Jiyu-waza on the mountain

So, a gluten for punishment and not one to pass up on a workout while on vacation, I was back to Aikido de la Montagne for a second day. This time it was the regular adult class taught directly by Claude. Claude is has very strong aikido and is a good instructor. I think I worked with him only once before in a seminar many years ago. The class had a full stretching, ki and ukemi warmup and then we practiced a large variety of techniques that were (mostly) centered around shiho-nage. Interestingly, Imaizumi sensei tends to organize around foot work whereas the aikikai tends to organize around a technique. The length of time spent on the techniques was a bit shorter than I'm used to (anywhere else, actually) but maybe that's just my miss-remembering things. The students were good and helpful for the most part. Major differences included most techniques being taught as breakfall techniques rather than rolls (thought people could and did roll if they couldn't breakfall). Also we did a hip throw which I hadn't done in probably three years and it showed. I barely got it right. Also, many of the approaches are subtly different: for example, the ryote-tori techniques were done from the fully grabbed position (uke behind nage with nage's hands in a handcuff like position) whereas we encourage never letting that static position exist at shin budo kai. Also, the terminology is completely different: the Aikikai uses amote and ura to describe techniques that enter in front of or behind the opponent, where as we specify the foot work and direction. The biggest difference was that every class ends with jiyu-waza. This is definitely not something I encountered at my previous Aikikai dojos. At the other dojos there was some jiwaza and ronduri but it was definitely not apart of every class. This jiwaza was more difficult than yesterdays because the attacks we'd studied were ones that I was not as comfortable with and the pace was higher. Still I think that this is a really, really good idea for improving your practice and I hope to somehow include more of it in my training. Now off to Jazz Fest!