[MyAikido] Basic Attacks

The lessons reminded me of why I stayed away from Aikido at first. But despite my misgivings about sparring with guys at close counters, in reality... most attacks do happen at close counters, and female bodies are usually not strong enough to counter-attack or defend themselves against physically strong intent from men without any martial arts skill. (my sentence sounds weird.. hmmm, ma ii ka)

Thankfully, my sparring partner in the class was a girl. But because it's a girl, I couldn't do shomen properly for fear of hurting her since I'm still very unskilful. I hope to ASAP be good enough to spar properly. Unlike Karate, Aikido immediately puts us in a battle mode practice (this week was only my 2nd class). I had to attend months of Karate class before I was made to spar against somebody.

I learnt 3 attacks and Sensei taught me two types of moves against them: omote (inside) and ura (outside). The first attack taught was shomen. The omote move I learnt is this:



I couldn't find ura.... however, if you watch the slo-mo ura move in this video, what I learnt was only upto 0:51. By watching Tissier-sensei, I found that the footwork will be different according to where we move next... and look at his hands, they hardly form a claw or fist and instead always be open and ready to act for the next move. The way he charts every step is like a go player. Saikou desu.

Sugi wa, yokomen desu. For the omote... I found this video (part 1 of 6). He even talked a bit about the history of Aikido. What I learnt was only upto 3:16, but here I found that the blocking left hand (for a left hand attack) can be in a position to throw someone off-balance.



I couldn't find the ura move but I think the one he showed at 3:14 in this one is it, right?

I wasn't able to learn much on tsuki coz class ended before I could practice further. Maybe I get to learn more next week.

Sensei said:

• We attack to distract, not to hurt. I like that. It appeals to my non-violent nature.
• It's all about the way we move. Do not get into the habit of memorizing which foot goes with which hand coz there are too many variations that memorization is impossible.

[Martial Arts] Aikido is all sorts of awesome... errrr, I think

Was thinking where I should I blog about this and decided to do it here... since this is where I write about most of the crazy shiz I get myself into that doesn't have anything to do with work. Actually, most of the things I do are crazy shiz coz I hardly do work... even when I'm at work. Okay, Aikido is not crazy, or shizzy. That's just a figure of speech *hides from angry Aikido practitioners*

Just had my first class tonight and the experience of seeing people being thrown about like rag dolls right in front of my eyes, as opposed to in youtube clips. My face responds very fast to my surrounding and I think I made so many weird faces at class today when sensei started sparring with the other students... and a lot of hitori-goto too.. haha. Hope I'll control myself better once I get used to the idea that one day the rag doll will be me.

Today, I spent too much time learning to tie the uniform and hakama... geh. I'm hopeless (I'll do better next class, I promise!). Then, sensei just taught me and another new student (who has learnt Aikido before.. so I'm the only total newbie there) just a few basic stuff and told us to practice them at home at least 10 times a day:

- Ukemi

- Mae Ukemi (at least I think this is what it's called coz he just called it 'rolling' in class)
- Hidari-Hanmi
- Migi-Hanmi
- Irimi Tenkan (I think this is it, but I have to confirm the name again coz I forgot): link

Mae Ukemi is the toughest mental challenge ever for me. To actually let my body fall forward from pure will is... SO HARD!!! I have to really practice this one. The others are pretty okay. Sensei said these are just warm-ups, not even like... real techniques yet... eeep. Anyway, I just stumbled on this clip and suddenly all was made clear to me. I was an idiot! I understood the whole rolling thing wrong!! *facepalm* ...no wonder I couldn't do it. Just tried it in my living room, and I could do this thing... albeit blunderingly, but at least I could do it. As opposed to not at all when I was in class. Meh. Anyway, Waite Sensei doing Aikido reminded me of Capoeira... so graceful, na. And I like the whole rasta hairstyle thing. Cool.

I think Aikido is very suitable to women and children coz we're naturally physically weaker than grown-up men (usually our potential attackers are from that species). However, I'm learning this mostly for self-improvement... hopefully I'll never ever get attacked.. yikes! So yeah. I'll be going to class once a week... plenty of time to update in the blog. My next post may not be as longass as this one, hopefully.

Another clip on Waite Sensei: