At aiki class last night we warmed up with tegatana and hanasu, skipped ukemi because of the cold mats, and moved into chain #7. All of the chains are really neat - each for its own reasons. Chain #7 consists of hanasu#7, kaitennage, hikitaoshi, and oshitaoshi. Kaitennage has several variants that we played with, including arm-and-head, kotemawashi kaitennage, and udehineri. Hikitaoshi, of course, also leads to udehineri when it goes bad and oshitaoshi, of course leads to udegaeshi and the other Chain #1 stuff when it goes bad. So, chain #7 and Chain #1 sorta represent a family of techniques that all live in the same neighborhood. Really, that neighborhood probably really includes all of chains #1, 3, 5, and 7. We ran through all of nijusan and then focussed in on kotehineri and tenkai kotehineri. Nothing to really note there on my part.
Afterward, Kristof did his yonkyu demonstration with Patrick M. as his partner. Kristof did very well. I thought he did particularly well on #4 - gedanate, whereas he thought he did particularly well on #3 - gyakugamae. Afterward we worked on #5 - ushiroate with an emphasis on getting a feeling of 'climbing up uke's arm' as you pass by him. By this point we were finally warmed up and we did several runs of the ukemi, including a couple of new falls and exercises that P4 and Kristof had not seen.