same thing - wednesday training

As the title says, today quite the same techniques as yesterday.
Got not much to tell you here. Daniel sensei took the lead. Ruedi sensei participated as well. (Together with monika, reinhard and two aikidokas i've not trained before and therefore, you know me, already forgot the names)

Ikkyo done very fast today. We did it only once.
Much more nikkyo therefore. Quite interesting all those different styles for 1 single technique. I'm still not able to manage a good leverage but that's easy: I'm still a beginner, you know ;-) and that is going to be relevant for the orange belt -> I'll have to do the yellow belt tests beforehand...

Aaah, one thing i learned today the hard way: You really have to knock if you feel pain. Shouting does not necessary be recognized by the uke :-) This is really one damn important thing when performing nikkyo techniques... ...nope, i don't want to know (yet) that there are even more painful techniques ;-)

What else? Training was good, i'm relaxed afterwards. Just my right wrist hurts a bit (right is the problematic nikkyo side for me, left works better). I'm going to rub it with voltaren tonight. Hope that helps.

Perhaps as a side note for those interested in watching pictures. These are my senseis: Daniel (4th dan, begun with aikido in 1976) and Ruedi (4th dan, begun with aikido in 1970)

Yours,

Lemy

ikkyo/nikkyo - tuesday training

I was again half an hour earlier than the training begun. Had a little chat with daniel sensei beforehand and did some ukemis for myself before class.

Daniel took the lead today.
David, Reinhard, Markus, Anita and *forgotthenameagain* were present today as well. I was again the only white belt. As usual, when i'm the only white belt, it became quite an advanced training today.

Daniel's theme this week is ikkyo and nikkyo. This is what we trained today the whole training.

Ikkyo positive - worked quite good. Got it right. Still got some problems to perform it in the correct angle for a kata (e.g. you'll have to look at the jury when putting down uke).

Ikkyo negative - Since we worked hard on positive, there was not enought time for me to perform it more than twice. Still got some problem in walking in while turning around. Found out that it is really still dependant with whom i perform the technique.

Nikkyo - Since i'm an absolute begginer, I only focused on the first parts of nikkyo. Taking the hand correctly, walking in correctly, finding the pushing point.

It was quite good to repeat those techniques again. I got it right but still make a lot of small faults.

Quite relaxed after training even when it was an advanced training.

Yours,

Lemy

Wednesday Training

Do you remember my last post? Didn't I hope to have an easy training today? Well it seems my whishe were not heard :(

Ruedi Sensei took the lead today. Daniel Sensei was just participating. Furthermore, Monika and Mago were there as well.

Shin-kokyu and stretching at the beginning.

Then we did some handgrabbing techniques from different sorts: ikkio and nikkyo.
Interesting thing was, that we build it up step by step and ruedi really explained it good. So that it was easy for us two beginners (mago and me) to follow. Since we were not that many people in class today, we changed partners a lot and I did nearly every technique with everyone. This keeps you really busy while training ;)

Hard thing today was when ruedi explained we should train it now without looking to much on the technique itself but more on the flow and dynamic of it. That means when uke is fallen, he has to stand up fast and directly attack again as soon as possible.
Daniel just said: "I will do this with stefan.." (me) He really took me hard. It was good but very exhausting. After a couple of minutes, we had to change partners and guess who wanted to do it with me: Ruedi Sensei of course. Even harder with him! He's soooo fast in standing up again and attacking straight away even before he stands up! Damn, both senseis took me hard at that time. Heh!

At the end we trained again the bokken kata they learned at the stage with walther oelschlaeger. Since i've done it for the second time, i'm getting a bit more familiar with it. It's really a kind of "real" kata, since you don't fight much with the attackers. 1 cut for each attacker is enough to eliminate him. It kind of let me think of an iaido kata but with real partners. I liked that much.

At the end monika gave both senseis a present (just a small sweet) and twinkled to us beginners in saying "look, that's what our senseis get if they teached well".. ..i think she meant we'll have to do so as well. Ok, i think i will but let's wait a bit until i can differ between bad and good teaching :)

Got a good feeling afterwards but extreeemly tired after those 2 hard training sessions. Felt to bed like a stone again :)

Yours,

Lemy

Irimi- Tuesdays Training

Our dojo has holidays for three weeks. It closes earlier. Nevertheless, our sensei got his own key and therfore we're able to train half an hour earlier than usual.
I got that wrong last week, thought it's an hour earlier. Therefore, I was half an hour too early in the dojo. No matter, daniel sensei was already there (surprised seeing me ha!). After having a bit of a chat (he still has muscle ache from the stage 2 weeks ago :) i went to the tatami zone and did some movements and rollings for myself until class started.

At the beginning, we were only 4 students there (david, monika, reinhard and me). Later on, 4 more students joined (markus, pascale, etienne and mago).

Beginning with stretching. No shin-kokyu today.

Daniel wanted to train on irimi today. We did it from the beginning on. Step by step.

I'm still having problems with positive irimi. I'm always getting confused how to walk over in front of uke as soon as we're side-by-side...
...wheras I was able to make big steps forward with the negative one. I was able to improve that remarkably. This always gives a really good feeling. See (again) this animated picture for the negative shomenuchi irminage.

Today it was the first time I tried falling correctly. I did not manage to fall without any hurt. My back had to suffer today :)

After 2,5 hours, daniel remarked that he forgot the time. :)

This was the hardest and advanced training for me so far.
Came home, eat and drink something and felt to bed like a stone. ;)

Hope it's getting a bit easier today over lunch.. ...we'll see :)

Yours,

Lemy

On the knees - Wednesday Training

Ruedi and Daniel Sensei were back from the stage with walther oelschlaeger.
Therefore, daniel took the lead today.

Beneath those two, monika, me and reinhard were in class today.

Ruedi and Daniel came back with many new ideas from the stage. So we practiced many techniques they just learned while the stage.

At the beginning shinkokyu and stretching, done very fast today.

After warmup, some very slooooow ukemis on the knees. Whereas not rolling over but slapping down.

Quite good: We did some techniques where uke (standing) pushes nage (on knees) on one hand. Nage turns around ukes power and throws him in front of him. The good thing here was to get the feeling of turning around power (which seems to be very essential in aikido).

Then we did a special kotegaeshi (felt better for my knees :). I had to repeat this several times until i remarked the speciality of this technique: Instead of pushing the hand of uke, you pull it away from his arm. Since this is really an advanced technique, i don't (yet) bother about it. We did this several times.

At the end we did 2 different Jo Techniques in randadori style (all 5 together: 1 nage, 4 ukes). Whereas all ukes come in with shomen at the same time! Imagine that! Quite funny to do that. I begin to adore training Jo techniques. It's always much fun.

Quite an advanced training today (I was the only white belted aikidoka), no wonder I had several troubles meanawhile. But I don't bother about it. At the end, it was a good training for me because of repeating the process of learning complete new (to me) techniques.

Relaxed and a good feeling. Sad, but this was the only training this week :(

Yours,

Lemy

Kotageshi / Shihonage - Tuesdays Training

Most of the advanced aikidokas from our dojo are on a stage with walther oelschleger (see previous post) this week. So, we were not many on the tatami today.

Reinhard (brown belt) took the lead. We had again 1 visiting girl for whom it was the first aikido training.

We begun with a lot of stretching. While performing our ukemis, reinhard showed the beginning girl how to roll correctly whereas we (the rest) performed again the whole bunch of rollings all over the length of the tatami zone. I still have some problems with breathing while doing the rollings since I had again a short moment of blackness :) But i'm working hard at that on each training...

Kotageshi. Both positive and negative. Did it first with Stefan, for whom it was about the 3rd training session. He really hardly hold my hand, was good to perform this technique with a beginner. It's always hard if you do it with someone who knows what comes but doesn't want to fall ;-) I have to keep in mind when doing this negative, to not pull with my arm but using my hips for it. We changed partner several times.

Shihonage. Quite funny to do it with mago (begun around the same time as I did but had to pause because of some injury) since we always tried to turn around as uke while the other one was trying to go over under the arm. At the end we nearly managed to perform it without losing control of uke.

At the end, julien (yellow belt) explained us again what we'll have to perform for the yellow belt: ikkio (kata), kotageshi, shihonage and some alternative ikkio (all techniques). It's good, i've done all of them at least once. Now i can work on them.

Yours,

Lemy