Shochugeiko Day 2 evening, Day 3 morning

I'm a little stiff and sore today, but I'm not sure why. Sore, I think because I made a few less-than-perfect attempts at ippon seoi nage during a lesson/discussion with Kyle Sloan Sensei. That's mostly isolated to my lower back, but it's not unbearable. The general stiffness all over, though, I'm not sure why that is. Sure, I went to several classes, but I didn't exactly exert myself to an extraordinary degree.

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In Aikido, we continued working on the kaeshi waza reversal techniques, and saw some nice experimental discoveries. The one problem that always seems to plague most aikidoka when attempting randori is we get into a competitive state of mind (winning and loosing) and many time forgo "real" attacks and honest recoveries for a spirited game of "slap and tickle." We all do it, me included; it's human nature, I suppose.

Lowry Sensei has described truly productive randori as a game of catch, tossing the "ball" back and forth, but for some reason, the idea has had a hard time sinking in, and most folks (again, myself among them) descend quickly to (as he puts it) a game of dodge ball.

But these kaeshi waza exercises/experiments are resembling a game of catch far more than any free and open randori session. Both partners seem to be more interested in exploring possibilities and finding "cool stuff" rather than in winning. Which is probably how it should be!

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In judo, we shared the teaching time (with nage waza, anyway). Sloan Sensei talked about ashi guruma (and showed an entry I hadn't seen, where tori is moving backward, which I liked and I think is easy to teach). Kelly (I forget her last name, sorry) talked about one of her tokui waza, seoi nage, or morote seoi nage. For someone her height, it's a great through; for tall guys like me, it's a little tougher. I try to be reasonably proficient with it, if for no other reason than to be able to teach it, but it's perfect for smaller judoka.

I talked about a series of throws that I've been thinking about which come off of the deashi harai foot-sweep drill that we do at the beginning of every class. It's sort of a lead-in to the foot-sweep-to-control drill. Or you can think of it as using the action of catching the foot as a form of kazushi to set up another throw (depending upon how uke gets his foot free). I'll have to make a post specifically about that some time.

In newaza, we covered a bit of the envelope drill, and Sloan Sensei shared some sneaky "dirty" judo techniques. Always good to have in your back pocket.

This morning we went over much of the same things we did last night, plus a grueling sort of "pretzel making" technique to pull once you've established yoko shiho gatame.

I also got to play with Ben Nowland a bit after class as I explored my thoughts on throws which come off of that foot-sweep. I don't know why I've been thinking along these lines, because I don't know that it's necessary, but it's kind of fun for me, at least!

I'll be heading back tonight for another judo and aikido class. Should I take the Ibuprofen now, or when I get home tonight?