Tuesday noon shochugeiko class

Another good class. I got to work with Byron Curtis for the hour, someone with whom I haven't had a chance to work since I moved to the morning schedule, which was nice in itself.

Jim Ellison Sensei had us all work on a favorite drill of his (and a good one): transitioning back and forth from kote hineri to kote gaeshi. The idea is to follow uke, let his movement drive the action. (You can also pick a point at random when instead of going to kote hineri, you transition into tenkai kote hineri, but that's essentially the end of that sequence!)

Then we did the same thing with oshi taoshi and ude gaeshi. After that, we did a little bit of another one of Ellison Sensei's favorites. Basically, uke and tori stand facing each other, and tori has a hold of uke's wrist, but lightly. Very slowly, uke takes a step (either foot) toward tori. Tori's job is to sense that movement through his hand and move uke's hand either down the line or perpendicular to the line. If tori has a tight grip, his sensitivity is diminished, and often can't react in time. But with a light grip, your hand acts sort of like a cat's whisker, sensing the slightest change in movement.

Ellison Sensei has been doing this a long, long time (since I was in Kindergarten and I'm 35 now), and it's always a joy to learn from him.

Next up, Aikido at 6pm and Judo at 7:30. Can't wait!