The pace of tonight's class was a bit slower, which allowed me to really focus and work on some techniques:

shomenuchi irimi nage
shomenuchi ikkyo

I'm still struggling with some of the terminology. By the end of the evening I was somewhat fluid with my movements. The techniques are are ones that I have seen before, but never exposed to all of the subtleties. I'm looking forward to absorbing as much as I can.

Went to Aikido again tonight. We did a lot of reverse arm bar type techniques. I'm still not catching the technique names because the sensei says them so fast. We finished off with 3 sword techniques. So far so good. I think that I've improved my rolls quite a bit in the last 2 weeks and worked on my tai sabaki.

Last night i signed up for Aikido (1 month). The class had about 10 people in it and the mat is fairly large - comparable to the judo mats at Ishi Yama only with about 1/2 the student.

We started off with about 20 minutes of stretching and warmup.  Nothing strenuous by any means. we moved into ukemi and then into about 4 or 5 different techniques.  The techniques that we worked on were essentially all wrist grab variations. Some I was familiar with, others were familiar but with a slight variation, and others were completely new to me.  We finished off the class with some bokken techniques.

So far so good.  I'm looking forward to Thursday's class.

I'm back from a month long hiatus.  I was traveling for work the week after my last post, and then Thanksgiving and I wasn't feeling 100% to go back just quite yet.  In that time I did some soul searching and kind of realized that as much as I liked judo, I wasn't happy. The club was too focused on the sport and competition side of judo and was neglecting the roots of the art (that and I wasn't too fond of the injuries that I was getting).  They didn't really have a structured curriculum other than the book, Kodokan Judo.

I think I did what I had originally set out to do: take judo for about a year to work on my throws.  I know that my throws have improved significantly since I started and that I have a new appreciation for randori and training with full resistance.

That being said, when I decided to pursue judo, I was making a choice between judo and aikido.  Last night I went to my first aikikai aikido class.  I admit that I had walked in with some preconceptions about aikido, but I tried to check them at the door. I walked out of the dojo after class a little bit disenchanted, but after talking about my experience with -=R, I felt that I had not truly given it a fair shot.  I'm going to go again later this week and take in another class and see what happens.

tonight made up for a lackluster Monday class. Hottest day of the year and record breaking temperatures made the class great!

Didn't really cover any new techniques, just drilling ones from the last few classes and one new combo: step in for a tai otoshi, uke counters by stepping out and tori turns the technique into an uchi mata.

Lots of randori and different spin on randori called ippondori. randori continues until an ippon is scored and then the losing partner is replaced with a fresh opponent. the drills continue until the time is up.

class would have been great had I been into it. i just felt a bit off and as a result class was only ok. Worked on some more combos: ko ouchi gari, o ouchi gari, o soto gari or uchi mata.

My o soto gari is coming along well. my form is getting better in uchi komi, but it's still an issue to be able to execute it on a resisting opponent in randori.

the trick for the transition to uchi mata is after you finish o ouchi gari to pull uke forward right before he has a chance to place his leg back on the ground behind him.

I did one round of ne waza and was able to use sankaku jime that we learned last week with some success. I was also able to sink in an okuri eri jime. I have found that a trick to make this choke more effective: make sure you're up high on uke - higher than you would be for a rear naked choke. ideally you'd want uke's neck to be around your elbows so you still retain good strength and leverage in your arms to apply the choke. This also allows you to look over uke's shoulder and see what uke is doing to defend against your okuri eri jime.

Class was run by Sensei Clive Douglas.

He showed us a few ne waza techniques that were great. They were all turn-overs for when uke is on his stomach or on all fours:

1. From side control. You are on uke's right side. Your right hand grabs uke's right wrist and pulls it up to uke's hip while your left hand grabs uke's belt and pulls up. As you pull him up, circle over his head and put your right foot on the floor under uke's stomach. Keep ahold of uke's wrist and fall backwards. Your right leg will be on top of uke and your left behind his head. bend your left knee and hook your left foot under your right knee and squeeze to get the choke, sankaku jime.

2. From straddling ukes back. Take your right hand over uke's shoulder and back up under uke's armpit and grab your own lapel. Take your left knee and put it on the mat, turning your body and pushing your knee on the back of uke's head. Once uke's head is tucked in, fall backwards while pulling on uke's arm with your right arm into juji gatame.