Power Levelling

Too much spirit??? I think maybe not enough.

Sensei will be gone for the next 5 weeks, so our most senior member is taking the trainings... to another level it seems. So by the time sensei comes back, we're supposed to be able to do kakari geiko (ie. be able to train 'til exhaustion, and yet still maintain some modicum of technique).

Well training started with no seniors around, so one of the guys that's coming through took the warmup, which was his first time doing it. Good effort. I guess it must be nerve racking when something like that is thrust upon you. He missed a couple of elements in the warmup, but all in all, he tried to motivate people in way... which was good.

So onto training proper. Did some footwork exercises against a motadachi (?). Basically we stood at kamae and moveded either forward or back depending on the call, and the point was to maintain issoku itto no maai with your partner. I think my step forward and backward weren't exactly the same size. My partner and I never seem to end up where we started at the end of each set... Another thing to work on. Then lined up against motadachi, at this point, we were still menless... Practiced seme-ing. Step in to IINM from touma with intent to cut, then follow through (no cut).

Mensuke.

Back into lines of 4. Kiri kaeshi. Didn't feel that great today. Just felt like I lacked something. Then to uchikomi geiko, again, felt like it wasn't all quite there. Kinda like my batteries were low. Then did some kihon cuts, men, kote and dou.

Class separates. The fun begins... By this time, I already felt drained.
Did some more kihon practice. Tsuki. We always seem to do this when this sempai takes the class. I'm starting to think he's got a tsuki fetish. No damage done to me this time. Then uchikomi again. The pattern was men, kote-men, dou, men, men. Did this once. Then did it again. Then... Ok, 2 sets in a row... whoo. Fun Fun Fun. My kendo must have looked like shit by the time I was doing this cos most of my focus was on trying to stand up straight.

Then we practiced hiki waza. The pattern was men (follow through), men-hiki-men, men-hiki-kote, men-hiki-dou, men (follow through). Did this a couple of times. Then... twice in a row (without the follow through men cuts in between), so 6 consecutive hiki cuts. Then... 3 times a row... followed straight up (no kotai) with kiri kaeshi. I think the shinai almost fell out of my hand at one point. But I powered through. By the second set of cuts, I just let my kiai pull me through. It waned but I gave everything I had to get through at a still quick-ish pace.

Then jigeiko. Time to learn how to stand in kamae correctly was about all I thought I could learn. Can't remember much of the jigeiko's. Except that for the very first cut, I just kinda opened up and breathed a sigh of relief, hehe. Now I had her off guard... AHHHHH... hehe. Too sneaky. Each jigeiko was finised off with ippon shobu. I lost the first to a hiki dou. Won the second pretty quick with a debana men cut. Won the third with a hiki men cut. 2 out of three aint too bad I guess.

At the end of training, the post training advice was basically... There's more to come... and then some... bwahahaha. Bring it on I say. By the time sensei is back, I should have levelled up and put some attribute points into spirit, stamina and endurance.

There goes my 20/15 vision

Just some pics from the Ballarat camp. Most of them turned out shit, cos I had the wrong settings on it, plus I wasn't the one taking most of the pics. Left my camera in the hands of a junior kendoka to film my match, and asked her to just go nuts on taking other pics if she wanted to... Again, arigatou gozaimashita (you know who you are, if you are even reading this).

Not the clearest of pics, but I actually really liked the way some of them turned out. The blurriness kinda gives a sense of action about the pic. Well here they are.

The good samaritan

Came late to training last night because of my experiments. Should realise by now that I can't split cells within 30 mins. It never goes as planned!

Anyway, came late. Just managed to put my bogu on as the warmup finished. Was still tying my dou himo during mokuso... very bad form! Luckily, we started with some kata because there is a grading this sunday and I guess some people wanna cram in kata practice for their exam. Had a shortish partner for this. Did 1, 2 and 3, then added 4 to my repertoire. 1 and 2 are quite easy. Just have to work on getting better distancing (with all my kata). Then worked on 3. Having trouble with the footwork of the uchidachi. I kinda lose the rhythm of the backwards step during and after the counter attack. Should practice at home, but its not the same... ie. hard to work out distance, whish is my main problem. Then went onto kata 4. Most interesting of the kata I've done so far as it involves 2 different kamae that we don't ever use in kendo, hassou and waki. I really like waki-gamae. Its the same one used by the old samurai in seven samurai. He just looks so cool doing it, and kills the other guy in jodan! Wish I can go in waki-gamae during jigeiko against jodan, hehe, would be quite a site. Anyway, again, with this one, I was having trouble getting the right distance. And I'm still unsure if we take a small step back after the swords cross to correct the distance. I found that if I didn't step back, then I'd cut with the wrong part of the bokken. Well... just another thing to work on. Not that I really need to though... won't be going for shodan grading for quite a while.

Anyway, after this we did the usual pattern for training (1 senior in armour, 1 junior in armour + 2 clubbers! err I mean juniors...). Just did some kiri kaeshi and uchikomi. Didn't really go all out because I still hadn't done a proper warmup at this point. So after this, sempai (can't remember what the term for dojo steward. He's in charge because sensei will be away for the next 5 weeks) asked for 2 senior-ish members to help the juniors. Now I don't consider myself senior-ish, but I didn't think I could do proper training without my warmup so I volunteered....

Mistake gone wrong!!!

hehe. Well it wasn't that bad. But I learnt my lesson. I was pretty much just standing there being clubbed. Men and dou cuts weren't too bad. But kote... well lets just say I'm amazed my arm is still attached! Most were cutting okay, but a couple weren't using their tenouchi to stop the shinai properly. Oh, yeah, and I recieved 1 dou cut just a bit too high and it made me wince a bit. Man, I sound like such a pussy. I guess it was good to watch what they were doing right or wrong and made me think about my own kendo.

Too much spirit...

Went to training last night after no kendo for a whole week! Man, warmup was tougher than usual. I should start some other fitness exercise, like swimming or jogging... nah, too cold. Should try to ride my bike on the weekends when its not raining.

Anyway, training. I'm happy with the spirit I show (or what I think is spirit) during training, but I think its coming at the cost of technique. I focus too much on giving everything I have which doesn't allow me to think about what I'm doing. But still, its good to know I have plenty in the tank even though I think I'm out. Had uchikomi geiko last night, about 3-4 rounds of it back to back, ie, no waiting in a line to catch my breath. By the last round, I was pretty much wasted, but still gave everything I had left. Surprised myself. Almost lost my voice, so I just kiai'ed louder to compensate. Well at this point, the technical aspects of my kendo were in automatic pilot so I couldn't think of anything to focus on.

Class split into two. Time to catch my breath. Some kihon practice. A couple of comments given to me; follow through straight... my men cuts are going towards the right a bit, and don't reach out. I was reaching out too much for kote cuts (why the hell do I even need to reach out? its the closest cut!). We also did tsuki practice. Personally, I don't like to practice it, cos it makes me wanna do during jigeiko, especially to people who like to fight at chikama! Well, during one of the sets of tsuki, I went up against the club captain (not really the captain, but he's the highest ranking kendoka after sensei... I think). Well I was cutting first (2 sets of 3 cuts each) and for some reason, during each set, I'd hit, hit then miss. It felt like plaing the pokies... one liberty bell... two libterty bells... doh! I mean, woohoo... (hehe)Anyway, so I thought two misses out of 6 aint bad. But then on my opponents' last set, he got me really good... on my clavicle! Man, that stung. Its nicely bruised up now and he must of peeled off some skin cos there's little bits of scabs in there too! Man I love kendo! But in an unfathomable display of generosity, 'Pai Mei' gave me the slightest of nods (hehe). The nod was definitely returned.

On to jigeiko. I pretty much got my ass kicked, but I was happy to make a couple of ippon cuts myself. Hopefully these weren't just openings from my sempai. Had about 5 rounds of jigeiko all up. One of them was with a female kendoka. Now I have nothing against female kendoka, there are a couple of them I really admire. But when I went up against this girl... I just had to giggle to myself a bit. She's just got the cutest kiai ever! Although, I had here during our kihon practice and her kiai for her dou cut was a bit scary. It was quite soft, but you can definitely sense her intent to kill in that kiai. Kinda like a muffled vicious growl (but thats not doing it justice). However, during jigeiko, well... some of the kiai was just like a loudish mouse squealing (and I should know, I've killed enough of them). Well on the last jigeiko, I had the reigning club junior champion. Can't remember much because by this time I was knackered. But with about 1 minute to go, I decided to go all out and give him some of my kakari geiko. Hehehe, didn't know I had it in me. I might try this more often, to give me more confidence for any shiai match where I feel tired. I gave him about 5 cuts in quick succession and wanted to give a few more, but I got to tsuba serai and was like 'fuck'... hehe, he laughed at me too... then kirikaeshi, sweet! Again, I gave it everything but still felt like my technique was failing me.

I think I need to have some balance between 'spirit' and technique during training if I am to improve.

Withdrawal

After training for 3 days in a row (Camp on sat+sunday then monday's training) then nothing, I'm kinda going through some kendo withdrawal... arrrggghhh. Couldn't make it to wednesday's training nor could I wake up early enough for friday mornings... Have to do it one day. Anyway, been watching the vid of my shiai match from the camp. Couple of things I saw that I want to improve on.

1) When going for a cut, I'm still extended my arms too much... I think. This is evident by my head action which kinda tilts back as I go forward. Must maintain my posture throughout the cut... again, comes down to pushing from the 'hara'... Seems like I was getting better at it on monday, but didn't make a concious effort to notice how it was.

2) My left foot is not perfectly facing forward. Seems to be about a 5 degree angle on it. Must fix this. Might be related to why I can't push off effectively.

Well can't wait to train again. I don't want to lose the fitness I gained from the camp. Apparently fitness can be lost within a few days! Arrgghh... Wish there was somewhere I can do kendo homework properly. Suburi from seiza just doesn't cut it (pun intended).

Fresh and smoky

here's a pic of my new bogu (well not exactly new anymore, I've had it for a couple of weeks now). Still has the smoky smell from the smoked deer leather of the kote. Had at least 3 positive comments about the smell during camp :)

This one time, at kendo camp...

Just want to Ballarat for the weekend for the clubs' camp. Just awesome! Full day of training on saturday, then some morning training on sunday followed with a shiai (my first shiai match in 5 years and only my second ever shiai!).

Well to start it off, on the Saturday morning, we started some warm ups at 7am. Damn that floor was cold. Anyway, started pleasantly enough with some jogging the length of the basketball court. Then it got interesting. Running with palms extended from the hips where you knees had to touch your palms. Then even more interesting. Kinda hard to explain, but running with your palms stretched down, back and to the sides a bit. While running we had to hit our palms with our feet! Yet even more interesting, next up was having your palms crossed over at your crotch and running while having your feet hit your palms. Don't think I explained it that well... but it was a sight to be seen. 50+ people running around like what was hilarious. We then did a shuttle run. I think I came 2nd or 3rd in my group. Probably shouldn't have tried so hard cos I was knackered after that. This was followed by our usual warm up exercises, though done at a more gentle rhythm. Ah, then came the suburi... Don't know why everyone was complaining about it. All up we did about 800-850 suburi, with breaks! I remember one time we did 1000 shomen cuts consecutively, all in about 15mins.

Breakfast: Hmmm, first time I tried honeycomb cornflakes... not too bad.

Second session, some shinai geiko. Always fun. Did multiple cut practice, where people line up and hold their shinais out for others to hit. Started with relatively small lines of 4 to practice 2 cuts. Then grew to 6 to practice to 3 cuts. Then grew to the whole length of the basketball court! Woohoo, now thats what I call fun. About 15 to 20 people in each line. We only got to do 2 sets though. Most people were naming each cut, but I managed to do the first set in one big continuous kiai... hahaha. The looks on peoples faces as I went through was gold I tells ya. For the second set I named each cut because sensei instructed us to do so. Still fun though.
We then put on armour and did the style of practice from the previous trainings, ie, 1 motadachi + 1 armoured kendoka + a couple of juniors sans armour. Was good. Started with kirikaeshi, 1st one slow and deliberate, 2nd faster and sustained kiai, 3rd almost all out. After the third kiri kaeshi, my motadachi (a very senior member who's been with the club a long time) praised my effort! Woohoo, not everyday this happens. He commented that I was doing the single men cuts a little bit short but otherwise, everything else was spot on (mental note: need to push off using 'hara' better). This was followed by a serious of uchikomi geiko, where I really did go all out, especially kiai-wise. I noticed a couple of the juniors looking at me with an expression of 'what the fuck is this guy smoking?'. Hehe. And yeah, one of the other members in armour now thinks I have tourettes syndrome.

Lunch: Some premade sandwhiches which were quite nice. Don't know everyone from last years camp was complaining about the food. This was pretty good shit, and there was more than enough for everyone, although I think some people didn't like them and didn't have any.

Back to training. After a big lunch, sensei went easy on us and let us practice kata. I still only know the first 3 (well 4 but never seem to get to practice it). Had a pretty good partner for kata, pretty much the same level as I was I guess. We practiced the first 3 kata. Kata 1 and 2 always seems to go smoothly but 3 is always a hassle. There was a bit of confusion about the footwork of the uchidachi.

Hmm, can't seem to remember what happened next exactly. Hmm, think we helped the junior members with putting on dou and tare. Ah well, I know we did some shinai maintenance at some point.

The last session we had jigeiko. By this time my men had come loose. Still can't put it on properly... need to soften it a bit more so that I can tie it up really tight. Hmm, had a few but only 1 that I really remember because my men had come a bit loose and my tenugui came over my eyes! Couldn't see shit. I asked my partner to stop but he insisted that I do it after that jigeiko. Hmm, must have a big target on my back for people to kick my ass... hehe. Anyway, it was kinda fun. Couldn't really see anything above the kote/shinai unless I looked up. I got in a kote cut in this condition which was acknowledged but otherwise everything else was a bit of a haze. At one point I even just closed my eyes to see if I can do it blindfolded, haha. Didn't do it for long though... didn't wanna get hurt or hurt anyone.

End of the day. Dinner: Was quite good aswell, had some meat (sausage, slice of beef and chicken on a skewer) + some potato salad. Wasn't quite enough to make me full, but good enough. Again, don't know why everyone from last years camp was complaining about the food situation, hehe.

Sunday: Woke up at 6:15 and had to leave at 6:30. Had a quick shower and changed, but luckily I wasn't the last one out. Man, some of these girls.... who needs makeup to do kendo???

Another running type warmup session, but not as much funny running though. We did do the shuttle run again, this time with our hakama tucked up so we don't trip on them. Quite a site. Didn't know everyone had such sexy legs, hehe.

Again, pretty much the same number of suburi as Saturday morning, but seemed a bit harder since everyone was sore and tired. By this time, I had 4 blisters on my left had and my left foot was kinda throbbing. Its all good, nice and calloused now.

breakfast:

Next session we went into full armour (with just the seniors, the juniors went into another room to practice). Had a good session of practicing some advanced waza and ouji waza. I learnt that I need to do good cuts when being motadachi for the ouji waza from a rather stern sempai. It was my turn to be motadachi but he realised that I wasn't cutting him properly so on the third cut, he didn't do the ouji waza and my shinai ended up about 4 inches above his men, and to the side no less... Stern look on his face... Thus I learnt to always do proper cuts as motadachi.
Also did a lot of tsuki practice during this session... always fun. Both morote and katate tsuki. Still not that good at it. I probably only landed about 10-15% of my tsuki on target, the others were all over the joint.

Morning tea: not much to say really.

Last session: Shiai!!! My first shiai in like 5 years, and only my second ever shiai match. Before this though, the juniors did a bit of a demonstration of their skills, in the same pattern as a grading. They should all get 6th kyu.

Then the shiai, hehe. Did some warm ups while sensei gave some instruction about simpaning to the higher kyu grades and yudansha. Did 2 kiri kaeshi... didn't want to wear myself out too much. By this time I was quite knackered. Was quite surprised on who sensei matched me up with. I was hoping for someone easier, hehe. Well I lost my match 1.5 to 0. Got hit with a gyaku dou about 10 seconds into the match, then towards the end I stepped out - hansokku. Been watching the video over and over. Need to be more attacking. I wasn't attacking enough and seems like I was getting swamped by this guys' kiai. I liken it to the wail of a banshee. Also need to make my cuts much bigger. I was doing tiny wristy cuts. Nothing to be proud of. No wonder I didn't score.

Watched the rest of the matches, followed with a cool down with sensei at the helm.

All in all, an awesome weekend.

You Talk Too Much...

I think I better stop giving advice to others at the club. Kinda hard sometimes because some of the things that I see are wrong are just so obvious, and I just want to help them out, but it might not be appreciated as such... coming from such a lowly ranked kendoka and all... I can just imagine it now, they'll be like 'well who the fuck is this guy anyway'. Oh well...

Last night's training was structured the same as the previous trainings. I think I'm getting better at pushing from my legs/hip. I think the key to it is posture. I tried maintaining my posture more last night by using my stomach muscles, and it kinda stops me from reaching forward, which is good I guess. Now I just have to develop some more explosive power from my calf to get me going.

Discovered that I don't have much of a fumikomi (right foot stomp). I read some posts on the club forum about how to do it. It seems you need to have your foot flat to get a good stomp, but I remember be told to do it with just the ball of my foot, and NOT the heel. Stomping with the heel can lead to serious injury is what I was told, if I remember correctly. Will ask someone about it at camp, which is this weekend! Yay! Then I can come back with stories of 'well this one time, at kendo camp....'

A first happened for me last night. I went for a men cut but my oppenent lifted his shinai just before I was about to land and the kensen of his shinai got caught between the slats of my shinai. Had an instantaneous weird feeling just as I was about to show my zanshin.


My bogu is becoming a bit softer, though not that soft. Still had to adjust it midway through training last night cos my ears were hurting quite a bit. My kote are fitting quite nicely now. Still just a tiny bit too tight in the thumb, but otherwise they're fine. Gotta say, this is probably the first set of kote that has come anywhere near fitting me properly.

Sore wrist

My right wrist seems to be getting worse. Told someone in my office about it, and he made a comment about a 'cement mixer', ie, when I rotate it, it makes a bit of a scrunching sound, bit like a muffled cement mixer I guess. Got another sharp sting in it during monday's training. Hmm, maybe I should try using a heat pack on it during or after trainings...

Anyway, didn't get much out of the last training. Can't seem to remember much, except for my jigeiko with last years club junior shiai champion. He's faster than I thought (or maybe its just because I had a slower opponent before that). I can see why he won that shiai. Good straight cuts. He only cuts men, which is what I have bene doing myself lately. I do about 80-90% men cuts and the rest is kote during jigeiko (every now and then I might try a kaeshi dou but I can only remember doing 3 since I started kendo this year). Well I've kinda vowed to just concentrate on my men cuts lately. I figured, why move onto kote and dou if I can't even do men. I figured that even if I'm predictable and my opponents know I'm going to do a men cut, then I need to improve it a lot to get a scoring cut (ie. it might get a lot harder before it gets easier). But I guess my aim is that, by the time I can do regularly scoring men cuts, then I should be really good at it, but as it stands now, I suck. One thing I distinctly remember from my match with this guy was my tsuki! Well not really tsuki, but a men cut (yes another one... man I suck). Anyway, can't remember what actually happened, all a bit too fast, but I just went for a men cut and tried to follow through, but he must have leaned back or something because I hit him square on the tsuki! Fellt really good because it was right on target. He even said himself it felt good! (I guess as far as tsuki goes anyway). Too bad I yelled out men!

I've been concentrating on the use of my hara. Had a bit of a revelation today, in that I need to use my stomach muscles to maintiain my posture. Will try it at tomorrow's training.

Interesting thing happened yesterday. The training structure was the same as per last week. I happened to line up against the guy that mentioned that I was fighting from too close a distance. Anyway, just found out that he's a shodan, not high kyu grade. Anyway, he's training to be a jodan player, and I got to experience some of this training first hand. First time I've ever gone against anyone in jodan-no-kamae. First time was when he did kiri kaeshi against me from jodan!. The 9 cuts were pretty much done single handedly. He was kinda slow but that's expected, and its diagonal cuts too! I tried to practice this myself but it was very hard... too hard to control the angle of the cut. Hope to jigeiko with him in jodan sometime.

Bleeding Toe

After reviewing some of the other posts, I think I'll try to keep future posts shorter and focus on what I need to do to improve my kendo.

I finally got my armour after Mondays' training and was able to wear it last night. Nothing like the smell of brand new armour... ie. no nasty kote smell. The kote palm is made of smoked dear skin so it has this really nice smoky bbq smell. After mensuke I was standing around sniffing it (like an idiot) and one of the girls came up to me and told me I was psycho (or something to that effect) thinking that I was sniffing the nasty club kote. The whole set still has a new feeling (obviously) which means its quite stiff and not fully comfortable yet. Still a bit hard to tie the tare obi properly, and all the himo (men and dou) are a bit hard to tie. Hopefully this initial hardness wears off soon, especially the men which is quite stiff and hurts my ears. Also makes it very hard to tie up properly because it had no 'give', ie. its hard to make it 'wrap' around the back of my head.

Wednesdays training session was pretty much the same as Monday's session with some modifications. One interesting difference was that we had to do continusous kirikaeshi for the whole width of the dojo (ie. basketball court). Kinda fun... got to practice my elongated kiai. I even did shorter steps going forwards so that I'd have to do more cuts. I'm working on being able to do a whole kirikaseshi in one continuous kiai. At the moment I can do the first set of cuts, the about 3-4 cuts of the second set, after which I need to take another breath.

Moved onto some kihon practice. Must have had my hakama a bit lower than usual because during one of my kote cuts, I kinda tripped on it. Quite embarassing, especially with two of the beginners watching. Well it started bleeding so I had to take some time out to get it taped up.

Anyway, during the practice, sensei came up to me after I did a set of kihon cuts, and mentioned that I was leaning forward too much. He emphasised the use of the left leg pushing the body forward, rather than reaching forward with my arms. This seems to be a chronic problem so I've vowed to rectify it in the next few weeks (or until I actually fix it!). This is one of the basics that really makes your kendo look good, but somehow I have neglected it. I used to pride myself in being focussed on doing the basics right, even though it meant that I'd get hit a lot because it slowed me down or whatever. In the past couple of months I have probably been focussing on seeing openings and making openings and neglected the more important aspects of kendo. Need to overcome this and go back to all the basics to get things right.

So yeah, work on pushing my 'hara' rather than reaching forward with my arms.

PS. my hands still smell smoky...

Proper maai

I bought a chokuto style shinai last week and finally got a chance to test drive it last night. Hmm, hard to say what the difference was compared to a dobari style. Seems slightly more unwieldly but might be that I'm just not used to it yet. It has a normal round style handle too, which is different to my dobari shinai which is oval handled, so that might add to the difference. But overall, not as much different as I was expecting. I might use one for half the training and the other one for the other half to try and get a better comparison, but otherwise, the moral of this is, a shinai is a shinai....


So onto last nights training. Went straight into men and practiced kirikaeshi with the beginners. The pattern: 1 senior motadachi against 1 low ranked kendoka in armour + 2 non-armour kendoka. I was the low ranked kendoka in armour. So yeah, straight into practising kirikaeshi. We were supposed to do it slow and accurate to show the beginners the correct technique, but I kinda went all out on my first couple of goes. Sensei then stopped us and told us to slow down, which I did. Going slower gave me a chance to try and stretch out my kiai for a bit longer. So this went on for a while, we then went onto kihon geiko, with 4 men, 4 kote and 4 dou cuts each. We then went onto uchikomi geiko for a few rounds. By this time I was getting really tired, the kirikaeshi's really took it out of me. Luckily, sensei stopped us and got all the motadachi to do uchikomi geiko with each other, so everyone else had a bit of a rest.

Good thing too because after that was jigeiko. Had a really good solid 5 rounds of jigeiko, mostly with more senior kendoka (only 1 of them was with a low rank). But yeah, really good workout.

Before I start, I want to mention that in the past several weeks, I've noticed that a few people like to get in close at kamae. This kinda annoyed me cos I prefer fighting at issoku itto no maai. Anyway, the first guy I had jigeiko with is pretty good. He's won some kyu grade shiai's before so I knew he can kick some ass. Can't remember landing any really good cuts on him though. Tried kaeshi dou a couple times but didn't really land the dou cut nicely to call it ippon. So at the end of it he walked up to me to give me some advice... and told me that.. yeah.. you're a bit too close, try fighting from a bit further away! Man, I just felt like Homer Simpson and though Doh!

Second jigeiko was much anticipated... It was with the girl that I mentioned previously (the one that I'd have to go 200% at her). I actually started out as a beginner at the same time she did... so many years ago. She's gotten quite good now and has achieved nidan whilst I'm still a lowly 5th kyu since I haven't trained for so many years. She's quite short so she's always scoring kaeshi dou on me. I tried to get her to cut my men just so that I can't kaeshi dou back, but she didn't take the bait. I remember when we were beginners, her men cut used to be quite big (still is) and slow (not so slow now) that I was able to do nuki dou on her back then. Ah, how times have changed.

The next jigeiko was a bit of a blur. Can't remember scoring any decent cuts. My oppenent seems too fast. She seems to like to cut just as I'm turning around after my follow through. A few people have done this to me now. I have to get that fixed. I did kinda remedy it by doing a block as I turn around, but this is bad form. Should be ready to cut as I'm turning around.

Next was another girl... the lower ranked one. Not much to write about except, that on one cut, I went for kote (it landed) then tried to follow it up with men, but she put her shinai back to the centre and I managed to tsuki myself... under the tsuki! No bruise to show for it though. She immediately asked if I was ok, and I said yes, but just as I was trying to get back to kamae, the pain kinda hit me again, so I had to stop for a few seconds. Kinda funny; 'yeah, I'm right...errr give me a second' hehe.

Then jigeiko with another high ranked guy. He's previously done quite well in shiai's too. I really had to bring my game to cut this guy, but by this time I was really tired. I managed to get 1 good kote cut in which he acknowledged, but the other cuts were just him letting me cut. I think he sensed I was tired and let me cut him to get me to practice. I remember he got a couple of really good degote cuts on me. Don't know how he did it. I should have asked him. Maybe I have a 'tell' for my men cuts that he's spotted. But yeah, I got my kote cut in after a couple of these degote cuts. Good to see that I can actually learn during jigeiko and not just blindly go in a try to cut.

So yeah, all in all, a really good session.