Omote and ura oshitaoshi

Good class tonight. We calibrated with tegatana and with hanasu then began using hanasu as a vehicle to explore some of the principles I wanted to look at tonight - specifically, metsuke (eye contact), shizentai (upright posture), and moving from the center.
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This led us to alternate between the omote and ura versions of oshitaoshi (ikkyo) with emphasis on how the insde version is more direct but promotes worse situational awareness. We worked for a good long time on oshitaoshi trying to shorten the duration of the power transfer between uke and tori. From here we moved into Nijusan 1-10, which led us to emphasize wakigatame (gokyo), hikitaoshi, and gedanate as three techniques that happen early in an ura path - right as uke rounds the corner on tori.
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At the end we played with a part of chain #3 in which we transition between wakigatame and gedanate. This led to a couple of interesting variants of gedanate, which is really any well-trained balance attack against the lower body. The variants included a stepping knee strike against the common peroneal nerve in uke's leg prior to pushing uke off, and a simple but effective step-on-uke's-foot as a balance disturbance prior to pushing uke off.