Big training weekend

Friday morning:

The mornings aren't as icy anymore, at least not last friday's. No icy roof, but I did notice frost on the lawn! It was the earliest I've been able to make it to a friday training, when I got there, people were just starting to warm up. I decided to change into my hakama and gi before I left the house rather than change at uni, so I think this helps...

We were practicing taking the centre, or maintaining centre. Shit should have posted earlier cos I've forgotten most of it now! Main thing to remember was that you can have centre without pointing the shinai straight at the tsuki target. There is an area around that which you can point to and still maintain a threat. I've realised that I'm very poor at this. I still play a very waiting style of kendo, because I don't seem to be very threatening. Went onto jigeiko to practice this. I remember fighting Andy, which was quite fun. Can't remeber much of the fight though, but we both enjoyed it and had a good chat after wards, but I can't really remember the conversation either. I think I'm tying my men himo too tight which is affecting my memory.

Well after Pai Mei left, Mike took over and we practiced some harai waza. Man, those hurt, especially when people tsuki you in the bicep. My right bicep is like 12 different shades of purple now.

I'd also shaved my head the night before and my tenugui ties on very easily now... I'll be first at next training for sure!

Afterwards, I joined a few of the kendoka for breakfast. I had the big brekky and a custom juice, with watermelon and pineapple with a chunk of ginger. I love ginger. Also got a few laughs from looking at peoples ID's. I think I impressed a couple of te malaysians present with my limited malay, which I used to make fun of Alex, hehe... He looks 'cacat' in one of his pics.

Well that night, I went rock climbing. My friend was supposed to bring a couple of others along but they all piked so it was just me and her. She said that she likes climbing with me cos I push her to do the graded climbs (ie, just using one specific colour rather than all the colours). I gave her a couple of tips and taught her the same move that I taught Pei the week before. On one of the climbs, she kinda 'got it' and understood why that move was done, but she still reverted back to noob style climbing. Anyway, she was pissed off that she couldn't do this grade 12 climb and some old lady did it with relative ease, hehe. Anyway, I didn't push too hard. Stuck with some mid teen climbs (15-18) which weren't too challenging but gave me good exercise and they're quite fun. I really like the feeling of doing a climb cleanly when trying it for the first time, even if its not too hard to do. I did try a 21 but couldn't make it to the top. Too hard; need to go regularly go get my climbing back to where it used to be.

Saturday:
Woke up nice and early to go to the Monash uni gasshuku. Got to uni at 9 but not everyone was there, had to wait for a couple of people which made us get to caulfield campus late! Very bad form.

Anyway, Yano sensei was taking the training with help from Kate Sylvester (who is a member of the national team! woot!) Also present was a certain kendo machine named Chiaki Kobayashi (who is also on the national team!) I embarassed her by calling her an elite athelete... I think she thought I was taking the piss, but I was quite sincere... She's part of the best that Australia has to offer, making her elite! And to think, I used to kick her ass when we were beginners! hehe, but don't tell her that, she'll make mince meat out of me now.

Well Sensei went through some very basic stuff to start off with. Just basics about reiho and armour. A few things I noticed:
He ties his men himo very differently. Bah... too hard for me to explain.
Need to tuck in tenugui from the back so that none hangs out.
Always kneel on the left knee when going down to pick up shinai, never squat.
Some other things but I just can't think of them now.

We then did some warmups and shinai geiko. He taught us how to do small snappy cuts, or what he called realistic cuts. The cut starts with the shinai moving forward, not up, and then at the last moment, up then snap. This is similar to how I cut in jigeiko anyway, but I think my cuts are smaller, when he does them it seems so much bigger than mine. Another I learnt was 2 new ways of doing hayasuburi. One where the feet go to left foot forward/right foot back as your raise the shinai, then back to normal kamae as shinai comes down. The other one was kinda like star jumps, where you raise the shinai and spread feet apart, then put feet back together as you cut.

We then had lunch. Prin wanted to eat korean so we went to this little korean place... Damn you Prin!!! Well the food wasn't that great, I had teriyaki chicken which was korean style I assume cos its nothing like japanese teriyaki. The korean food looked good though, but it all took a bit too long, so by the time I got my meal, I had like 5 mins to eat it all then head straight back to the dojo for more training! Well we got back late so sensei made us to more hayasuburi as punishment! Hmm, well the first few were ok, but as I progressed, I felt my lunch coming back up, so I slowed down. I pretty much spent the rest of the afternoon trying to not throw up. We then did kata 1-5 and finished with jigeiko. I was really hoping to jigeiko with either sensei, Kate or Chiaki, but got none of them on my rotations. I still had fun though. I had sparred with Shirley and I think Sam both from Monash. And both were quite fun. I remembered Shirley from the UMKC camp cos she was on my team for the shiai. Sam was pretty good. He's very quick to see my weaknesses. I hesitated quite a lot and everytime he'd pick it and got for cuts. I got a couple of cuts on him but nothing special. He missed timed one of his cuts and it landed on my right bicep! Another mottled bruised to add to the collection. My whole upper right arm looks quite disgusting now.

Sunday:
Got to uni nice and early so that we wouldn't be late again, and we all left for Caulfield. I got there just as sensei got there, hehe, and all the UMKCer's were pretty much there before the monash people. We sure didn't want to be punished with more hayasuburi.

We had quick warmups and into shiai. I got picked to fight this guy that was bigger than me. I knew nothing about him, so I figured I'll just go in there and have some fun jigeiko style. As soon as hajime was called, I did my war cry, and before I even finished he went for a cut and started pushing me! Like full on ugly kendo style pushing. I tried to push back but my men came loose so I put up my hand to have a time out, and he still pushed me until I stepped right back and away. I fixed my men and got back to the starting position. Kate who was also shimpaning went and told him that he was a bit too rough. Great, now she probably thinks that I'm a great big whimp. Anyway, I don't think anyone scored. He got a hansokku for stepping out so I guess I won the match (woot, thats 2 from 2 now!). It was a bit frustrating because I felt I had landed about 3-4 cuts quite well that didn't score. I wanted to ask sensei about it afterwards, but I didn't think he'd remember as there were quite a few matches. Well after our match, he made a speech about pushing, saying that this is not a 'competition', I think meaning that its not a test of strength, its a test of technique, and he showed us some dodgy things that people used to do in shiai that are not allowed now, they were quite funny actually but I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of any of them. There was one where he stepped on the guys foot, and grabbed his shinai and tried to throw him over... Anyway, in the end, it was good experience. Afterwards I noticed that my left hand was in pain. Must have been from the pushing style shiai. My middle on my left hand feels nqr and I'm contemplating not going to training tonight! Damn. It hurts when I try to clench my fist. Don't know if I can hold a shinai anymore. Hope its not permanent.

Well thats about it. It was ok, but not as fun as UMKC camp. I thought the training was going to be more vigorous, and was hoping to do enjin keiko whatever it is.

I also asked Yano sensei about going to AUG and he said it shouldn't be a problem, and Ophelia said it should be alright, but I don't know if I really want to do that. I mean I'd like the experience but I'd feel like I'm betraying the club :(

Inner spirit.

Wow, gotta say, today's training was great.

I actually got there on time! Anyway, I'll acknowledge that Viet got his men on first today... let the fun begin... especially now that Pei is back.

Training started off tame enough. Just pairing up with a junior and doing kirikaeshi, then some kihon cuts. That was all ok. Then class splits. Juniors sans men, juniors with men, seniors. I was lucky enough to not be picked to go with the juniors. Extra lucky because sensei decided to take the seniors... woot.

Today we did some hiki waza, well ALOT of hiki waza. To start off, we did men followed with taiatari and understand the position of tsuba seriai. We just did it slow at first, one cut at a time => Men cut, taiatari, tsubaseriai. Points to note, need to do good cuts (as always), don't bulldoze over your opponent, the point is to stop after contact. Stay in tsubaseriai for a bit, then step back with zanshin and try to maintain centre.

We then did this followed with a hiki men cut. Point being to still get into a good position to cut at tsubaseriai. This was done slow at first, but then we got quicker. When done quicker, we should still try to maintain the points mentioned above. Did men hiki men, men hiki kote and men hiki dou each in sets of 3.
We then did continuous multiple cuts. First it was just 3 men hiki men, then 3 men hiki kote, then changed to continuously, men hiki men, men hiki kote, men hiki dou followed with a normal men cut with follow through. Did this a few times, then sensei gave us a short break and said, ok, now we'll do 3 sets of it, ie, 9 men hiki X cuts, finishing with a men cut.

...OK, do that again....kotai... and again...

...OK, try to do that in 1 strong kiai....

...OK, again, last one..........kotai...

...OK, just one more time...... kotai

...OK, this is really the last time (hehe, and I knew it was when he said) each person do the set of cuts, then each will do kirikaeshi!

Now, through this all, I didn't feel too bad. I felt the worse in between each set, but as I did the cuts, I didn't really feel tired... I think it was because I was totally focussed on doing the cuts and didn't worry about being tired. Before each set, I'd just take a deep breath and go for it. I really surprised myself on how I was able to do it. Especially on the very last set. I really went all out, now on the first few cuts, I didn't feel like the landed too well, but then something happened that I can't really explain. Its like I went into an autopilot mode, and all the cuts I did felt really good, like they landed well and everything was in place. The feeling was very similar to when I feel like I scored in jigeiko, could it be zanshin? I might post this on the forums. I might get someone to explain it for me as I can't articulate how I feel too well, hopefully someone senior has felt the same way. Also, for the kirikaeshi that followed, I went all out, and pretty much did it at my fast speed! Or at least it felt like it, I didn't slow down due to tiredness (well perhaps the last couple of cuts slowed down a bit), but I was really surprised at how fast I was still able to go. I was against KevW and he asked 'Where did you get all the energy?' I just replied that it was all spirit, hehe. I think that was quite apt. What felt really good about it was that I was still only using my left hand! I was barely cradling the shinai with my right hand, only squeezing to get the tenouchi on the impact, and it felt much better than it has been in the past couple of weeks. Hmm, perhaps I need to be very tired to unleash my inner spirit...


p.s. We had Chris P. train with us today, but he took the juniors sans men, so I didn't get train against him, but this has been a good week cos my two most important former sempai's came to train with us! I always feel good when they come. I wish they'd do it more often.

I also saw something kinda funny (well funny to me) at the end of training. When we were around sensei in seiza, I saw kenji, chris and josh, all in seiza next to each other, and I noticed their the rings on their fingers, hehe. It reminded me of a pic they took at camp, where they all showed off their rings, and frowned... I can't remember who took that but I'll have to chase it up.

Only Human

Came late to last nights training due to experiment overrun. Damn immuno's...

Anyway, as I came in, I saw a shaved headed man taking the class, and thought, hmm, who could this be? and where is Yakov sensei? Anyway, it turns out to be Ben sensei, just with a new haircut. Yakov sensei was absent.

Anyway, I tried to quickly get my shit together whilst still trying to hear what Ben sensei had to say. Something about keeping your pinky and ring finger gripped tight on the shinai during the cut. So I warmed up just in time for menstuke.

Motadachi+3 in a queue style training. First up was kirikaeshi. I really tried to focus on what was making my kiri kaeshi feel 'funny'. I tried relaxing my arms a bit more, and trying to make bigger cuts, but it still didn't feel as good as it used to. I don't know how I'm going to fix it, but I starting thinking that maybe I'd improved my kendo since then (when it last felt good) and that it just feels shitter now because I know better, rather than me actually doing it shitter, which means I have to improve it anyway... blah. Hmm, just did a few air kiri kaeshi cuts and it didn't feel too bad. ah, it doesn't equate to good kiri kaeshi in full armour anyway...

we then did uchikomi. I decided to just go all out on all of them and not care too much about technique. Did about 3-4 sets, then Pai Mei calls out, 'ok, now to step it up a notch...' man, I was already going all out! But somehow I think I managed to get that extra 1% after he said that, hehe. My kendo must have looked shit.

Class splits and we get to do jigeiko. I had put on my men too tight and I was starting to get a headache at this point, and there was a ringing in my ear which was all too uncomfortable. Had too take it off, and missed the first bit of instruction from Ben sensei. I later found out that he asked us to count slowly to 10 in our mind before doing a cut, and when you do that cut, make it count. I didn't realise this until later and was told that I counted too fast, hehe. Anyway, Ben sensei reiterated this near the end, and added (rather importantly) that when you're tired is really when you need to focus. Its all too easy to just revert back to old habits which will affect your learning. That really stuck in my head, because it verballised what I had kinda felt for the past few weeks. I'd been feeling like I was just going through the motions a bit, so if I keep this in mind, I can hopefully learn more.

In an earlier post, I had mentioned that Ben sensei was more like a sensei now than what I had remembered him to be... he has this sensei 'aura' about him, which kinda makes him a bit intimidating. However, he joined some members for dinner afterwards, and he was just as I remembered him, hehe. Only human after all. I was really surprise to even hear him swear! hehe... we were talking about wallets because someone had just lost theirs (+10 bucks). Anyway, Ben sensei then says, 'You know whats funny, that scene in pulp fiction where pumpkin asks which wallet belongs to Jules Winfield, and he says, the one that say Bad Motherfucker!'... hehe, I had a quiet chuckle to myself.

Another icy morning

Went to yesterday's morning training and boy was it cold. Again, the roof of my car had a sheet of ice on it!

Anyway, I'm going to try to make it to all the trainings from now, because the Vic. Kendo Championships (VKC) is coming up, and although I don't think I'll have a chance of winning at all, I still want to be able represent the club well, and maybe even make it into the club's team.

Again I was late. Got there at about 7:15. Pai Mei had the class doing foot work exercises in 1 line and not facing an opponent. From what I gathered, it was seme-cut footwork, where the two steps were coordinated, or something like that. By the time I got my armour on and warmed up a bit, I joined the line, rei-sonkyo, back to kamae, as soon as I got up Pai Mei calls Kamae! sonkyo... DOH! I missed out on all the footwork stuff. Anyway, menstuke and we did more footwork exercises. The aim was to do seme and make sure your feet were ready to cut at all times. I really liked this exercise. A lot of the time during jigeiko, I practice this, only to have someone come in on me with multiple cuts. But yeah, I still don't have a strong seme, so I liked practicing it.

We then did jigeiko, I had the two Kev's; Wu and Houng. Hmm, can't say I remember much of them, but I was mainly trying to practice the footwork again. Well I lost ippon shobu to both.

Pai Mei then had to go, so K. Houng took over. We just did some more footwork exercises. He showed us some stuff he'd learnt in Taiwan, they were variations of the mai, mai, atoh, atoh, migi, migi, hidari, hidari, footwork exercise, but a bit more complex. From what I gathered the point of the whole thing was to have your feet ready at all times, so no matter which way you're going, you're always pointing your feet at your opponent, and you always snap that left foot back into place (or the right foot if you're going left of back). Thanks Kev, I'll probably be practicing those in my lab whenever I can now.

Ooohh, Yvonne, if you're reading this, I just saw a couple of pigeons having sex outside my window. Perhaps you can enlighten me in your next post!

At the end of training, Nicole had made some rum'less balls the night before and gave me one. Thanks Nicole. The ones I've had before were quite solid all the way in, but this one was still kinda gooey inside, hehe, nice surprise, plus I like condensed milk. I used to eat that on toast when I was a kid!

Also, last night, I went rock climbing with Pei. Roxy was supposed to come too but she piked. Anyway, Pei did pretty good for a first timer, much better than what I did my first time. I remember being scared shitless and not being able to let go of the wall. Anyway, I made her climb the easy climbs to get her into it. She did the grade 8 and 9 clean, but struggled on the 10. There weren't many easy-ise climbs for her to do, so I made her some rather difficult ones, which she really struggled on, hehe. I realised then that I'm not really a good teacher because I don't think my advice was very useful. Afterwards I showed her a common move in the bouldering section that would help her, especially with her reach... You have to use your hips, because they don't lie...

Anyway, they'd changed a lot of the climbs since I was there last time and some of the walls looked quite bare. My two favourites were still there though, I doubt they'd ever change those, so that was good. I also did a new grade 17, which didn't seem that hard, more like grade 14-15. I then did a grade 16, which was no way a 16, it was more like 21-22. I don't know who's grading them now, but they're way off.

4 hours straight

Hmm, missed my post for Monday's training, and now, I can't remember much from it. The main thing I remember was that I saw sensei's hand close up, and noticed that the ring finger on his left hand is broken! and it ain't pretty. I wonder how he manages to cut... must be all from the pinky finger! I remember Chris P. (I've decided to just use names now, its takes too much effort to dance around it. If anyone has a problem, just let me know and I'll delete anything that anyone finds offensive) told me about a 'click' you get when you use proper tenouchi to stop the shinai, and he was saying how its still hard for him to do it, but sensei pretty much gets it every time. On monday, when sensei was demonstrating some basic cuts, I noticed that 'click' as he snapped his wrists. Don't know how he does it, or what causes it, because I haven't been able to do it myself.

Hmm, can't really remember much else about training... its been a busy week. We had a club dinner afterwards though. It was at Teppansan in the city. Oh yeah, during jigeiko, I got hit on the elbow, right on the bone! This hard lump the size of a peanut grew right where I was hit, and it was this bright red with purple patch on it. Also, during our waza practice (we practiced kaeshi waza), we practiced kote kaeshi kote, and I got hit on my right forearm twice in exactly the same spot in a row... stung like a bitch I tell ya, although it didn't bruise. In fact, the whole kote kaeshi kote practice really did my right arm in. I was just fighting with my left arm after that.

Well to last nights training, well even before that, I had a volley ball competition from 3 to 5. It was between different research institutes in the area, WEHI, HFI, Bio21, VCP (where I'm from) and PeterMac inst. We barely managed to get a team together, but it was quite a good team. We had one guy who played for his uni in Taiwan, a girl who plays at the volleyball at melb uni, and a couple of other players that have played for high school teams. I was the relative novice, but I still held my own. Had a good warmup with the Taiwanese guy giving me tips before the comp started. Anyway, didn't realise that such a relatively soft ball can bruise me, but it did, well my left arm anyway, I think my right arm's been conditioned to not bruise now. So now I have a slightly mottled purple patch on my left forearm thats a bit sore. I also landed on my knee during one of the games which has left a nice bruise on my right knee, that I didn't even notice until about 5 mins ago when I bumped it into my desk and it hurt more than it should have.

Well, at about 5:20, the last volley ball game was still going, but I subbed another player on to take my place so that I get changed to do kendo. I saw sensei in the change rooms and told him of my situation and politely asked if I could join the junior class, with which he replied 'hmm, we'll have to see.' hmm, indeed.

Anyway, I got through the warmup alright. Since monday, we changed the warmup a bit. The set of suburi used to be 30 cuts each, with jogai buri and 30 naname buri... break... then 30 sho men and 30 sayu men... break... then 40 hayasuburi. Now its sets of 20, with 20 jogai buri, 20 naname buri, 20 sho men, 20 sayu men, then 20 haya sho men, 20 haya sayu men... all together with no breaks. I kinda like this routine. I like the feeling of getting my left arm tired and my right arm doesn't feel a thing, I think it means that I'm doing the cuts right.

Well after we lined up and did mokuso, we went into menstuke. I was asked to help one of the juniors to put his men on. I realised that I'm not good at giving instruction and I'm not very articulate when it comes to these things. I have a good idea in my head, but I just can't verbalise it properly. Anyway, I ended up showing him (and a couple of others that needed help) by doing it myself. Hence I wasn't the first to put on men. Nor was I first on Monday because I was having trouble with my tenugui. I think its because my hair is too long... need to cut it soon.

So training itself was quite vigorous. Lots of kirikaeshi in rows of 2, then uchikomi in rows of 4. Glad I wasn't made a motadachi as I was quite knackered by then. To overcome this, I worked on psyching myself up. As I waited to do uchikomi next, I'd take a couple of deep breaths and mentally prepared myself. I did this a couple of ways, first was to make myself think 'I want to KILL this guy!', the other way was to just convince myself that tiredness was all in my mind. Both seem to work. It only failed on the last one where my body really couldn't keep up. I felt I had strong spirit but the body just didn't move the way I wanted it to. Also, I think I worked out why I was so slow with uchikomi. Its mainly because I don't have my left foot in the right place once I have turned after a cut. It means that I need that split second to get my foot right before I can proceed with another cut. I practiced it in the lab today and I kinda made it better, but I'll need to test it out properly with real cuts and not just air cuts.

The motadachi then did their uchikomi and kakari geiko. Boy, I don't envy them, but I get the feeling that I will be doing that soon. The class then split, and thankfully sensei called out my name to join and help out the the juniors! The class was split into juniors, women and the rest, hehe. I think sensei wants to ready the 'women' for the upcoming VKC and AUG competitions.

Anyway, with the juniors, we had Kev C. take the training. We just did kirikaeshi, kihon and uchikomi with an emphasis on being good motadachi. Not much point in them training with the rest of the class if they don't know how to receive cuts properly. I kinda took things easy and show them how a cut should feel like (apparently they have been killing themselves by hitting too hard, hehe). I left myself enough in the tank to do a good kirikaeshi at the end and surprised myself at how fast I was able to do it. Not too bad after 4 hours straight of physical exercise. The tiredness must have just been in my head...

Or maybe not... woke up this morning and was sore in all sorts of places. Hope I pull up alright for tomorrow's morning training. 'Pai Mei' is going to help us 'fight' better for the upcoming comps.

Otsuka Memorial Taikai

Entered my first kendo competition last saturday. Its promoted as a laid back friendly event (though I was disappointed with some of the participants).

Anyway, the basics of it are, you register to compete, all those competed a separated into 3 groups, low, middle and high rank. Teams of three are then picked with 1 player from each group. The matches are then fought first by the low rank, then middle rank, then high rank, so that you only fight someone of similar level.

I was in the low group, and was teamed up with another member from UMKC ('A')in the middle, and a senior player from kenshikan ('S') who is only 2nd kyu. From this line up, we figured we wouldn't do too well so we just set out to have some fun. 'A' was still nursing and injury and 'S' felt he would be outplayed against the other high grades.

For our first round match, I was paired up with a young player from kenshikan. One thing to note for future reference is that you NEED to keep warm, and warm up properly before the matches. Going into the match I felt a bit underdone, and could have done with a couple of kirikaeshi to really warm up. But yeah, anyway, as I walked on the shiaijo, I was kinda nervous and almost lost balance in sonkyo, hehe, hope no one noticed. Can't say I remember much of the match, except for the ippon that I scored. Yay! my first ever point in a comp. Can't remember exactly what happened, but my opponent went for a cut (or something) and left his men gaping open, which I went for and it scored. No more points were scored after that, though I did feel that a couple of my cuts were kinda good, but obviously not really good enough to score.

The second match for our team ended in a draw. From what I saw, 'A' was more aggressive in the match, and if it lasted a little bit longer I think he would have scored, but oh well, thats kendo.

The third match, well not much to say, it all ended in like 20 seconds! hehe. 'S' went against a jodan player (the only one there that day). From sonkyo, both went up to kamae, opponent goes up to jodan... BANG! men-ari. Back to kamae... hajime... jodan... BANG! kote-ari, hehe. Was fun to watch, even though my team ended up losing. I should have won by 2 points in my match dammit. What made it more amusing is that 'S' was trying to rush me before our match, saying that I should put on men because the match before ours could all be over in a few seconds! ooh the irony.

All in all it was a good experience. 'S' shouldn't feel too bad because that jodan player won his second match even quicker! hehe. Bloody jodan players. The last match of the day was especially memorable. For the finals, after the 3 matches, the teams were tied, so there was a sudden death playoff between the two high grades. The match went on for like 15mins! which is quite long considering that each of the normal matches is only 3 mins long. It was really good to see two kendoka fighting it out especially when the match went on and both got tired, you really see 'spirit' coming through.

One thing I didn't like about the competition was the amount of 'pushing' going on. There were two players in particular that were most 'ugly' from my point of view. I remember in the very first match, one of the shimpans actually waved his flag out for hansoku (foul) against the player pushing but the other two shimpans allowed it. I'm glad I didn't have to fight that guy, but VKC is coming up, so I'll have to get some advice about pushing players, in case I ever run into him. Such ugly kendo. It was like... clobber, clobber, push opponent back to correct distant, then clobber, clobber... bleh..

Icy roof

Woke up at 6am this morning to go to morning kendo training. Left my house at 6:30 and came out into the freezing weather. It was so cold that a sheet of ice had formed on the roof of my car! Damn, thats some chilly air.

Anyway, got to training a bit late, about 7:15. By the time I was ready it was already 7:30 and the waza session was over, and jigeiko had started. There was a junior there that was a bit late too, so I just did a few kirikaeshi with him. Finished that and had 'Pai Mei' wave me over to do jigeiko with him! Woot. Just what I wanted. My toe didn't seem to affect me at all. Its not so painful now, and when I'm concentrating on kendo I don't notice it at all. I managed to get a couple of nice debana cuts against Pai Mei, but then he figured me out, and just did a whole lot of nuki dou cuts on me. Afterwards, his advice was that I was reacting quite well... a little too well, because whenever he seme'ed strongly, I'd react. He picked up the pattern and then just did the dou cuts. Something for me to keep in mind for the shiai tomorrow. I also deduced from his advice to the whole class, that I need to have better seme, and it do it with more conviction. This way, I'm not really reacting to a cut, but I'll be proactive in inducing the cut from my opponent. A bit late to work on these now, but good advice nonetheless. Can't wait to the shiai tomorrow.

Oh yeah, stupid me, I picked up someone elses shinai after training on wednesday! DOH! That was my chokuto shinai that I have been using for the past few months and I have grown quite attached to it. Now I find that when I switch from the chokuto to the doubari shinai, the doubari feels a bit unwieldly. I think this is from the fact that it takes that little more effort to use the chokuto. So now that I'm used to using that, switching to the doubari, I inherently use more effort than I need to, making the shinai seem a bit out of sorts... Hard to explain, ah well. I'll have to use the doubari shinai for tomorrow now.

Sore toe

Hmm, the callous on my big toe on my left foot is cut open! Don't know how it happened cos that skin is literally like thicker than 1mm! Must have cracked opened and gotten bigger during training. Funny, I didn't really notice it during training. I felt a bit of pain, but I thought it was just a blister developing, not an open piece of skin. After training I had a look at it and it was even bleeding, yuck. Don't know how I'm going to go at tomorrow's training, and the shiai's in less than 2 days. No way its going to heal up by then. Looks like I'll just have to tape it up quite a bit. Been hobbling around all day with just a bandaid on. Need something a bit more substantial...

Cramming for shiai

The Otsuka shiai is on this weekend so I've been trying to cram for the test. I missed Monday's training because I had a postgrad function that I had to go to (...it was a pub night, hehe).

Anyway, training last night was pretty good. The juniors finally got into full armour on monday, so finally my chance to hit some of them back! but it wasn't to be... sensei pretty much said 'these guys are not to be touched' or something to that effect. Damn.

Anyway, my kiri kaeshi felt better today, but my cuts are still kinda smallish.

My kihon cuts felt better than they did last time, even my dou cut, though its still quite pathetic, but at least I think I'm improving.

Ucikomi geiko wasn't too rigorous. I still have that slight pause in between cuts which I need to work on to eliminate.

Then jigeiko. Was really good. Not that I kicked ass or anything, but I just felt better than I did last time. I treated them all like shiai geiko, except the first one, where some humorous cutting sequences kinda put me off. In one of them, my oppenent did a hiki kote on me, which I replied with a men cut, which he replied with another kote, so I followed with another men... This continued with him going back and me going forward for about 5 cuts! Couldn't help but crack up after that.

I then had a couple of other opponents that are quite good. One is a japanese guy who's never graded, but fights like a high kyu. He's got all these kendo books to learn from, but they're all in japanese so its no good for anyone else. He normally kicks my arse but I usually managed to score a couple of cuts in, which is pretty much what happened last night. Then had a more senior opponent, and by senior I mean older, hehe. He's only 4th kyu, but he fights better than that. I was thinking about this last night, and felt that he and another 'senior' kendoka who is lowly ranked show a lot of 'wisdom' in their kendo. Its hard for me to explain, but they fight very differently from others who are similarly ranked, but are much younger. If you understand kendo somewhat then you should be able to discern it better than me.

Then jigeiko with sensei. Woot! I was focussed on doing shiai style keiko but still show him my best kendo. He still kicked my arse. I don't know how he does it, but he's able to determine when I'm going to cut. He did quite a few debana kote AND debana men on me. I can at least understand debana kote, because thats something that I can do somethings, but debana men! I still can't do that yet. Its like (in my mind) ooh, and opening, cut... but before I land my cut, he's got my men! I suspect that I might have a 'tell' during my 'ooh' phase... Anyway, his advice to me was that I need zanshin in my cuts. To put it into perspective, there was times when I cut and it seemed to land, but I felt it didn't so I kinda stopped short my follow through. Sensei's advice was that I'm not a shimpan, and that a shimpan may have given me that point if I had the proper zanshin. So I need to not stop short halfway through the cut if I felt like it didn't land, because I should feel like I had made the cut before I even went through the motions. Well thats my interpretation of it. Looking forward to more jigeiko with sensei in the future.

Well gotta try to get to tomorrow's training to get some more cramming in before the shiai on saturday.

Dead Spirit

Couldn't get my armour on first today. Damn tenugui! I still came second though, but my tenugui still wasn't perfect. Kept feeling like it was going to slip the whole training, but it managed to hold up. Also helps that my men is getting softer, so its easier to tie it really tight. The bad thing about breaking in new armour is that you lose that smoky smell from the kote. My kote's are starting to become quite savoury. Hmm, I should invest in some febreeze or something. My tare himo/obi are getting softer too, making them easier to tie, but it still makes a huge knot, makiing my tare flap poke out a bit... hmmm

I was motadachi for last nights training. Again, not something I envy, but someones gotta do it. I don't think I'm getting better at it though. I can't seem to step back far enough while practicing nidan/sandan waza (multiple cuts).

Onto uchikomi geiko. Damn, I was feeling shit like I did on Monday. I don't know what it is, but I just feel flat. I remember back to the camp, and I remembered no matter how tired I got, I was still feeling good, and went through all the drills quite well. But tonight I just felt shit. Tried to fix the problem that sensei pointed out to me on monday. I don't think I did too much better than what I was doing. I really need to be ready to cut as soon as I turn around. I think I take a moment to pause to make sure I'm ready, then I cut. I need to eliminate this.

Jigeiko. I just sucked! I got my ass kicked in everyone... again, I just felt flat. I wish I knew how to rectify that. At the end of training, I was told that my spirit had been killed... Need to learn how to resuscitate it when I need it...

Sensei's back...

Sensei is finally back from his trip to Europe. Hopefully I he can kick my ass back into shape, cos that good feeling from last week didn't last too long. Anyway, was feeling quite tired today, I probably shouldn't have had that nap before I went to kendo. Felt like my body was still in nap mode.

Anyway, onto training, straight into men. Again, I was first, hehe. I should keep a tally. Started off with kiri kaeshi, and it all went downhill from there. Couldn't put my finger on it, but it just seemed all wrong from me. I still maintained a decent speed, but it just felt shit. I almost even slipped over, albeit from the set where we were meant to go flat out, but I've gone flat out before, and it felt good. Also, my cuts seem to be getting smaller. Damn. Probably need to relax more. We must have done about 10 sets of kiri kaeshi by the end of it, and I was knackered. Then to uchikomi. Sensei noted that I wasn't constantly attacking. I'm so glad he can help me personally like that... but did he have to do it in front of everyone! how embarassing. Hopefully I can learn from my shame. During uchikomi practice I need to be 'ALWAYS' attacking, so as soon as I turn around, I should be attacking with my seme, which I wasn't doing. Anyway, kept on going and I think I improved a little bit. I hope its related to my tiredness today, and not some inherent problem that I'm going to spend months on to improve.

Onto jigeiko. My dou him was loose, again! I tried so hard to make it tight at before training, and it still came loose. Need to get some advice on this. I sat out to fix it then rejoined the line. It worked in my favour, because I ended up doing jigeiko with sensei after the first rotation. WOOT! Anyway, first jigeiko was with a regular 'fun' partner, though I don't think I made it too fun cos I was a bit too serious about it. Still had 'fun' though. Then jigeiko with sensei. I think I've ever only had one jigeiko with sensei, all about 5 years ago! so I relished this moment to spar with him. Didn't realise how quick he actually was! I see how quick he can be when I watch him, but he seems even faster when I spar with him. Anyway, he kicked my ass, but I tried to really focus to show him my best kendo, so that he can take it apart and give me some advice. I managed to actually score a men cut on him. Can't remember how I did it. Must have been a kote nuki men, but then it can't be, cos I remember every time I tried to nuki, his cut would always land before I could get it out of the way.

Anyway, went to thank him at the end and was hoping that he'd give me some advice regarding my jigeiko, but he just told me to keep trying to improve what he'd mentioned during uchikomi.. ah well, I'll have to jigeiko with him again soon. Hope the club doesn't sweel in numbers anytime soon, or else its gonna reduce my chances of that...