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.
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.
posted by Son at 12:15 pm
3 Comments:
I got the chance to hit some beginners on Monday, after helping them put on men. Unfortunately because of that I missed out on shiai. Nevertheless it was very satisfying to smash some beginners, and I went harder on them than I do normally, which was also fulfilling.
An interesting thing happens in Japan when you are very mature (say, 60+) and attempt an early grading. Because you are so mature, they will let you skip a whole lot of grades, sometimes 3 or 4 at once.
As for the senior guy you sparred, I think I know who he is. He is actually a sensei in karate. And he holds high grades in numerous other martial arts.
Does the grading you're talking about include dan grades? Because if you're an adult (ie 18+) you can pretty much go straight to ikkyu or even shodan for your first grading.
I think he may have skipped a few early dan grades as well. It was posted somewhere in the forums, but I don't exactly know where.
Post a Comment
<< Home