Last bit of the aikido weekend

Sunday was back at the ol' Aikikai for class. Chuck's class started with -- surprise -- suwariwaza. About 30 minutes of it, in fact. I was partnered with Jenny and she really was having a hard time with it. She's still pretty new to all that work on her knees. After about 20 minutes, she just said, "I don't like this sitting down." Haha.

Usually, I'm strict with her, but I remember well how painful my legs were when I started suwariwaza. I told her, "Well, you can stand if you like." So we switched to tachiwaza, which simply means normal, standing techniques. If truth be told, my legs hurt, too. ;)

We then went into groups for irimenage and sudori, which is a technique where nage drops to the floor and kind of trips up uke with his body when he attacks shomenichi. For that reason, it's called the disappearing throw. If it's timed well and nage's body position is correct, uke will naturally be compelled to breakfall. Well, I was in the group of young yudansha who like to really go at it, but that was ok, I could take it with these techniques.

When Mike Abrams does sudori, he has a way of moving off diagonally during the throw so that he is not in the way of uke at all. It is interesting and still effective as he doesn't move out of the way until uke is already off balance. But it surprised Jenny. I guess she was expecting his body to be there for support in the break fall. When she went over she made a kind of surprised sound and seemed to hit her shoulder on the mat. Everything stopped to see if she was OK. Turned out she was fine.

Suddenly, Chuck goes on to another technique -- KOSHINAGE (illustration above). Gulp. I get a sinking feeling as I realize just who is about to toss me head-over-heals over their hips.

First, it must be said, Mike wouldn't hut a fly, as strong as he is, so he would be safe. There was another mudansha like myself with that deer-in-the-headlights look, so I could handle him. The middle three or four, who shall remain nameless on this blog, however, started licking their chops...

I got through the first few rounds OK and I thought I would make it, when one sempai, a brand new nidan (second degree black belt) whipped me around with such speed the centripetal force straighted out my legs and caused my ankles to bang together. Ouch. I managed to hobble back to the line and say I was fine.

The funny thing was, everyone, including Mike, kept asking after Jenny. I wanted so say, "Hey, what about me? Did you see that fall I took???" Haha. I guess that's because I'm not young and cute like Jenny is. ;) It's OK, I don't mind...

Here's a video of sudori: