::sigh::

Well, this week was interesting. We worked on a lot of things. One of the girls who left for the summer came back for school. It is always interesting working with her. She has been training for a year and a half or so, yet she seems rather confused. At one point she said that I should go first. I humored her that once, but refused the rest of the time. Though I feel I have surpassed her, she has still been training longer then I. Since we are both 6th kyu, that means that she is my sempai. We worked on ikkyo, kotegaishi and a few other things that night.
I do not reacall Wednesday's class at all. Gah. I need to start blogging more often so I can actually remember what we did. I remember attempting to do yonkyo, but I still haven't figured this one out. I guess we will move onto Thursday! I show up to class and as I walk in I see a new girl. Since I hadn't seen her before, I assumed that she was watching to see if she was interested in aikido. Turns out that she was to join in class that day. Since I was the only female, sempai had me take her downstairs, help her put on her gi, tie her belt and I showed her how to rei when stepping on the mat.

For our first technique that night, sempai asked me to be uke. We were down in suwariwaza and he had his side turned toward me. I had no idea what we were working on, but I thought he wanted me to grab his shoulder.... so I did. WRONG! He wanted to work on katatedori ikkyo (omote and ura). HAHA. So, once I did the correct grab, he showed us what to do. Once he was done demonstrating, I reid to another student. I had assumed since I was relatively new, though the highest ranked (other then sempai) that sempai would work with her. Instead, sempai had me work with her instead. I was both surprised and honored at the same time. She didn't do too bad. It's kind of funny that last week sensei said he wanted to get more females in the dojo and then a girl came back from summer break and now this new girl joins. :O) Truth be told, I actually enjoyed being the only female. We also worked on sankyo from suwariwaza, which I have never done before. In my moment of panic while trying to figure out how on earth I was going to move around him fast enough from injuring my wrist more sempai told me "This is where you stand up." I quickly obeyed and my wrist ended up being alright. We worked on a couple other techniques as well, but I don't really recall them. I believe nikyo was one of them though.

Saturday's class was rather intense. Part of the reason is just that it was so humid. Evidently, I am getting used to the no humidity environment (east coast is notorious for this... ack) We worked on the ushiro version of ikatadori kkyo in both omote and ura from suwariwaza. Surprisingly, I found this version much easier. In fact, if given the choice, I would choose this over the other any day. I just felt that I was able to stretch uke out more with this variation. We also worked on the same thing from standing. We also worked on techniques from yokomenuchi: shihonage, kokyuho and ikkyo. I did shihonage alright, but I was really struggling on the other two. I had never done them before and I just couldn't seem to get the spacing right. We also worked on tsuki kokyuho and ikkyo.

The class was challenging, but I enjoyed it. It made sense that the class was geared a bit more advanced since most of the students there were higher ranked then I was. Only me and another new guy were 6th kyus. The rest were 3rd kyu and up. All of us wers quite sweaty and were running low on energy. The humidity was causing my hair to fall from its ponytail. I fixed it at least 6 times during that class! At least the other female was having the same problems as me. Eventually, sensei must have felt bad for us because he ended up having us all get bokkens and we worked on a few exercises. We worked on easy stuff (which I also need to work on) and it seemed like the new guy was able to handle what we were doing just fine.

At the end of class, sensei made the statement that Chiba sensei is coming to Eugene and that he encouraged all of us to attend even if we thought we were too new to go. He was looking at me as he said this. The funny thing is, that is what I was thinking. Either way, I won't be going. My husband and I just don't have the money at this point. Not to mention, I would be hopelessly lost and it would all be over my head.


Things to work on/remember:
1.) Extend my arms more above my head when striking shomen in iaido2
.) Draw your sword as you rise up from seiza
3.) Tuck head into arm when being thrown during shihonage
4.) Curl fingers in (like a fist) to protect yourself from jamming your fingers when being thrown during shihonage
5.) There are more things, but I can't put them into words yet

Pains/injuries:
1.) Sore right shoulder
2.) Sore right wrist
3.) Sore right hamstring (nothing major, just stretched a bit)