Jujutsu Class Diary
The diary is going on hold for a while. I've been finding it difficult to keep this up to date, and to keep it sounding fresh, so I'm going to take a break for a while.
3 February 2004 - Warborough
I had a minor break through this week. I've been having trouble with ude osae dori, shodan gi against a resisting opponent. The initial posture take just wasn't there. Sure, you can emphasise the metsubishi, but there was something missing. Jim and I worked on it together for a while and pieced things together between us. Suffice to say: it's all in the shoulder. Now if I can just remember that.
Another nice moment of discovery when a loose bit of free play suddenly resolved itself into a technique straight out of nidangi. The kata's based on something real - I just have to keep finding it. A good evening.
27 January 2004 - Warborough
Good turn out this evening, with Mark and Sandra coming over for the first time, and Luke back on the mat having recovered from a mountain biking injury.
Most of the evening was spent on variations of nidan: taking the technique from a strike and from wrist grabs. Building up bit by bit, we ended up looking at pins as well. A couple of questions then diverted us on to looking at nihonage. All in all, the evening seemed to fly by for me - perhaps a benefit of having had a reduced exposure over the last couple of weeks.
19 January 2004 - Berinsfield
Well that's it for Berinsfield and the Monday night class. Not only did we have the local youth running riot through the sports centre - as they have since Christmas. But now there's a second aerobics session. So we get to train to the background of two hours of thumping music, with the only sound proofing a curtain.
As you may gather from the tone of this entry, I've got a little fed up with this and decided that it's time to give up on the Monday night class. Tuesday's at Warborough will continue, and there's a new Wednesday class, also in Warborough, on the last two weeks of each month (the hall's booked for the first two). Wednesday session will start on the 18 February.
13 January 2004 - Warborough
Concentrated on nidangi tachi waza this evening: in particular the techniques that I normally avoid. As expected, I avoid them because I can't do them particularly well. More time needed here I think!
12 January 2004 - Berinsfield
A disadvantage to writing this diary a little late - it's hard to remember what we did! But I do remeber one bit: congratulations to Clark on passing his yellow belt exam.
Interesting conversation in the pub afterwards: believing in your technique's effectiveness so that you can relax whilst performing it. Which in turn makes the technique effective. We concentrated on how to receive techniques a while ago - maybe it's time to look at the other side of that. I can't think of an effective teaching approach for this yet though.
6 January 2004 - Warborough
Jamie commented that he'd been having trouble with sandan last night. What more prompting could I need? For a bit of variety, we started with a double wrist grab from behind, taking down in shodan then picking uke up with sandan. It was this collection of uke from the floor which had been causing the problems. When I do this technique, I visualise scooping up uke through his elbow. Well it works for me!
As the evening progressed, we cam much the same theme, though the initial take down was modified to nidan. The evening eneded with sandan and yondan gakuns
5 January 2004 - Berinsfield
First session of the new year, after a fortnight's break. It felt good being back on the mat, though I expect a few people will be feeling a little sore tomorrow.
Class was a slightly random mix: started with a number of techniques from a punch, then gyaku hanmi katate tori, all intended to get some flow going. After about an hour of that, we then moved on to running over some kata and then finished by handing over to Chas for a quarter of an hour who managed to get us all some air time.
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