The Return of the BOLLMANATOR
Did the warmup last night with my brand new suburi shinai. It weighs 950grams (well that’s what the amplus website says). It wasn’t too bad. I think it’s a good weight as it gives me a good workout without giving me too much strain that it grossly affects my technique. At times I did feel that my technique waivered a bit, but hopefully I can get used to the extra weight soon. It gave me a sense of how it felt when I was a beginner. I even managed to do 20 single handed cuts, followed with another 10 with both hands, where I resisted the urge to use my right hand on the swing up. Felt good. Hayasuburi didn’t feel so good though. Didn’t feel like I had it in control when we sped up, and I lost the ‘snappiness’ of my cuts. Again, hopefully I’ll get used to it soon.
I really don’t like to come second in the unofficial ‘putting on men’ contest, so from this point forth, I shall cease to give away any unfair advantage to my rivals… namely Pei, since no one else really tries to get it on super quick.
Started off with kiri kaeshi again. Got back to the normal shinai and it never felt so light before! Felt like I was wielding a toothpick! And the kiri kaeshi! Can’t believe how quick I was when I went all out. Kinda made me feel like when I’m riding downhill on my bike. Its hard to make it any quicker because you’re going to quick already! We then did the dojo width kiri kaeshi. Again, I felt soo quick. I kinda felt sorry for my motodachi, who was a beginner, but I felt like I was on a roll, so I was kinda merciless. On my way back, I had a bit of light bulb moment. I tried to do the whole thing in one kiai again, but as I started going back, I needed to take a breath (or so I though). Anyway, halfway going back, I felt like I needed another breath, but I just gave everything I had to push out that extra kiai, and a strange thing happened. I was out of breath! There was literally no air left in my lungs, but I was still kiai-ing. There was just a kind of low hissing sound coming out but the important thing was that I still felt a very strong spirit coming out! So it reminded me of when sensei was talking about a cup full of water representing your spirit/effort a few weeks ago. When the cup is full, its easy to give it all you got, but when the cup becomes empty, its much harder to squeeze those few extra drops out. So yeah, when I was trying to squeeze those last drops out for my kiai, it felt like I was pouring a full glass… if that makes sense… I remember my motadachi kinda laughing at me when I lost my voice, but then her face changed back to being serious as she realised I was still going all out, hehehe. A funny thing happened at this point, where sensei tell everyone to go back to the center of the dojo. So everyone does, and osameto-ed. However, there was a lone figure still standing in kamae in the middle fo the dojo. He was the ‘BOLLMANATOR!’ hehe, he was against Viet, and they’d apparently did the rei before they went back to the middle of the dojo, but there must have been some confusion. Anyway, it was just funny seeing how everyone was ready to go, but this guy was still standing in the middle. When he finally decided to move back, he’d cursed something under his breath.
We then went onto doing kihon cuts, then uchikomi geiko… quite a lot of it actually. I don’t really remember much of it. Just that I was trying to maintain high spirit, but I think this came at the expense of doing good big cuts. When I went against sensei, he told me to make my cuts bigger. The thing is, I was going all out from the start, then after a few sets, sensei says, you should have been doing kihon style uchikomi. Doh! Now its time to go all out, and make your cuts faster, though not necessarily tiny tappy cuts (which is what I was doing). I have the habit of using my right hand to do the men cut for a kote – men combo. Need to keep correct this. I think the problem with things like this is the way I like to ‘learn’. I really like to learn physical movements very slowly to understand the dynamics of the movement, and they scale up the speed. However, during training I really don’t have this luxury. Although we do kihon, there is that slight pressure of finishing my cuts when everyone else does, but I like to practice the movements even slower than what we do during kihon. I remember Ben-sensei saying something about kendo ‘homework’ and this may have been what he was referring to. Anyway, I really should look into finding a place to practice outside of the dojo.
The class then split, and the seniors did some waza practice with Andrew. We practiced some kote men with an outlook to doing tobikomi men (which from what I understand is a slight tapping down of the opponents shinai then cutting men). I really tried to focus on using my left hand for the kote-men cuts. It slowed me down somewhat, but I don’t mind. Hopefully I get faster as I get better at it, rather getting faster by reverting back to my right handed cuts.
Anyway, we then joined some of the juniors to do jigeiko with them. I can’t remember who I got first up, but he’d just blindly go in to cut when there weren’t really openings. Most of the time, I’d just let him cut. Should have tried to tsuki him on a few cuts, but I wasn’t that mean. Practicing ouji waza would be more preferable, but Pai Mei instructed that we’re here to help them, not kick their ass. I also noticed that he was always cutting to the side. So I told him to cut straight do taiatari.
Then my next fight… I call it “The Return of the BOLLMANATOR” I really shouldn’t take the piss out of him, but its just too easy. I tried to help him though. He liked going for dou cuts that were never there, so he hit me on the arm quite a bit. So yeah, like the first guy, he’d just go blindly in hoping for the best. I gave him a couple of debana men, and a hiki men in there somewhere. Sensei then called yame and we did kirikaeshi. I noticed that he doesn’t stretch his arms out during his cuts and he looks like he’s all cramped up. So yeah, I tried to help him out by pointing that out to him, and he responded with complaints that he was too tired blah blah. I’m now tempted to be a real asshole and just tell him how great his kendo looks next time I’m up against him, but that’s just not kendo. I think I’ll just keep my mouth shut.
I really don’t like to come second in the unofficial ‘putting on men’ contest, so from this point forth, I shall cease to give away any unfair advantage to my rivals… namely Pei, since no one else really tries to get it on super quick.
Started off with kiri kaeshi again. Got back to the normal shinai and it never felt so light before! Felt like I was wielding a toothpick! And the kiri kaeshi! Can’t believe how quick I was when I went all out. Kinda made me feel like when I’m riding downhill on my bike. Its hard to make it any quicker because you’re going to quick already! We then did the dojo width kiri kaeshi. Again, I felt soo quick. I kinda felt sorry for my motodachi, who was a beginner, but I felt like I was on a roll, so I was kinda merciless. On my way back, I had a bit of light bulb moment. I tried to do the whole thing in one kiai again, but as I started going back, I needed to take a breath (or so I though). Anyway, halfway going back, I felt like I needed another breath, but I just gave everything I had to push out that extra kiai, and a strange thing happened. I was out of breath! There was literally no air left in my lungs, but I was still kiai-ing. There was just a kind of low hissing sound coming out but the important thing was that I still felt a very strong spirit coming out! So it reminded me of when sensei was talking about a cup full of water representing your spirit/effort a few weeks ago. When the cup is full, its easy to give it all you got, but when the cup becomes empty, its much harder to squeeze those few extra drops out. So yeah, when I was trying to squeeze those last drops out for my kiai, it felt like I was pouring a full glass… if that makes sense… I remember my motadachi kinda laughing at me when I lost my voice, but then her face changed back to being serious as she realised I was still going all out, hehehe. A funny thing happened at this point, where sensei tell everyone to go back to the center of the dojo. So everyone does, and osameto-ed. However, there was a lone figure still standing in kamae in the middle fo the dojo. He was the ‘BOLLMANATOR!’ hehe, he was against Viet, and they’d apparently did the rei before they went back to the middle of the dojo, but there must have been some confusion. Anyway, it was just funny seeing how everyone was ready to go, but this guy was still standing in the middle. When he finally decided to move back, he’d cursed something under his breath.
We then went onto doing kihon cuts, then uchikomi geiko… quite a lot of it actually. I don’t really remember much of it. Just that I was trying to maintain high spirit, but I think this came at the expense of doing good big cuts. When I went against sensei, he told me to make my cuts bigger. The thing is, I was going all out from the start, then after a few sets, sensei says, you should have been doing kihon style uchikomi. Doh! Now its time to go all out, and make your cuts faster, though not necessarily tiny tappy cuts (which is what I was doing). I have the habit of using my right hand to do the men cut for a kote – men combo. Need to keep correct this. I think the problem with things like this is the way I like to ‘learn’. I really like to learn physical movements very slowly to understand the dynamics of the movement, and they scale up the speed. However, during training I really don’t have this luxury. Although we do kihon, there is that slight pressure of finishing my cuts when everyone else does, but I like to practice the movements even slower than what we do during kihon. I remember Ben-sensei saying something about kendo ‘homework’ and this may have been what he was referring to. Anyway, I really should look into finding a place to practice outside of the dojo.
The class then split, and the seniors did some waza practice with Andrew. We practiced some kote men with an outlook to doing tobikomi men (which from what I understand is a slight tapping down of the opponents shinai then cutting men). I really tried to focus on using my left hand for the kote-men cuts. It slowed me down somewhat, but I don’t mind. Hopefully I get faster as I get better at it, rather getting faster by reverting back to my right handed cuts.
Anyway, we then joined some of the juniors to do jigeiko with them. I can’t remember who I got first up, but he’d just blindly go in to cut when there weren’t really openings. Most of the time, I’d just let him cut. Should have tried to tsuki him on a few cuts, but I wasn’t that mean. Practicing ouji waza would be more preferable, but Pai Mei instructed that we’re here to help them, not kick their ass. I also noticed that he was always cutting to the side. So I told him to cut straight do taiatari.
Then my next fight… I call it “The Return of the BOLLMANATOR” I really shouldn’t take the piss out of him, but its just too easy. I tried to help him though. He liked going for dou cuts that were never there, so he hit me on the arm quite a bit. So yeah, like the first guy, he’d just go blindly in hoping for the best. I gave him a couple of debana men, and a hiki men in there somewhere. Sensei then called yame and we did kirikaeshi. I noticed that he doesn’t stretch his arms out during his cuts and he looks like he’s all cramped up. So yeah, I tried to help him out by pointing that out to him, and he responded with complaints that he was too tired blah blah. I’m now tempted to be a real asshole and just tell him how great his kendo looks next time I’m up against him, but that’s just not kendo. I think I’ll just keep my mouth shut.
posted by Son at 2:27 pm
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