Jujutsu Class Diary
Berinsfield and Warborough entries by Giles, Piddington by Jim.
There will be no classes during the Christmas and New Year week. We restart on Monday, 5th January
16 December 2003 - Warborough
Pretty much a repeat of last night. Techniques from ude osae dori, concentrating on moving off line, then taking a range of techniques. Another successful grading: this time Steve achieved 7th kyu (yellow belt). And then finished off with an exhausting session of newaza.
15 December 2003 - Berinsfield
The majority of the evening was spent working on a range of techniques from ude osae dori. All used the same initial entry, typified by an aikido nikkyo from the same attack.
Highlight of the evening was the successful 6th kyu (orange belt) grading of Steve and Jamie. Congratulations to both. We then finished off with a fairly strenuous newaza session to let off steam
Classes on the 8th and 9th December were taken by Jim and Alan
2 December 2003 - Warborough
The first half of the evening was pretty much a repeat of last night, though with the addition of a hip throw to the range of techniques possible with this kuzushi. I do seem to be making some progress with my shihonage, so this concentration seems to be paying off, for me at least. Second half of the evening was spent on shodan kata in preparation for the imminent gradings.
1 December 2003 - Berinsfield
Spent the evening concentrating on kuzushi, all from the same grab: ai hanmi katate tori, with the palm uppermost. Started off taking a fairly conventional shihonage, then using the same entry to take iriminage, sokumen iriminage and anything else available. The intent was to make sure that uke's balance was broken, feeling for a slight wobble in uke before taking the technique. For some reason this reminded me of the sabre toothed tiger in "Ice Age": "Where's the wobble? There's the wobble!" and had me bouncing round the room with a ludicrous commentary on what was going on. Oh well.
25 November 2003 - Warborough
A concentrated evening: the first hour was spent working on nihonage from aihanmi and gyaku hanmi, emphasising retention of control all the way through the technique. The second hour was spent on the first four sword techniques from Toyama Ryu.
24 November 2003 - Berinsfield
Small class thsi evening so we got through quite a lot. Started by looking at niho nage from a sleeve and a chest grab. I think i'm going to try to do a little of this technique each week to try and overcome my problems with it.
The bulk of the evening was spent on escapes and counters. This produced a lot of sore wrists from those times when the escape didn't work, but proved quite fun and technical. Finished off with the first two sword kata from Toyama Ryu.
Regular readers will have noticed a break in the never very reliable diary entries. We've still been training but a fairly grim time at work has distracted me. Hopefully back to normal now
15 October 2003 -Piddington
No students this evening, so I took advantage of an empty hall to run through some of the Seiteigata Iaido techniques.
14 October 2003 - Warborough
Followed on from Monday's class: sokumen iriminage and irimi nage from a two hand attack. Then back to nidan against front and back wrists, again with a two hand attack. The emphasis is still on flowing techniques, and my circles seem to be getting larger. Maybe now would be a good time to get back to Chas' aikido class. So now all we've got to do is persuade him to run it again.
Finished the evening working through kata: shodan for the lower grades, nidan for the others. I'd like to spend a bit more time on a formal kata session over the next few weeks. Polish up a few things.
13 October - Berinsfield
Started the evening with the "rowing exercise" from aikido. The Japanese name escapes me. Working this as a two person exercise with resistance to get hands and hips moving in accord.
Most of the evening's techniques were flowing in nature: we went from the rowing exercise to sokumen irimi nage from the same attack. Then entering: threatening atemi with one hand and then taking nidan first against the back hand then the front.
Most attention grabbing part of the evening was when I was experimenting with an ogoshi entry that locked Alan up so that the throw seemed to inevitably pile drive him head first into the mat. Fortunately managed to find the brakes, but repeat experiments seemed to show it wasn't a fluke. Interesting, particularly for uke!
8 October 2003 - Piddington
Spent quite a bit of time working on ukemi skills, looking at basic forward, backward, side and 'forward backward' rolls done in a more lazy fashion, rather than the more effort involving versions that the students had previously trained in. Building along those lines we practised the 'flip' or sacrifice breakfall alone, then with tekagami and niho nage as entries into it. Progressed onto some of sandan gi from the previous evening.
7 October 2003 - Warborough
Time to look at some of the higher level kata again. Worked through the first few techniques from sandangi suware waza, then a couple of related techniques from the tachi waza. Emphasis was again on hand positioning and the direction of pushes and pulls.
Finished off with irimi nage from a sleeve grab. Here the intention was to ensure a smooth and flowing technique to slightly unbalance uke from the first movement, and to maintain that throughout the technique.
6 October 2003 - Berinsfield
Worked on shodangi tachi waza to begin with. When we got on to tachi tekagami it prompted a lot of examination of hand positioning and the directions of the pushes and pulls. To emphasise this we moved on to sandangi mochi mawari where the different directions are emphasised. Broke the technique down into paerts, examining each bit.
Finished the evening using a basic shodan wrist bend, again emphasising the rotation of the wrist. Used this to turn uke's posture and enter behind. From there we spent a while playing with uke blending with the technique and reversing it.
1 October 2003 - Piddington
Working primary with Tai No Henko as the footwork, worked a few different kuzushi going into a variety of nidan gi locks, trying to go over the previous evenings techniques to try and remember them!! Finished with some aikido style koshi-nage and a look into how uke can protect his centre to both provide himself with safety, and for nage to understand the need to create openings through kuzushi.
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