Well, I managed to make it to two days of Yamada Sensei's seminar.
Friday night was a free class at another dojo in the west end of the city, so there I went. The mat was crowded! I was working on a nikkyo technique when all of a sudden this pair of hands appeared from nowhere, grabbed my wrists from behind, and then this voice said, "Relax! Relax! I will place your hands!"
It was, of course, Yamada Sensei. He'd sneaked up behind me while I was fumbling through the technique and frankly, scared the bejeezus out of me.
Did I relax? Of course not!
It didn't occur to me much later that Yamada was O Sensei's student, so in a sense, I was touched by the founder. Way cool!
Saturday, I only went to watch, in the afternoon, so that I wouldn't miss the tests. The two testing from our dojo both passed their nidan (yay!) although one of them had "notes" from Yamada.
A person at my dojo had bought a membership for the Sunday session, but wasn't able to go, so she offered it around and I accepted, thus I was able to go to the Sunday class.
Backtracking to Friday's class a moment, we did one technique which required a forward roll out of a throw (my favourite - not), and the black belt who was working with us beginners corrected a few things I hadn't been aware of before as to what my problem was with forward ukemi. When I went to my regular class on Saturday, I tried it out, and lo! suddenly I was doing a forward roll! (Well, just on the left side - the right side still needs a lot of work.)
So on Sunday, we were again doing techniques requiring a forward roll, so I did a few and one of the members from my dojo observed I was doing much better.
There's hope for me yet! I still can't do it one-handed, so I've set that for my next goal. Oh, and getting the forward ukemi on the right side in better shape too.
Oh, and on Sunday, Yamada Sensei did it again - sneaked up behind me!
One of the other students mentioned during break that this was one of the things that they liked about Yamada Sensei - he pays as much attention to the white belts as he does to the black belts.
I also had some comments from the people I worked with - one, that I was sometimes too forceful! So I had to pull back a bit, use less strength. The other was that I was very strong in my hara, very solid. And yet another person said something about WHEN I start teaching my own classes...
Wow. Who would have thought it? 10 months ago, I couldn't even bend down to pick something up off the floor. And if I did get down on the floor, on my knees, I couldn't get up again. Wow.
I stayed for the afternoon session for the sensei who teaches the advanced class on Sundays at my dojo. That was a very brave thing for me to do... the way he does his techniques, so casual, so full of ki, so terrifying... he's 82 years old, and just back from a quadruple bypass operation, and he's tossing men half his age and a good deal heavier than he around like they were pillows.
He showed us one technique that frankly terrified me. It started off with a simple tenkan step; then one used a kokyo move to get out of uke's grip, took uke's arm, and with your arm now free, wrapped it backwards around uke's neck, so that you were standing with your hand on your hip, and uke's head tucked into the crook of your arm like it was a basketball. The idea being, that one good twist and uke's neck would end up snapped like a twig... which, of course, we didn't do, just let uke drop to the mat. Yikes! (I think I saw Steven employ that move in one of his films - Marked for Death, maybe it was. Yikes.)
Anyway, it was a great weekend for aikido, and I'm very glad I had the opportunity to go.
Must get more work, somehow....