@Wayne Nadler fantastic post, Wayne. Everyone needs to read what you wrote and really give it some thought. You brought up so many critical points here that I would designate your post as required reading in the community.

@Katreena Baker I'm looking forward to reading this - thanks for sharing!

@Wayne Nadler my pleasure. With injuries, especially spinal injuries, I would treat movement as a "work in progress" and the main thing is that you don't do any harm, just as you said. Even without injuries, none of us do things perfectly, so the key is adaptation in the moment and becoming more and more aware of what's possible and what isn't, and recognizing when we're on the verge of "too far". I'd liken it to stretching using the "green/yellow/red stoplight framework. Stretching without feeling any stretch is a green light, where we have relative freedom of movement on that plane. Red light stretches are painful and pushing even a little too far can lead to injury. Yellow light stretching (and training) is finding the right level of constructive resistance in between green and red that improves our capacity. From what I can tell, you're training correctly and feeling good about adding a little more pressure in a careful, controlled manner. Also, Williams Sensei moved to North Carolina. He's pretty much retired there, but he teaches regularly at our Nami ryu dojo in Ft. Washington, PA. We just had Sensei out to the West Coast, too. It would be great if you can make it to train at our schools in Albany and Ft. Washington!

@Wayne Nadler I'm happy to hear that. Opening up breath and movement and the mind is powerful, and it the fact that you're not sore probably means that you're not attempting to pull your body out of alignment. Instead, you're relaxing into a new space. I think staying away from rolls is the right move. Anyone who has had a neck or back injury shouldn't roll. As you said, the emphasis should be on not going to the ground in the first place!

@Wayne Nadler , @Joanne Hunter is correct. It depends on whether you have a training partner. If you're training in solo practice, you'll want the cut to go the imaginary midsection of the target, and you might also do a kiri-otoshi, which is a "heaven to earth" cut or "dropping cut" that is a very deep cut intended to break the opponent's structure and cut them to the ground. When you're practicing kata with a partner, you will have to initially pull your cut for safety reasons. At higher levels of kata practice, the uchidachi (attacker) will respond by responsively releasing away from the cut, and falling or even rolling out of the way before they're cut down. In that way, we build in responsiveness and it allows the shidachi (person receiving the initial attack) to practice cutting the opponent down and following through with their cut.