Aikido - Day 4 of 24

This class was actually hard to get to. I didn't go straight from work - went home after the company picnic. This proved to be harder, because I was doing stuff right before the class. Actually, day 4 marks entry into what I consider the "danger zone" of Aikido attendance. Its at about this point that I have before stopped attending, so this is the time that I have to keep going and find a way to power through.

It was a good class, though. We did a series of same-side wrist grabs which were interesting - several of them involved entry into the uke's space. One of the interesting things about moves like these is that they involve not just using the wrist to move the opponent's arm - the entire forearm is used as a sort of lever to lock their elbow into place for the move.

Also awesome is that we did two person attacks - nage stands with arms outreached and each uke grabs an arm and pulls. It was really interesting work - the moves always started out the same, with a wrist twist and lifting of both arms, and entry into one uke's space, but then everything could be different. Most interesting, though, was the fact that pretty much every throw done in aikido could be done from this. I found myself concentrating on those throws I knew best. :)

Anyways. Next class on Tuesday.