For my own reference. It’s hard to do a clean step-by-step table, mainly because some actions are combined. Some vocabulary can be found here.
Kata 1 (attacker wins)
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Attacker
Defender
1
From chudan, strike shomen
From hasso-gedan, retreat and take center by striking shomen followed by a tsuki
2
Enter to the left, [...]
I was in New York earlier this week to help uke for promotion tests at my old dojo, with Itai testing for ikkyu and Gearoid (who I hadn’t met before) testing for yellow belt. Itai and I started at this together, and it was good to see him get to this rank in person. [...]
I was thrown in an interesting way during light pre-class randori with one of the blackbelts last evening:
While fighting for grip, tori grabs uke’s right sleeve with his right hand and steps to uke’s right side. Tori uses his left hand to grip uke’s left lapel from underneath uke’s right arm. The throw [...]
The weather was the nicest it’s been in months, so last night’s judo attendance was low. Besides me, the instructor and an older black belt were the only ones on the mat when we bowed in. Sensei didn’t have a lesson plan on hand with so few people: the black belts had been [...]
I’ve gotten my papers for a judo gokyu test (green belt; there’s no yellow belt). Interesting, there’s a written section where I have to describe the slogans, principles, etc., of Kodokan Judo. Thank god for Google, as the written part is a take home test: the WWW is my textbook.
For Gokyu, I have [...]
I got a clean throw off against a resisting brown belt during randori last night! The instructor was actually standing right there with his stopwatch and pointed it out. He further noted that the brown belt can throw me around for the rest of the randori and I’d probably still feel good about [...]
Bizarrely, in the space of a week, I’ve lost a little bit of skin at each of the places I get my exercise, all in consectutive sessions. In the first instance, I was at the gym playing around with this heavy bag I found near the racquetball courts. I haven’t hit a bag [...]
January is Winter Term at Oberlin College, the interstitial between the proper Fall and Spring terms, for students to have three weeks for non-standard coursework or independent projects. Oberlin Aikikai actually runs a program where they take raw newbies and, through thrice-daily two-hour classes, brings them to their first (initial) kyu test (rokyu), which [...]
Some notes from last night’s judo class, before I forget (as if I remember anything during randori anyway), to address my problems of entering when uke is bigger, heavier and sort of stiff arms me to keep me outside:
The main thing to do is work on motion, by going to the side, either dancing with [...]
The aiki-waza didn’t work at all during judo randori, beyond amusing the main instructor. Same for my lame attempt at getting a joint lock on the arm he was using to keep me out. “If you get the kansetsu-waza, I’ll buy you a steak dinner.” This was spoken with a friendly Midwestern [...]