dianaschnuth

When I read on the dojo blog that we would be focusing on weapons training leading up to the weapons seminar in mid-November, I thought that maybe this class would be a little less strenuous than the previous week’s keiko. After all, it wouldn’t be an entire hour of standing up and being thrown down. Right?

I had no idea how wrong I was.

We separated into ranks, with the mukyu and some new rokyu perfecting a basic solo exercise while the higher ranks faced off with one another. Basically, we faced the walls, chose a knot in the wood as our opponent, and swung the bokken diagonally up, behind / over our heads, and diagonally down the other side, attacking our chosen knot. Very basic form, just getting used to how the weapon should feel and where the energy should go. It was a very powerful feeling, though, once I got the hang of how low my stance should be, where my weight should stay, how my center was supposed to drive the movement, that sort of thing.

Then the cardio kicked in, along with the arm fatigue. And the wrist funkiness. Holy crow, what a workout. My hand and arms are still weak and shaky (to my embarrassment in Zen practice later).

Then we did the usual throwing and rolling. I actually started being almost comfortable with my lame bastard forward rolls, with the occasional flub. At one point during that exercise, one of last week’s scabbed-over mat burns on the top of my foot started bleeding, and I had to take a breather to hit the first aid kit.

After the rolling, we worked on everybody’s favorite, irimi nage, except this time uke begins with a wrist grab before running around behind nage to (try to) grab his other wrist. Nage then ducks under uke’s arm and performs the irimi nage I know and love.

A note: I love working with Rich-sempai. He’s one of those who is always smiling, always seems to be enjoying himself, but won’t half-ass the technique. If I’m supposed to be moving him and driving him to the floor, he’s not going to just flop down and say I did it right. He’s going to require me to put the energy into the movement and feel how it’s supposed to go. He’s also good at subtly indicating which way the energy should be going, if I’m unsure about a technique. I always learn a lot when I pair up with Rich.

After Sensei told us to switch partners, I had to sit out a round. I was just so exhausted, and my legs were jelly. We wrapped up with a suwari-waza (kneeling) tenshi technique that I didn’t know, and I watched another mukyu work with Amy-sempai’s brother until class was over.

So, in a nutshell, this class kicked my ass in a very serious and cardio-based way.

After keiko was zen practice. In the zendo, I saw that Sensei’s H2 digital recorder had come in, and I casually wandered over to see it. Apparently, my interest in and knowledge of the existence of the device projected my ability to fake my way through operating audio electronics. I’m cool with that; I actually kind of wanted to play with it, anyway. I ended up being the designated recording engineer for the evening, which was fun. I’m curious to see how our first attempt worked, since I didn’t want to sully the earbuds with my personal funk, and I didn’t let Sensei know that I’d figured out how to work the playback feature.

We ended up recording Teisho and our Dharma Discussion afterward. I hope they came out OK. I’m anxious to help them get a podcast going, and to help edit if necessary. I’m all about the new media revolution. I’m also all about feeling important, to be honest, which is kind of contrary to the zen-ness (a.k.a. “Buddha Nature”) I’m trying to discover in myself.

I also discovered something else about myself tonight: when the other party in a conversation is very calm and accepting and doesn’t offer much feedback about what I’m saying, I don’t know how to continue. I’m used to people giving me cues as to what they think about the topic, even if it’s just boredom or disinterest. But this attentive calmness is disconcerting to me. I’m not sure how to react to it, since I do not yet possess this calmness. I’ve never been good at conversation, honestly, but I’ve gotten good at faking it over the years. This reaction of calmness and acceptance is something I haven’t learned how to react to, and it makes me feel all bumbly and teenaged again.

Next week, Sensei will not be at the dojo on Wednesday, so I think I’m going to attend Monday’s keiko instead. Sure, an hour and a half of aikido will well and truly kick my ass, but I think I’d rather attend a class run by Sensei than one of the senior students. No offense, guys.

The City Paper has published an article about Sensei in this week’s issue. I knew it was coming, of course, because Ms. Spencer sat in at one of our Zen sessions a couple of weeks ago.

This completely removes any of the anonymity I was trying to maintain about my dojo (for the dojo’s sake, so I don’t reflect poorly on the entire community), but I wanted to share this article with everyone. Not only is it well-written and fairly accurate, but it revealed to me things that I didn’t know about my Sensei.

I wonder if the dojo or the Zen Center will get an influx of students now?

Two weeks in a row! I’m on a roll.

Since Saturday is kyu testing, the whole class (and a large one it was) broke off into ranks to work on specific techniques. Since I’m not testing, I was put with a group of three others: one guest to the dojo (brother of one of our aikidoka, visiting from out-of-state), one gentleman older than myself, and one teenager. We started out with suwariwaza shomenuchi ikkyo omote, then did the same technique standing up (tachiwaza). Then we worked on shomenuchi ikkyo ura, where you do the technique by stepping around behind uke and therefore spiraling them down toward the floor even more.

We then joined up with the other mukyu who were going to be testing, plus some of the rokyu (6th kyu, the lowest actual rank in our dojo) and a few gokyu (5th kyu) to work the old favorite irimi tenkan kokyu nage — always a fun technique to try when your arms and legs are fatigued. I did learn even more details I’d missed before, like exactly where and how to place the strike to the face at the end, and how to keep uke under control with a firm hand to the base of the neck.

Finally, the entire dojo worked on… well, you’ll recall that I said I’m not great with remembering names of techniques. It was very similar to this technique, but I believe it began with yokomenuchi (a diagonal strike to the head). Most of the dojo did a forward roll or breakfall as ukemi; the teenagers and I just kind of flopped down where we were thrown.

(BTW, the student I worked with on this technique seemed very young — it occurred to me that he could literally be half my age — and had this great Edgar Winter sort of hair. Just imagine it curly. AWESOME.)

Overall? This one-hour (a.k.a. “short”) class kicked my butt in a bad way. Just imagine standing up, then throwing yourself full-length onto the floor, then standing up and doing it again, every ten seconds or so for an hour. Just *that* would make you tired and sore, no? Bottom line is that, yes, I’m picking up on techniques for the most part, but I really need to work on a.) endurance and b.) rolling. Which I will only accomplish by kicking my own ass cardio-wise… and actually *doing* ukemi practice. Rolling at home. Rolling before class. Getting my sempai to give me pointers, even though I feel weird about it.

Aftermath? I. am. sore. Everything on me that has anything to do with the act of standing up, leveraging myself up, or sitting down. Glutes, hams, quads, triceps, biceps, lats, lower back, just pretty much everywhere. Which, I suppose, is to be expected after such a prolonged aikido hiatus.

I also realized during class that, as I suspected, I usually stand up using my left leg, which explains why my left quad is always so much more sore than my right, after the fact. I tried standing up using my right leg a few times, and I was surprised to find that my left thigh is stronger than my right, which is why I use it more. (Or maybe it’s stronger *because* I use it more? Hard to tell now.)

At any rate, I’m not sure if I’m going to attend Saturday’s Basic Seminar, mainly because it will seriously kick my ass. Three hours in the morning, plus another hour in the afternoon before watching the testing. Last time, I ended up fairly sore, but mainly I just had giant bruises on my hipbones from the hanmi stance stability exercises we did.

I don’t know. We’ll see. I’m still glad to be back into the swing of aikido, though, even if it’s kicking my ass.

Got up this morning, ate a banana, and headed off to a 10am keiko. I’d never been to aikido for a weekday morning session, so I was curious to see who all would be there. Out of the five other aikidoka, I hadn’t met two, one of whom was Danny-sempai, who taught the class. (I guess that would make him Danny-sensei?) Today’s class included myself, Hank, Jim, Matt(?), and Taisho. Small group.

I’m not good at remembering the names of the techniques we work on, unless we’re specifically training for tests. Then, we *have* to know the names of the techniques, so more of a focus is placed on knowing those. Normally, though, it’s just “Monkey See, Monkey Do” for me. We did some yokomen-uchi ikkyo omote, which was just a variation on a technique I already knew, so that worked out. We also worked on irimi kokyu nage, which I was familiar with, and I learned some new nuances of the technique. We also did some variations on both of those moves, plus one or two others.

That’s what’s really interesting to me about learning this way, by repetition and gleaning as much as you can with each pass: every keiko, you can learn something different, even if you already know the techniques that are being taught. You pick up on varying styles by the different aikidoka you train with, you learn from other people’s mistakes, and sometimes (like I did today) you have an “ah-ha!” moment, when things start to click.

I still have a bit of a major mental block against rolling, or even attempting to roll, especially since I pulled a muscle last time I attempted an all-out forward roll in class. I’m also scared to practice at home, since I could be learning it wrong and think I’m doing fine. (Plus, carpeted basement does not equal padded dojo mat.) Hopefully, with testing coming up in two weeks, I’ll get to practice rolling in class with the other mukyu, and get some pointers without having to ask someone to critique me as a favor.

No injuries this time, a few eureka moments, and a boost to my aikido confidence. Good keiko.

By the way… I’ve been trying to be careful not to reveal the name of my dojo, just so my ineptness doesn’t reflect poorly on the rest of the dojo. I’ll let the cat out of the bag here, though, because Sensei posted clips to YouTube that I want you all to see, so you can get a feel for what aikido is like. Aaron’s quotable: “No wonder you come home sore.” 😀

I haven’t been to aikido in a month. First, it was because of my pulled groin muscle. Then I thought it was healed, but it wasn’t really, so I stayed home a little while longer. Then I got a nasty cold, and that kept me away for another couple of weeks. Now I’m to the point where any conditioning I’d already achieved has long since gone, and I’m kind of afraid to just jump back into class. Every single solitary class has kicked my ass so far, save maybe one or two, and I know I’ll get my ass handed to me whenever I go back.

Still… as I’ve mentioned, I *am* paying for this. If I go more than twice a week, I’m getting a deal. If I go twice a week, I’m getting my money’s worth. If I don’t go at all, I’m wiping my ass with it.

I don’t want to be a quitter. I could go tomorrow morning… but let’s shoot for Saturday morning, shall we? I took a 45-minute walk this morning, after a couple weeks of being completely sedentary, so if I can keep that up and add to my activity level for the next few days…

Oh, who am I kidding? I’m just stalling. As per usual.

Don’t worry, dear readers: I’ll soon have another tale of aikido kicking my ass. I know you like those, you sadists, you. 😉