So what happened at class today?

So what happened at class today?

With only 90 minutes available what experiences can one person have?

Working with a “new” yet very experienced senior student (nidan or above), I got some great personal and detailed explanation on Katatetori Shiho nage. Which is something you learn early in practice and is one of those things that at the beginning you tend to think you “understand”

Anyway, today I saw that most of the time Nage and Uke work a little bit too much together and this sempai reminded me of things I had heard of before but had forgotten.

I seems I was still (after 3 years) trying to raise uke's arm with my shoulder muscles but should have been using my whole body, turning with my shoulders hand and center all connected. And then shift forward with my body and center and only then raising my arms AFTER uke was unbalanced.

The we worked on Kotegaishi which I also thought I knew about but when I was trying to explain it to a new student I totally missed that if you try to apply to apply kotegaishi with the arms too high the effectiveness is much deprived. Fortunately Sensi was there clarify.

At one point for a specific demonstration of how to approach Katatetori ikkyo Sensi used me as uke for the simple example of drawing in of uke from Katatetori where instead of going to ikkyo nage simply shifts even farther back and uke flys by and goes to a roll. The cool thing for me was thay even though I didn't know what he was intending (I may be a little slow some times) I manage to realize he just wanted me to go with the flow and finish with a forward roll.


By the end of class Sensi felt we all needed to concentrate on maintaining balance. So we spent the last few minutes trying to stand on one leg and place the other foot on opposite knee. And then lean forward and extend the free leg back, lean forward and still maintain balance.

But what a full 90 minutes. Where else can you find such variety?