Who Signed Me Up For This?

The former 7AM Weds. class has moved back to 6:30AM in the freaking morning! This morning I was on the borderline of just lying back down and going to sleep, but I fortunately decided this was not the way to go. I stumbled in just in time for Josh's class.

Shomenuchi iriminage and shomenuchi shihonage were the main focus today. Brian from Dublin was visiting, and he was in the mood to go a little hardcore for this crack of dawn workout. His style is more of what you might say is a "hard sytle" of Aikido (though he is still affiliated with Aikikai as are we), a little more forceful than what I normally see at our dojo. I would say that the direction our dojo moves in these days is the way to soften our technique, to only apply necessary force, to "find the lead" as Sensei would say. I definitely enjoyed feeling a different influence, getting "schooled" as it were by someone with very good technique, but as a student here, my aim is to learn what is taught here. One thought: "No fair! In Ireland it's afternoon, so Brian has more energy than we do."

Andy reminded me to turn my head into the direction of the throw for shihonage, something I haven't been doing.

I think I'm ready for more coffee...