Open mat notes
Worked mostly on 7th kyu stuff:
From Katate dori (ai-hanmi):
Ikkyo: could use more work, especially engaging center. Have many/most of the mechanics though. Omote has that weird crossing step, ura unbalances/steps behind and spirals down.
Iriminage 2: bring the grabbed/throwing hand up up up before extending/twisting down as the hips go.
From Katate dori (gyaku hanmi):
Ikkyo: slide to the side, try to brush the floor with their hand before you pick it up and slide your elbow-hand up (for omote). For ura, just step in behind them with their arm and slide the grabbed hand up their arm.
Kotegaeshi: did this without the "drag them around your back" variant, just tenkan/forward/step back/pin. Slide in, bend wrist, cut wrist with second hand, pick up hold with first hand. Want to make this more fluid. Wrist grab can just have 2 fingers *around wrist*, and thumb on back.
Shihonage: Omote has the foot-change as you "look at your watch" to bend their wrist, which you then pick up, step forward with the back foot, and do the overhead swivel/cut. For ura there's a tenkan first, then you can lift, swivel, cut. You want to end up scooted around to roughly parallel to them, not out at 90 deg and potentially leaning over. There's a regrabbing in there so both hands are pretty much on wrist and hand, not any further up on the arm.
Kokyunage (forward ukemi): from katate dori gyaku hanmi, hand moves down as you tenkan to take their balance, then hand comes up and entire body slides forward/sinks to throw them into a roll. Weight/movement/center is important here. There are other ones that involve going under arms and stuff (soto/uchi?). Simplest one.
Random stuff I did in open mat: kesa with jo (if left foot forward, starts right hand on top thumb down, left hand under, thumb down; raise up, swing around, upper hand slides down, lower hand slides up and regrabs before strike connects). Tsuki/makiotoshi: tsuki has the forward elbow rotate so it ends up upward. Makiotoshi has you block with your rear hand up near your head and jo sloped down, then sink underneath so that you can rotate your jo around the contact point and then not shove sideways but slide it down towards their hands, which they will get out of the way and allow sideways motion themselves before coming back with a tsuki.
Apparently right and left hands are just hard to distinguish! Could not *see* that I had the wrong hand configuration for kesa at first.
Was informed by Joshua that We Do Not Do the shihonage pin, No Really. (People had mentioned it existing, I was curious, I was convinced that I really did not want to be too curious about it after a very gentle demonstration.)
8:40 bus gets me there a bit after 9, awesome. Lovely day to bike.
Stuff I want to work on if I can get someone >= 6th kyu, 6th kyu stuff: iriminage from tsuki and shomenuchi, kotegaeishi from tsuki, sankyo and jujinage from ai-hanmi katate dori, ikkyo from shomenuchi. Also see if someone will drill basic jo kata with me. My weapons are super spotty and need work, and if I have basic motions down, more complicated kata will be *so* much easier. In general this is very true.
Should probably run through the 7th kyu list quickly if it makes sense. Probably also, I'm guessing, ask about the kokyu throw(s) of the week that didn't make sense in class. Will update this with things to work on as stuff starts not making sense!
ETA: Kaiten nage yegods. That one's hard.