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First Aikido session of the new year, and it didn’t go particularly well…

Perhaps I just got tired early, or the stress of work at the moment was starting to take its toll, but I didn’t enjoy it as much as usual.

The fact that I was paranoid about my hakama falling down didn’t help either… I needn’t have worried, as it was so wrapped into my belt my entire gi would need to have fallen apart for me to lose it, but it was too loose at the back, which affected my concentration somewhat.

We did a lot of work on tsuki (straight punch) to the face, incorporating Yonkyo, which was good, as the three of us who turned up on time asked the instructor for some practice - although my forearms are killing me today!

A variation of Kote-Gaeshi was also demonstrated, but it involved turning your back on Uke, and letting both hands drop behind your back - something I don’t like doing. Perhaps my weakest area is “two hands from behind” and this technique effectively turned the tsuki attack into “two hands from behind”. It would possibly work at speed, and might look good on a grading, although you may lose marks for letting your hands drop behind you.

I’m trying to use as much of the japanese terminology as possible. It threw me at the christmas gradings (where I was ukeing) when the head of the grading panel shouted out “Ryote Dori!” as opposed to the system number. We were all berated for not knowing our japanese and told we would be tested on it in future gradings. In that instance, It wasn’t so much the fact that I didn’t know the attack, more so that I was unprepared for the japanese command, and that I hesitated while I had to think if a) I had heard it correctly and b) double check myself that the attack was correct.

Fortunately, I wasn’t the one grading, but my Tori was less prepared than me. However, he responded well, improvising an iriminage (possibly aikido’s ‘get out’ technique? enter and throw… you can call it iriminage :))

As a result I am starting to use flash cards to try and learn the japanese terms for the techniques.

As an aside, I picked up a book today about “how to make the most of your money”, and flicking through, the first page I saw was regarding gift aid. In the UK, money donated to charity can be donated as “gift aid”, meaning the charity can claim the tax that you’ve paid when you earnt the money back. So for every £1 you donate, you’re effectively giving £1.28. The book turns this model on the head, saying if you intend to give £20 to charity, you only need to give £15.60, as the other £4.40 can be claimed back by the charity through gift aid. It then claims that you have still acheived your moral obligations, as you have given what you intended to give. I’d disagree with this, as you haven’t given £20, you’ve given £15.60, and are effectively claiming the gift aid for yourself… but perhaps that’s why I’m not a millionaire :)? The book also advised that you consider what you buy, and whether you get value for money… so I considered it, put the book back on the shelf, and left the shop.