The crucible of aikido

This week I especially want to work on everyone's ukemi skills - specifically making sure that everyone is getting enough reps in on their higher-level falls so that y'all feel comfortable getting into the higher-level techniques.

I also want to get a lot of reps on gedanate in the next few weeks because something is wrong with that technique for me these days. I used to be able to do it pretty well, and I still can when given the opportunity - it's just that my ukes NEVER seem to give me a reaction that makes me want to do gedanate.

Y'all be sure whenever you get to class early or can stay late to grab a partner and do several extra minutes of hand randori. The randori is really the central thing in aikido that all these other exercises are moving us toward. We don't really learn aikido in order to do kata (although there is excellent artistic value in the kata). We do kata to get ideas and skills to use in randori, which is our proving ground - our crucible.