pecunium

I have an ace bandage around my arm, pretty much immobilizing my elbow. Typing is fun.

I got stretched, and twisted; badly, at the dojo last night. It's not the first injury I've had on the mat. A year ago (or so), I broke the tip of my little finger, in June I sprained my great toe. So I did what I do. I took it off the table, did a set on only the other side, realised it wasn't as minor as I hoped and went to the freezer for an ice pack.

Icing the point of one's elbow is interesting. It hurts, but not while the ice is on. Rather when the ice is removed, and the radial nerve (the "funny bone") starts to recover sensation, it feels like a really strong hit on the funny bone, without the excrucuating pain, just the sense that it ought to have been that way, for this lingering sense of it to remain.

Which goes away when the ice goes back on.

I iced it for forty minutes, and then drove home. I'll probably not be at the dojo tomorrow. Which is a pity because it seems I am doing well, or at least better than it seems to me.

Two weeks ago this coming Weds. I was at the dojo. No, wait, I'm not sure I gave all the set up. I think I forgot to talk about Hayashi Sensei's seminar.

She likes to play with weapons. They focus the mind. She also likes to play with the mind. She want's to instill "calm mind" at all times. So Hallowe'en weekend she was teaching. I went (seminars are, this year, covered by dojo membership. It seems we had a good run at fund-raising over the summer, before I joined).

We played with knives. I know knives. My form with a katana might be unorthodox, and leave me open to someone who has studied more of ken-jutsu than I have, but I know knives.

Which means I know aikido doesn't really teach knife techniques. We were using knives a lot, and I was forgetting to use mine in the artificial ways of aikido.

Hayashi Sensei saw this, and told me, "He's a brown belt, he can take it," and then told Adam to be aware.

After this session was over, she called me up, and had me attack her. It was interesting. She was much better than Adam at seeing where things were going. I also got some intersted looks, from the udansha (i.e. black-belts) including a whimsical eyebrow lift from McGouirk Sensei (in which dojo I now train).


Then there was the praise Sensei gave me a week ago.

So Monday, a week ago, I get to class at the last minute, and Joanne asks me to lead the warm up. Ahhh! I was in no way prepared for this. I have a full mat (the first hour on Monday is the busiest night of the week here), and am winging it, on memory; and my body's tensions, to get a balanced warmup done. That'll teach me to show up latish again. Next time I'll just wait until class has started.

After the first hour is where Joanne's classes shine. If one has an open mind, and can see training value in watching, they are fantastic. She takes a single student, and makes a decision. Then she tells them to pick an uke and gives a technique. For me it's usually a specific response. But it might also be variations. In that case the attacker keeps coming, with the same basic attack (say both hands grabbing the shoulders, from the front) and the nage has to deal with it.

And one gets to see what is going on.

And Joanne comments, gives advice, steps in; with someone else, as a visual aid, or directly, as a physical aid, to show what should be happening.

I got told to be more grounded. I have the techniques, but I am not "deep" enough, and so I am working to hard. It's true.

Some students get randori which is a pair, or more, of people coming at them. The idea is to just push them away, while not losing track of the others. Fernando (who got his 2nd kyu the Saturday before) was given this. About few minutes in, she told me to join the attackers. A couple of minutes later, she added a fourth.

Fernando is grounded. We flew.

Skip ahead to Weds. Monday and Weds. we have students who aren't, exactly, members of the dojo. They sign up for classes through the Whittier Community Center. They are usually young, and mostly angles and elbows. It's nice to watch them progress. To look at them and see what they can improve, and try to figure out how to pass it along. A couple of weeks ago I made a comment to one of them (passing along a trick that Michelle taught me) and last night I heard Jason using it. Memes spread.

So Sensei had us working on our knees, and I was paired up with one of them (he had paired them out, and we were to teach them, taking the harder part of the technigue (suwari ni-kyo an arm pin, done from the knees). So I have this student attacking me, and I deal with it. So-so, but tolerably. (suwari waza is a pain, one has a harder time being grounded, and I've not done much of it. I'm also weak on nikkyo. When Sensei stops the class, and tell them to to watch us/me.

I promptly choke. So I do it again.

It seems I was doing it ura (to the rear). We were supposed to be doing it omote (to the front). What I'd not noticed, at the level of thought, was my partner wasn't giving. Sensei had told us to take care of those who didn't know how to move, lest they get hurt, and I was doing that. When her body didn't yield one way, I turned to the other.

Last night, however, we were doing a simple move (and I with another person who knows a bit). The mat was crowded, and he wasn't as competent with the technique as I thought. I forgot, also, that he was 6th kyu only a month ago. I did this technique on my exam, but it was showing off, it's not needed to get to 5th kyu, but to get to 4th. He forced me down, when I was extended, and something slipped.

My fault, all the way. I could have slowed the practice down. I could have realised the troubles earlier weren't so much the crowded mat, as him rushing. I could have tried to find a more open piece of mat. I could have done a lot of things.

I screwed up.