The Moving of the Piano

The piano is moved, and really not nearly so hard as anyone expected. Here you see Sensei Chris, proud new piano owner, and also Yama san keeping a watchful eye.

Changing Days

The youth club wants us to quit Thursdays, so we just had our last class on a Thursday night. from now on we should meet instead on the Saturday morning. The last class was a bit of fun, with each student pcking their favourite technique and demonstrating it, before we did a round-robin with everyone trying right and left at least twice. I chose kaetennage, with shihonage having already been picked. Sensei Chris had to sit out on the side of the mat, having damaged his calf muscle doing a cross-country run!

Today the troops are gathering again but this time to help Sensei Chris move a piano to his house. We'll have a bit of a social afterward, with Chris promising beer and chilli con carne, obviously a traditional Japanese thing.

Stepping up a Gear

Sensei Chris seems happy with the progress of the orange belts (of which I am one), and judging by the last two training sessions I went to, he is stepping up a gear and thinks we are ready to start the green-belt syllabus. This means we need to start looking more like Aikidokas, and do our techniques with a flowing motion, with attention to good balance, breathing and so on. It also means that the dreaded 'flip breakfall' or 'high fall' needs to become a routine occurrence. I'm still having difficulties here, so I really need to practice more and overcome my mental block.

Sensei Chris is also talking about visits from his own two teachers from the past. So the pressure is definitely on to make a good job of shihonage and iriminage, which are the two signature techniques of his teachers.

Some disruption at 'The Bridge' where we train. A change of management at the centre means that Thursdays will soon not be available for us. The current plan is to remain at the Bridge and change to Saturday mornings. In a way this is better, since work seems to involve quite a lot more travel these days, and I've missed at least 3 sessions in recent months due to being away from home.