Well, I'm sort of back. I've been limited to weekly judo for the last year, a major cut back for me. Being married and promises about learning to ballroom dance have crushed my dreams of actually learning how to do this stuff. The ballroom stuff, (which has been pretty fun) has helped keep me keep track of balance and feel but really nothing compares to actual practice. I'm hoping to get a twice weekly class of aikido going at the school I'm teaching at, though I don't know where I'm going to get students / practice dummies.
Since I have only been working on judo recently, I've really been trying to work on the circle of throws that the man gave me as my foundation set of techniques. I can't really tell if any of them are getting better, but its good practice.
What I've missed now that I'm not able to practice with the Boss in Houston, is mostly two things. The collection of guys that I've found to work with are a great group of guys and have a lot of the same ideas about what a good class involves, but after spending seven years with Karl obviously things are going to be different.
The first is without ever being injured enough to miss a class in those seven years in houston, in the one year I've been away from his sharp eye, I've had my nose broken and missed a month with elbow issues. It is way harder then I thought to have a "safe" club, at least at the levels I was used to. I know part of this is because he's not working on the mat and is free to watch for trouble, but the whole feel of the club is somehow unique.
The second thing is about my circle of throws. Most folks that I've worked with here in Boston either work favorite throws or whatever they found in a book or internet. The Judo curriculum is more difficult I think to practice in a way that both trains a specific throw and in addition hones basics which are applicable to a group of throws. I know Pat talks about this a fair amount but the volume of confusion about how to link stuff, in more then just a counter to counter method is impressive.
Anyway, I'm going to try to show up here more, hopefully with the start of school I'll be able to talk about aikido.
