Uchideshi Experience

Monday morning after cleaning I had an excellent chat with my wife on the phone.  After that, it was time to head out--Hiroaki Sensei and his family took us all to the Kokukoen park to sit under the Sakura Trees and have a picnic (complete with badminton and ice cream after).  I greatly enjoy the day because I got to see a kinder, more relaxed side of Hiroaki Sensei that often only shows up when he's teaching kids or beginners.  He was pretty relaxed, had fun playing badminton with his daughter, and he even chatted some in English!  Overall it was quite an excellent morning outing, and I was grateful for the time with everyone. Afterwards, we had time for maybe 40 minutes of napping and then it was time for the uchideshi to pack and head out to meet Soshihan at Meiji University for his trip to teach the club there.  At the station near Meiji, we were greeted by the captain of the club and the vice captain, along with some other students.  (I love the uniforms

Over the last several days I have been able to add falling from techniques back into my Aikido by modifying how I fall (ukemi).  I've been doing backfalls with a straight right leg that resemble a cross between yoko-ukemi (side falls) and the ukemi that Dan Hayes Sensei and his school do (what we call panda rolls).  On one side it's basically the ukemi Dan Hayes's school uses--on the other, I have to kick out my right leg since it won't bend and sidefall into a panda roll (to use the momentum to get back up).  It's more exhausting physically than regular falling, but it allows me to take backfalls again.  I also have started taking front falls from pin techniques by modifying heavily how I fall (special care needs taken when I take tenkan versions of techniques that spin me down--I have to one-legged squat on my good leg for a brief interval on one side, but the other is a bit too complicated to explain what I do.  To get back up I do an exploding pushup (kind of li

Ah exile to the coffee shop again--poor me!  Coffee, CHAIRS, and a power supply so I can type--it's a tough life.  ;)  In reality some parts of uchideshi life are tough here, and some are not--the last few days have been drastically more relaxed than any I've spent here so far, and as I round out three weeks here and am letting my knee recover, that is a welcome reprieve. This morning started like all mornings, with cleaning, but it was drastically later than usual at 8AM instead of 5:30AM.  We ended up heading out with soshihan, but due to heavy rain we didn't get to hike a mountain with him.  Instead, we road a train a little over an hour into the mountains and went into a traditional onsen (hot springs bath).  It's a good thing that I've had several cultural experiences like this already, so being naked with a bunch of other guys (including soshihan) wasn't actually that weird.  The hot water was also quite excellent for my body.  What