Tuesday Training Session - Shihonage

Long time no training. I was not in the training for about 2 weeks now. The first week i had problems with my back. One morning while standing up, there was a pain flashing in, which did not release the whole day. After speaking with my doctor, he asked me if I begun a new sports... ...hell yeah! I'm training aikido now! He meant that i begun using muscles in my back whereas it seems I never really used them before and that the pain comes from that. Good one! No one in the training knew of other people having such troubles with aikido. Seems I'm not sitting correctly at work as well. Need to focus on that now and do some extra exercises for my back in my spare time... ....I have to keep in mind that aikido is not only about the training sessions but can be used in daily life as well... ....but stop! hey, i'm still a beginner.. ..no need to hurry, right?

In the 2nd week I was not able to go to training because of some private and business issues. One day I had a lot of work to finish and the other I had other private intersting appointments... ...I think you get it! ;-)

So, I was quite excited to go back for training today.
Tuesday means beginners training. I was surprised: The girls I mentioned a post (or two?) before, are still participating. There were more women than men in the training today! Such a situation can confuse a bit if you're not used to it... :-D

Daniel took the lead today, supported by markus (still training for his 2nd dan), romolo and another dan women whoes name I already forgot again (damn!).

Quite cool, they came back from a stage with jiro kimura sensei from japan, who visited switzerland. In the first hand, I planned to visit this stage too but left this idea behind. I'm still not _that_ trained for such exercises in my opinion. I think there will be many other stages comming in the future which will make more sense for me :-) So, as I mentioned, they came back from this stage with many new ideas.

At the beginning around 15mins kotageshi. Daniel checked us white-belties if we stand correctly and if we focus on our centers (markus took the lead for this exercise and daniel was all the time in the rear). I had a bit the feeling, this was already a check for the test comming up (daniel once mentioned, that kotageshi _is_ part of the test but that we don't need to show this extra since he's checking this while normal trainings...). It was the first time (at least for me), that we did that _before_ shinkokyu.

The rest of the lession, we performed many differend shihonages. Both positive and negative, with only one hand, both hands. I'm still not able to remember all that bloody names... ...what's the name again for holding only one hand in ai-hanmi? (Maybe some of the readers can help me out ;-)

Daniel will not participate in the saturdays training session as he's in a seminar. Markus and Romolo will lead this training. But daniel will make a special training at sunday morning for all those making the test in november. I have to go... ...wheter i've slept enough or not... ...pray for me ;-)

At the end of the training, I was quite relaxed and very focused. The aikido training is beginning to be profitable for me it seems... :)

Yours,

Lemy