Kangeiko, Day 1 & 2

I'm not getting nearly the same cool information as those who are able to attend the mid-morning and mid-afternoon sessions, but I've benefitted from what little I can attend.

Yesterday (day 2), I accidentally slept through my alarm and missed morning aikido. I never do that. In fact, for the most part, it takes an act of God to keep me from making morning classes (or maybe illness or broken down car). If anything, I usually wake up on my own before my alarm. I don't really know what happened.

Unfortunately, I missed seeing what Nick Lowry Sensei had to offer by way of some randori and multiple attacker instruction. Maybe there will be a video someday =)

I made it to the noon class, where Jim Ellison Sensei took everyone through a series of simple exercises that help you "go with the flow" of uke's movement. Great stuff, but stuff I've been through before, so nothing new there.

This morning, on the other hand, I woke up for some strange reason at 4 in the morning and couldn't go back to sleep. I ended up laying in bed in the dark (while my wife slept) and watched judo videos on my iPhone.

Once I made it to class, we had a pretty good session. I haven't allowed the morning guys to do regular nage komi, trading throws, for some time (for some dumb reason) so I've been laying off the lessons during the holidays and just turning on our 3 minute bell and let everyone throw and trade partners on the bell.

The last part of class was mostly a discussion from Nick about the difference of doing techniques "big", where it often looks like uke is "jumping" for you, and when push comes to shove and the action becomes very small. The resulting fall may not be picture perfect, but it still works.

I also took a few pictures during yesterday's noon class, but due to some issues with my camera, I lost them. I was going to take a few this morning, and just forgot. Tomorrow, I'll have aikido in the morning and at noon, and who knows, I may end up at the evening class as well.

The kangeiko is quite turning out like I'd hoped, but oh well, I suppose I'm always getting something out of training.