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.
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.
posted by Son at 9:20 pm
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