First day back after a whole bunch of traveling. I was still feeling a bit jet lagged.

It was a small group tonight. the white belt ranks are starting to thin out noticeably (expected).

Since it was a small group tonight, we worked with the coloured belts. We focused a lot on ne waza tonight, but some nage and tachi waza. The center heel lock takedown was introduced to us, too, and get had a chance to play around with transitioning between techniques when the first one doesn't work and setting up a technique:

1. enter for ippon seoi nage. uke moves to outside ("slips off your hips"). quickly transition to the enter heel lock takedown.

2. fake a center heel lock/foot sweep with your right foot to uke's right foot to force uke to step back (note: when sensei demonstrated on me, it felt more like he planted his foot next to mine and drove his knee into the anterior femoral just above the knee). step in with left foot to square up with uke, move your right hand down from the lapel onto uke's left tricep and do a modified "step on foot push shoulder" manoever: right foot steps on uke's left foot while pulling down with your right hand and lifting with the left (turning the steering wheel).

The new person who came to try the class out in the last few weeks signed on for 2 months tonight. He said that he was a bit wary to try a jitsu style since he had a background in many different do arts like judo and karate-do. He said he really likes the classes.

We went through the medicine ball warmup, breakfalls, and then reviewed takedowns; ankle-knee, step on foot push shoulder, and crab takedown to the rear individually, and then mixed it up where we practiced transitioning from one takedown to the next (1st attempt fails, switch to alternate, etc). We also covered bear hug from the rear.