Kaiten nage

I haven't hasn't been blogging for a while -- and that's to my detriment.

Blogging helps helps to solidify the concepts learned in the dojo. Giving them some sort of expression, or rather the process of giving them expression, seems to clarify and reinforce the lessons learned.

A lot has happened in the past few months, but I'm at a loss to list them now. Well, I passed my third kyu test. That's an easy one.

As usual, I was nervous and overanxious before the test. I was particularly worried about kaitennage ura (see above video) for some reason. I had prepared, but not as much as I would like and felt a bit overwhelmed. Even so, I decided to go for it and see what would happen.

For the test, I was partnered with a guy from Michael McNally's dojo in Hoboken. I was lucky to get partnered with someone who knew the techniques and ukemi! (The memory of one fellow's test about a year ago kept haunting me. He just didn't know the techniques and Sugano-sensei stopped the test to call him out on it.) I can't remember my partner's name now, but he did well.

One scary moment, though, was when I was thrown during kaitennage. I came within an inch of the table Sugano and Mike Abrams senseis sit at when conducting the test! I just saw it go by out of the corner of my eye. The next day, I ran into Mike. He said some nice things, to which I answered, "Well, the best thing I did was not hit the table!" He said he put his hand over the corner to offer some protection as I went by. Honestly, I hadn't seen it. Just thinking about it makes my temple hurt!

Anyway, getting past that, things seemed to have gone well for everyone. The second and first kyus looked pretty good. Soon-jun, in particular, impressed the Aikipenguin.

After the test, as I do after every test, I swore to myself I'll prepare better next time. Maybe this time I will.

A check of the calender tells me I can test in November if I go over 5 days per week. We'll see if I can make that happen!