suwari waza rocks!

Strengthening those knees, hips and toes every Wednesday at Meiryukan Omiya.

Another class with almost half the training time done in suwari waza. Today we worked on one of this year`s shokyu test syllabus techniques - suwari waza katate mochi nikajo osae ichi. A seemingly simple technique, however, filled with a ton of great areas to focus on. The use of the toes and ankles, the rotation of hips and placement of body weight in each and every movement from beginning to end. A new favorite!

Using the whole body as one

Working on sankajo this morning in Omiya.

For the upper body we went through details of the block, crossing of hands, sliding to the elbow, stable wrist, rotating, raising and cutting down part. As for the lower body, direction of the back foot, circling around, use of the knee, direction and rotation of the hip while sliding forward diagonally to cut down. Same movement in many of the techniques, today just happened to be yokomen uchi sankajo osae ichi