Forgetfulness

Hmm, I really should find time to post my entries sooner, cos I seem to forget a lot of things if I leave it for a couple of days.

I came to training late on Monday. By the time I got in the dojo, the warmup was starting to do the usual set of 8 exercises. I quickly got my shit together and did my own warmup. I really should plan out my own ‘quick’ warmup, cos every time I do this, I seem to forget stuff. I’ll go through some things, then at the end, I’ll think, shit, didn’t stretch my neck. I only remembered that time because my neck was kinda sore, otherwise, I probably wouldn’t have done the neck stretches.

I managed to get in a few suburi as everyone else was finishing. Sensei stopped everyone and made a point about having ‘snappy’ cuts, where the snappiness comes from the last moment of the cut where you kinda ‘whip’ your wrists and stopping the cut with tenouchi. Hmm, I’m starting to think sensei is psychic ‘cos this is something that I’ve been working on. I think it helps with the ‘click’ I mentioned earlier. But yeah, about that, Chris P. has kinda let me down, and told me that it wasn’t that important… bah, just when I had achieved it. I’m still proud of it though, its like a new toy.

Menstuke.. and I was first again! I’m starting to think that I’ve demoralised everyone into just giving up because they just can’t compete with my speed.

Did a whole lot of kirikaeshi, then finished off with a continuous kirikaeshi across the width of the basketball court… twice! I did this against two juniors, and they didn’t really do it right, they were still have trouble with maintaining a good distance as motadachi. And again, like last time, I must have done 3 times as many cuts on the way back compared to when I was going forward. I had mentioned to the girl that was against to make sure she cuts from her shoulders, rather than her elbows, so during my cuts, I tried to emphasise that. Sensei also pointed out that the left hand should be going up and down, not side to side, which I was trying to do too. I think my cuts were decent. It felt good cos I maintained a really good pace throughout. Fun fun fun.

Then jigeiko, with a shiai feel. Sensei had Andrew and Avi demonstrate shiai geiko. The pointed out that we should acknowledge each others cuts during the fight, so that we know understand what a good scoring cut should be like. Before we started he separated the higher grades from the lower grades, bah, I was stuck with the lower grades. I remember seeing Tony’s body language, hehe, it represented how I felt. I really wanted to go with the higher grades to get some good practice, but yeah, oh well. We had quite a few rounds, so I can’t remember all those that I fought.

Suffice to say, I was concentrating on keeping up my attacking spirit during my fights, and not letting down my guard. One memorable fight was with Viet. He was able to break my concentration. I don't know what it is, but I just can't take him seriously during jigeiko. He makes it worse when he goes all out, hehe, its just not him. But yeah, at one point, I tried my Trung-do on him, and went into waki gamae, hehe. Did a men cut from there which felt really good, but no way would that work in a shiai, and it shouldn't have worked then, but he let his guard down... Now I know how to break him.