I went back to Aikido on Tuesday 14th Feb, after being away for about a week and a half with work and social events.
Talk about losing fitness, I was worn out about halfway through.
We did a Shomen-tsuki (to the head) Irimi-nage technique, similiar to the 5th kyu grading but it felt better than how I felt in my 5th kyu grading.
I had paired with black belts for working on the technique, all had different iinterpretations of what Sensei demostrated when it came to the block, both seemed effective, where one said take the blocked arm down to the belt, the other keep it at chest level and slide in. I think the middle ground is weak so either seemed ok.
I plan on asking Sensei at an appropriate time which is correct with his style.

We went onto a renzoku variation of this technique, and I didn’t roll properly and dinged my left shoulder, normally my right is the dodgy one.
Halfway through I felt very drained, but I managed to get to the end of class, but I really felt the fact I didn’t do enough exercise whilst away, as well as eating too much :-(

I need to to do more Aikido and get my fitness up, so I’m going tonight after kids class, it’ll be my last class before 4th kyu grading training starts on Saturday, so I need to get fit again for next week, as I’ll be doing about 7 hours of training on the mat.

Top right tip of NT

February 16, 2006

I got back early Saturday morning from Nhulunbuy, 650 Klm East of Darwin at the western end of the Gove Peninsula in the north-east corner of Arnhem land.

I was gathering requirements with others on the team for a project that I’m involved in for work.

It was a very pleasant week, except for the accomodation, that’s another story, but at least I had somewhere to put my head :-)

Photos for the area can be found at www.nhulunbuy.com I have some photos I took as well on my CameraPhone (SE 750i) that I’ll put onto flickr and link to from here.