Fast is really slow

Tegatana: short steps, balls of feet. We worked the evasions with a knife-wielding uke and got to explore that "fast/slow" phenomenon. It showed up remarkably well last night, as we did the shomenashi attack several times then switched to the fast-looking tsuki attack, then switched back to the shomenashi attack. When we switched to the "fast" attack, it was really very slow, and when we switched back to shomenashi after getting used to the "fast" attack, tori barely had time to evade. Amazing how slow "fast" is and how fast "slow" is.

Hanasu: kata mode. I also got to play with Kristof as my uke and I did releases from the 2 nijusan offbalances. Interesting play - sorta emphasizes that the techniques that we do are really just releases that occur from various places on those two paths.

Nijusan: I demonstrated all of nijusan twice with Kristof as my uke and then Kristof demonstrated the atemiwaza with P4 as his uke and P4 demonstrated the atemiwaza and hijiwaza with Kristof as uke. I showed them a little different timing for gedanate - similar to the timing for #8 (hikitaoshi) or #10 (wakigatame). seemed to work a little better. #9 (udehineri) is not exactly right the way we're doing it but it's not really far off and I havent gotten around to working on that one yet. Part of the coolness of the hijiwaza (6-10) is that this is where we begin demonstrating the various pins. The students need to be sure to follow these techniques into the ground and apply the pin - particularly in kata mode.

Chains: we did a #4 chain in which we got to play with kotegaeshi and kotehineri a lot. This is one of the coolest of the chains for me.

Yesterday was Kristof's birthday, so we cut off class about 20 minutes early and went to have a party with the Parkers and McKenzies.