd degree black belt in Tang Soo Do. I think he really enjoyed our time, and plans on joining the dojo soon.

We started with the old foot sweeping exercise, then moved on to deashi barai. I really love that throw. We played deashi into ukigatame, into a weird (for me) armbar. The transition from the throw into the armbar was really slick, and I enjoyed it a lot. That's not to say I was performing it well. I'm still new to submissions, and for some reason, I have trouble cinching the arm up correctly when I try for an armbar. We also looked at the wakigatame/udegarami cycle, which still fascinates me. We then drilled the Ezekiel (I forget the judo name) for a while as well.

We ended the class with several spirited rounds of rolling. Once again - I GOTTA GET IN SHAPE!

Tsukuri

I don't consider myself a great husband. Let me go ahead and say that first. Utterly devoted and loving? Yes, absolutely, but I feel I have a lot of room for improvement, as I do in many areas. So this post is not meant in any way as a peal of my own trumpet. I hope this isn't too much of a ramble, and that it makes some sort of sense. It's just an attempt to A) explain what's been tumbling through my head, and B) get back into the habit of blogging!

My wife and I were having a discussion this morning about our one-year-old's sleeping habits, and what we're going to do about them. At some point, my much better half said "We're just going to have to (whatever was said), and you're going to have to deal with it." Now, I should also point out that her tone and attitude were NOT what they may sound like from what I just typed. My wife is as sweet and un-bossy as can be. But as I considered her words (knowing she didn't mean them that way), I thought of how careful we should be in our communication. Sometimes we get used to certain tones-of-voice, knowing that the people we're around most "get" us, and understand what we mean and what we don't mean. Since we're used to it, it can carry over into our conversations in the workplace, or among strangers. I think it's important to be aware of how things might come across to others, who might not know our natures or idiosyncrasies.

So I carefully and good-naturedly brought it up: "Maybe when we're discussing things like this, we can approach it more from a 'team' mindset rather than one of us laying down the law and expecting the other to fall in line..."

Now, I'm not one to say Aikido fills and informs every part of my life, but I can't deny that the things we practice and think about have an influence over other, unrelated areas. When my sweetheart was telling me later "I appreciate how diplomatic you are when we have a disagreement, instead of just striking back", I thought "Is that indicative of an aiki-tude?" I'm a peaceable guy by nature anyway... but I wondered if things like this are an example of "Verbal Aikido", specifically, the "fitting" aspect (tsukuri). My response drew attention to the "togetherness" of our relationship rather than focusing on the differences (force-meets-force) of our opinions/methods.

My point is only that I should try to consider the "fitting" aspects of my interactions with others as much as I can. Both in how I express myself (in the case of my wife's statement) and in how I respond to the way others express themselves. I'm not speaking of political correctness (at all), but a mindset analogous to the tactile sensitivity we strive for with our training partners and attackers in Aikido.

"If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone."

~ The Apostle Paul, to the Christians in Rome

Romans 12:18

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

To celebrate Cinco de Mayo, I thought I'd post this video....I love Cinco Claus!

The Return of Friday Night Videos!

This video was sent to me by my friend Byron. People that are good at things amaze me. This video makes me wonder in shame what I've done with my life.

Back in the Saddle (Partially)

This weekend I finally got to make it back out to Pat's for some Aikido (an extended Aikido session, no less)! It's been way too long. Sicknesses (on both sides of the state line), honey-do lists, tire blowouts, and the FDIC have all conspired together to make me miss about 4 consecutive weekends. I say I'm "partially" back in the saddle, because I know of a couple more weekends coming up in May that I'll have to miss, but I should be able to get back to my regular schedule after that.

Every part of class was an exercise in shaking cobwebs out of my mind. We started with tegatana, and did that a couple of times. The first "wrong-footed" turn screwed me up both times. Pat talked at length about otoshi motions and garuma motions, and we tried tegatana while mentally counting "otoshi, garuma, otoshi, garuma..." and so on instead of "1, 2, 3, 4" etc. I've assigned that to myself as a long-term homework project. I still have a problem with otoshi and garuma "clicking" in my head.

We went through releases 1-8 (more cobwebs). The we played with getting a gedanate out of a release 5 or 7. I need to remember to keep my shoulder relaxed so I don't interfere with uke's natural garuma motion if and when I miss the timing for the otoshi motion. I commented to Pat that it seems to me the higher numbered techniques are not the advanced Aikido material - the subtle principles (such as otoshi/garuma), and the ability to use them, are the real advanced stuff. I also need to remember to close the distance before trying gedanate, so more of my body acts as a "feeler" rather than just my hand. Easier to find the right timing to execute the technique that way.

Lastly, we played with the first three or four techniques from Owaza Ju Pon. Super slick, super cool stuff. Magic-looking stuff. I can't wait to be able to do those well! I love the way so many Aikido techniques come out problems with other techniques. It's a brilliantly fault-tolerant system.

It was really nice being back. I needed that.

Friday Night Videos, 4/10/09

Courtesy of my friend Ryan - one of the silliest and strangest "martial arts" videos I've ever seen.

A Blogging Break

Unfortunately, I need to take a short break from blogging - I will be too busy with work to organize many thoughts for the next 2 or 3 weeks (FDIC Audit at our bank). I will still try to post training logs (when I have a chance to train - I've been sick the last few days, so I didn't get to train yesterday again...grrr...), but don't look for any "What-I'm-Reading Wednesdays", "Thursday Thoughts", or "Friday Night Videos" for a little while.

If I make it through the next few weeks with any mental faculty remaining, I'll see ya'll on the other side.

Friday Night Videos, 4/3/09

Here's a comedian my buddy Ryan just showed me. I love the following 3 bits:

Wednesday Weirdness

I'm not really reading any martial arts books this week, so I don't have a "What-I'm-Reading Wednesday" this week. But I thought I'd relate something strange that happened this morning:

I was driving to work and had my iPod playing my "Pop" playlist, and it was set to shuffle the songs randomly. I was listening to the song "Don't Drink the Water" by The Dave Matthews Band, and the very next song was "Drink the Water" by Jack Johnson.

I was so confused. I didn't know what to do. I wanted to rush home and climb back in bed until the world made sense again.