Chain #2 and toe-stomp taoshi

Tonight was a very cool class with Andy, Kristof, and myself. We started with an extended ukemi session, working on playing with the point of no return during a fall. We have several exercises that allow us to approach that point of no return and explore it in different ways (i.e. kneeling, standing, forward, backward, etc...) I think that everybody got some good reps on their forward rolls and got closer to that reflexive roll that we have to train into ourselves.

Then we moved into tegatana. Tegatana is a playground or a laboratory in which we can play with our understanding of balance and motion without an uke trying to beat us up. It is our only solo kata. We worked on figuring out how the front leg gets free from the ground during arm motions that should be loading that foot.

In hanasu we delved into #2, exploring the otoshi offbalance, pushing throughout the down and into the up, getting directly behind uke by moving through him. This is a prototype for an iriminage. This technique is often conceived as a clothesline, but we worked on getting it as an aigamaeate or a hadakajime with a spinelock. From here we looked at two standard counters for #2 - uke either turns outward and releases tori or turns inward and gets a kotehineri (sankyo). This is the beginning of chain#2, so we worked our way through that, exploring shomenate, wakigatame, and gedanate (I told ya' we'd get to gedan.) Got into the Junana version of gedanate and everyone was having good success.

Our cool technique of the night was the toe-stomp taoshi. From the Junana offbalance, tori has an easy opportunity to step on uke's near foot in order to hold it still. Then oshitaoshi becomes a trivial matter of breaking down a table by pushing on the weak line. Everybody had good success with that technique and had a lot of fun doing it.