Aikido for the Masses

We had a huge crowd tonight including two out-of-town visitors. One from Belgium and one from Texas, who is also a former student of sensei's and quite good. The class was good and full of energy. We worked primarily on come-to-hold techniques were uke attacks (potentially with various speeds) from a distance. We normally practice this initially with a single step and then follow that up with running attacks. I was a bit under the weather so I tried to retain my balance and work on fluid movements. One technique especially require work. The uke runs in and nage steps back so that the hand that was offered and attacked is removed at the last minute while you end up right behind uke. Ideally, you then can guide the uke for a few steps by keeping the hand that was the target just out of reach while you take control of uke's nect and then perform Kokyo-nage. I really needed work on the transition from stepping back to moving forward (guiding).