SAAAAAA

Sensei was late last night, so Pai Mei started us off with some footwork. Points to take home:
*Need to get left foot back to position quickly.
*Need to maintain posture when going for a cut. We did a cut/lunge forward with a slight pause to check posture before bringing the left foot back up. I found that I was lunging very far forwards, and ended up dragging my left foot back into place. I know this because the top of my toes was touching the ground as my left foot move forward, instead of the balls of the foot.
*Left foot should always be in contact with the floor.

Sensei then came and watched whilst we did kirikaeshi. He took over after that. I feel like my kirikaeshi is going downhill. I feel like my left hand isn’t as centred as it used to be. It never was perfectly center, but I never used to more it more than 1 fist from the centre, now it seems to be about 2 fists.

My tenouchi is acting up. I might be putting the brakes on too much during my cuts, and thus losing some snap. A couple of times last night, I’d go for a cut, but my shinai didn’t land, instead it stops nearly perfectly just before the target, ie, I didn’t cut anything. I think it might be due to me looking at the top of the men when cutting, which is similar to my inability to cut a good doh, because I’m always looking at it. I think I need to be looking straight, no matter where I cut. For example, during suburi, I’m looking straight ahead when cutting an imaginary opponent, so my body develops a special difference between where I’m looking and what I’m cutting (can’t really explain that any better). When I cut someone in armour, I’m looking at the top of the men, and because my arms are ‘used’ to being above my eye level when I cut (from the suburi), I tend to end up higher than the men…. If that makes any sense. Blah, I should read this in a weeks time and see if it still makes sense to me. So yeah, always look straight when cutting, whether it be men, kote or dou. Hmm, just remembered, on Monday, I was partnered with Pai Mei for the men hiki dou cuts. When I was cutting, he urged me to cut harder, with more oomph. He then proceeded to show me how to do it during his turn, and I though, damn, I wish I can get that slap… but on his final cut, he slapped me right in the ribs, just between my underarm and my dou… DOH! As I told one of the others after training… I just took it like a man, and did the right thing, and moved on. Guess it wasn’t that bad though, no bruise today.

We then did uchikomi. My footworkd sucked. I’ve lost the ability to turn right after a cut (ie. kote)… I feel like Zoolander, guess I’ll just have to resort to cutting men and dou only. But yeah, for some reason, my feet kept getting tangled up when I had to turn right, and it was very frustrating. Don’t know how I did it before, I guess I just did it, but last night, it just felt shit. And yeah, it really affects my uchikomi geiko. Perhaps I’ve been trying too hard to get into position to cut as I turn around and somehow I lose the rhythm of the movement. Bleh, I guess its something I can practice at home.

Then Jigeiko. The only fight I remember was with Andrew. He kicked my ass, but I really had fun. Seems like I only have fun during jigeiko when its intense now, ie, more like shiai. It’s a shame, because I used to have fun with jigeiko no matter what. Perhaps it was just because everyone was still new to me, but now I’ve fought most people numerous times, it may have become a bit repetitive. I can only remember fighting Andrew once prior to yesterday. Anyway, after training I thanked him, and he was nice enough to give me some advice. WOOT. Never seems to happen anymore. Anyway, he said that I was leaning forward a bit. Hmm, I think his may be due to the fight being with him, so I tried to step it up, and tensed up a bit. I noticed that when I fought one of the juniors, my back was quite straight, and I felt very relaxed, as I kept telling him to relax too (he was quite jittery). Anyway, I guess I just feel more attacking if I lean forward. I’ve noticed that K.Chin does this too. His kamae is slightly forward. Anyway, I’ll try to take this on board. I think leaning forward is like trying to manufacture that attacking feeling, whereas what I should do is be more mentally attacking with a good posture. Also, I’ve noticed that I’m not afraid to give my kiai during jigeiko anymore. I’ve been a bit reserved about it in the past, and saved it for shiai, but for the past couple of weeks, I’ve been using it more during jigeiko. Don’t know if it’s a good thing or not, but I really like the feeling of my kiai. It gives me a sense of that attacking spirit. That’s why I can’t kiai without my obligatory ‘SAAAAAAA’ for each cut. So its MenSAAAA, or ‘TESAAAAAA, DOUSAAAAAA. I’ve been told its similar to Russels kiai. I don’t think I tried to copy him or anything. It just kinda developed on its own. When I give 100% it just comes out, if I want to just kiai men… I don’t feel 100% of the cut, cos it takes some effort from me to maintain that kiai. Blah, what a ramble.

I’ve put my hand up for the mumeishi 3’s coming up. Will have to fight my way into one of the teams. Even if I don’t make it, it should be fun just to fight for a spot. When sensei asked who wanted to go, I noticed that DB put his hand up too... Hmm, he really thinks he's that good?

Focus

Late for Monday’s training cos I was helping out with the symposium.

Made sure I taped the callous on the big toe on my left foot, since it is very susceptible to cracking and splitting during training. I’d given up on this before because the bandaid seems to just come off halfway through training due to the sweat, but I figure I should ride this out until the damn thing completely heals. Didn’t have a problem before the first split, but after that first split, it seems so much more susceptible to cutting open. Bah.

Did a few kirikaeshi to warm up, followed with some kihon cuts. Quite a few late comers that night, and I ended up just receiving kirikaeshi for them during the kihon practice (since I was at the end of the line…). We then practiced hiki waza, like last week. Started off with slow deliberate cuts focussing on the basics, then we progressively went faster. Had Pai Mei for one of the rounds, and he told me to cut harder. I think I was stopping short for the taiatari, so I cut as if I was going to follow through. I’ve told others this before when I felt their taiatari was week. Guess I should listen to my own advice, but its always better coming from someone senior. We then worked our way up to doing the 19 cut hiki thingo… men hiki men, men hiki kote men hiki dou, repeated 3 times, then finish off with men. Did this a few times. After about 3 times, a few people dropped out and sat on the sidelines, which caught the ire of sensei. Hehe. He doesn’t get this way as often as he used to. I remember one time way back, where I was standing around during free jigeiko (we actually did that all the time when I was a beginner), and he told me off cos he thought I was slacking off, but I was just waiting for someone to spar with me, hehe, so he got me to spar with him. He was then further unimpressed with my performance, because I had a blister on my toe that popped and I couldn’t slide my feet. Sensei is too nice these days I think. Anyway, I felt shit during my hiki cuts. My ‘in’ cuts were rushed and shit, and my hiki cuts were all over the place. For the last one, I focussed too much on speed and spirit and lost my technique. Really need to learn to focus more, or at least refocus when I’ve lost focus…

Return of the green hakama…

Chris P. came and took the training last night… wearing his infamous ‘green’ hakama. I remember it being more blotchy that it is now where its more of a uniform green, though he swears it was never blotchy… yeah right… I know what I saw…

About 4 sets of kirikaeshi to start. For a few weeks now, I’ve found it hard to slow down for the first few. I seem to have come to a ‘cruise’ speed that’s kinda quickish. I try to slow down for the first couple of sets but it seems I just tend to go fast anyway. Anyway, by the 4th set, I was pretty much going flat out. Chris stops us and says, ‘OK, you should be nice and warmed up now, nice and relaxed, now do it flat out’. Dude, I ‘was’ going flat out. Bah, well time to take it up a notch. I can sense my technique wavering as I went flat out, but I tried to focus on getting my feet right.

We then did some kihon cuts, with an emphasis on having good seme. Chris told us to cut using the momentum of the seme, rather than doing it in two actions; ie. seme-stop-cut. I liked it as it gave me a sense of pressuring the opponent as I was cutting. We did this for men, kote and dou cuts. (quote from Pei on the forums: what is a doh? Hehehe, noob). Then did uchikomi with this feeling of seme. I found that this felt really good, though it came at the expense of whatever footwork I had before when turning around. Seems like its gone down a few notches, cos I seem to have to fix my left foot just before I cut, sort of a mini step. Need to just cut next time without mucking around.

We then worked on hiki cuts, starting from tsubazeriai. First was hiki men, 3 rounds, each round building up speed. The first round was just with 1 step back, second round with a bit more impact with the feet, then third round was a full blown cut. Repeated this for kote and dou cuts. I was struggling with my hiki cuts a few months ago, where my footwork was just all over the place, and I didn’t know how to fix it, but with time I seemed to have just developed it to a point where it felt right. Now I can just do hiki cuts without thinking about it too much. I still lack a good stomp going backwards (which is why I’m jealous of Pei’s hiki men cut). I think I just need to learn how to pick the openings during jigeiko. I seem to get blocked 95% of the time. Also need to remember to go back in jodan position after hiki men cuts. We then practiced doing men-hiki-men, men-hiki-kote, men-hiki-dou, men. Did this for a few rounds, then did the sequence 3 times in a row… twice. I remember doing this a few months back, and it felt much better then than it did last night. I think I was going back too far after the hiki cuts, and it stuffed up my rhythm.

The jigeiko. Quite a few rounds of short jigeiko, with a emphasis on getting that ippon within that time. Fights seemed a bit too quick for me. Can’t remember much from them. Something I realised was that I like to cut from a set position where my left foot is kinda locked and loaded to cut at any point. I think this may be the reason why I’m shit at uchikomi, because I either can’t cut from a less than perfect position, or that I’m not good at getting my foot into position quick enough. At the moment, it seems like my left foot is in the right position about 80% of the time. I should focus on getting this number as close to 100 as possible, so that I can cut at any moment… Hmm, more uchikomi geiko for me.

Rock Paper Scissors

Stupid guy in my lab seems to always do shit when he’s not supposed to, making me late.

Got to training late on Monday, but it seems like everyone else was aswell, either that or not many people were to be coming.

Managed to join the warm-ups by the time suburi started. Ended up doing almost 2 sets because people couldn’t keep at the same pace. Probably a bit too fast for me on the second set, which lowered the quality of my cuts. I’d been trying to improve the ‘quality’ of my cuts since the Monash Gasshuku, and adding things to it when I pick them up, like when Ben-sensei mentioned that the angle of the wrist on the upswing shouldn’t change. Since then I don’t let the shinai hit my back when doing jogai buri, but I still reach back as far as I can. So yeah, when we go too fast, I lose some of the quality, such as the snap at the end of the cut, where I don’t make the kensen wobble.

Anyway, back to basics to start the training. Did some footwork exercises which I always like. Don’t do enough of them in my opinion, especially for the juniors who a lot of them seem to have bad footwork. We did ayumi ashi and okuri ashi with increasing speed. For the okuri ashi, we also did some very long strides. I remember sensei telling Viet off for doing small steps, but he seemed to be moving further than me. I didn’t get to see how big his strides were, but I was a bit confused as to why my supposedly long strides (well sensei didn’t correct me) weren’t taking me anywhere.

This then moved onto stepping with a cut. I always like this exercise. When doing it, I focus on getting that back foot back into place so that I can cut at any time. However, I think I was lifting my back foot off the ground, because my multiple cuts didn’t feel quite right. We finished off the shinai geiko by practicing seme with an opponent.

Menstuke. 3 sets of kirikaeshi then back to the seme practice. I really liked the way sensei structured the waza practice. First was step in, then men cut. Then step in, and men cut from opponent, ie opponent breaks your seme with a cut, then just a straight men cut. Its like you can do this, but it can be beaten by this, in which you can do this… ie, a bit like rock paper scissors. I remember Ben sensei had a similar waza session with us on a Friday morning once. I think we should practice more like this to the point where we can do the subtle variations on a men cut whenever we want without thinking.

The class then split into seniors and juniors for jigeiko. Fought Reuben, Viktor, Sue and Jessie. First time I fought Sue, who’s from Korea and is shodan equivalent in kumdo I think. Can’t remember much, I focussed on getting a good men cut with an emphasis on the way we did the waza practice. Then fought Jessie. She didn’t quite kick my ass like she’s done in the past. Seems like she hasn’t trained for a while, so not many multiple cuts on me. In the past she’s done 3 cut combos like kote-men-hiki men, and really fast too. But it was heaps of fun fighting her. She’s got lots of spirit. Afterwards she commented that my cuts were quite light, which I’ve noted myself, but hadn’t really bothered to make them heavier. I think I have good tenouchi, because when I do air cuts (when someone dodges or moves to the side etc), my shinai ends up in a pretty good spot. Perhaps I just need to aim my cut a couple of cms lower to have more oomph. She also said that my cuts were accurate though… huh? All this time I thought my cuts were crap. I guess I only remember the crappy cuts, and don’t really remember the good ones. If I do 10 men cuts, and one of them glances a bit to the side, that would be the one I’d remember, not the perfect one. However, I did feel good on Monday. Not too many missed cuts during practice.

At the end of training, sensei indirectly lamented the lack of numbers on Monday, saying that you should train at least once a week etc. I've noted this in a previous post, where part timers were bringing the level of kendo down, esp the juniors, who really can't keep up at all. I find that I don't get the most out of training against those who don't really know what they're doing, ie, just standing there, no real intent to training, and just going through the motions. On the bright side, I like the smaller class. Its mostly made up of people of do train regularly so training is more enjoyable. Also with a smaller class, you're pretty much assured that sensei will look at you at some point during training, so you at least feel like he'll point out something to you if its drastically wrong. Perhaps I'm sitting a bit high on my horse with this, but as a first year kendoka, I trained pretty much every training, exam period being the exeception. I know as a senior-ish kendoka at the club, I have a responsibility to help more junior members, but they're not really helping themselves by coming in once a fortnight or even less. I've got this thing where I really hate having to help someone who really doesn't want to help themselves. It seems futile to me.

I feel, soo… unsyetisfied

Had the UMKC championships on Saturday.

Wasn’t really expecting much out of it. Maybe a good draw where I can win a couple of matches.

I drew Viet for the first round. Rematch from our last shiai before the AUG where we drew 1-1. Made sure I got a good warmup this time. Good stretches, and a few suburi, then a couple sets of hayasuburi. I was nice and puffed out, and I broke a sweat. My match was the third match so I put on my men and kote before the any matches got underway. Managed to get 1 set of kirikaeshi with Tom too. Before my match I just tried to relax, and keep my body warm. By the time it started, it was just all automatic. Last thing I remember was my kiai to start. Can’t remember how I scored my first men cut on him. Early on his men himo was loose, so the fight had to be stopped. I had to go back and squat down holding my shinai in front of me. I did it without thinking, because I’d seen it done before. However, while Viet was doing his himo, I realised that my kensen was pointing down, and I thought to myself, hmm, I think the kensen should be pointing up. Sure enough, Pai Mei, who was shimpaning, had a quick word to me, telling me that it’s the other way around. I saw Masato (said with a really aussie accent) taking pics with Russels camera, and I was really hoping that he’d taken one of me in that pose, but alas, he didn’t know how to use Russ’ camera. Anyway, the fighting got back underway. A few ai-men cuts, I attempted a nuki dou in there too, but it didn’t land nicely, damn. Then at one point, he had his shinai in a katsugi kinda position (probably after going back from a hiki cut), but I saw his men was gaping open, so I went for it, but I was too slow, he got my kote which scored, even though my cut landed on his men. I don’t think that’s fair really, yeah, sure, he cut my hand off, but he’d be dead once I sliced his head in half! Ah well. 1-1 again eh… lets play. Now this is the first time, or the closest, I’ve ever felt being in ‘shiai’ mode. I just felt really focussed and had that constant feeling of wanting to cut. For the last cut, I just remember seeing the opening and I went for it. His shinai went slightly to my right, so I went for kote and BAM! All in all, it was a really enjoyable fight, I wish all my jigeiko’s are like that, cos kendo would just be heaps more fun. So yeah, now I’m out to perhaps ‘manufacture’ that feeling, though I have tried it before, mainly during ippon shobu, but well… it just feels ‘manufactured’. And yeah, I swear at one point, Viet took his left hand off the tsuka and held the blade with his left hand when trying to block one of my hiki men cuts. That was dodgy as, and I even paused to wait for the hansoku, but no one saw it.

Then my next fight was with Tom. Dang! What a shitty draw. He’s AUG champion, and selected in the green and gold team, ahead of dan grades! But yeah, this is the attitude that lost me the match. 2 quick cuts and it was all over. After the match, I was pondering what went wrong, and the biggest thing that went wrong in that match was my spirit was killed by Tom’s reputation before I even stepped into the shiaijo. I was all over the place. Even when we bowed before we step out, I said arigato. Bleh, not focussed at all. I wish I had my time again though. Hmm, perhaps this can help me ‘manufacturer’ that spirit, ie, for my sparring from now on, I can reflect upon this fight and play like I know I should have played, rather than the way I actually did. So yeah, this is the lesson in how NOT to do it. Tom went on to win the championship, so I didn’t feel that bad, but still feel bad for the way I performed.

He beit me, sturayght up… pay him.. pay that man his shinai… (in the voice of Teddy KGB, Rounders)

Serial Procrastinator

MONDAY:

Got to training a bit late on Monday and had to do a separate warmup. Kinda got my own now, its pretty much the same as the normal warm-ups except it doesn’t have the set of 8 exercises. Just do ankles and wrists, knees, hips, upper body, arms, then legs and neck stretches. I then just do the forearm/leg stretches to finish off. Nice and easy.

Marginally lost the race to get my men on first again. Damn, I’m too nice to let others win.

A lot of waza practice last night, with emphasis on being good motadachi. Went through different ways of receiving cuts, especially multiple cuts.

Class then split, with the juniors doing a practice shiai, and everyone else doing jigeiko. Was quite good, had the most senior people being motadachi and everyone else lined up to fight them. Had Jon first up. Somehow, I find it hard to maintain concentration for the whole 3 mins. I’d fight ok for the first minute or so, and then I’d just taper off and get owned after that. Just focussed on getting a good men cut against Jon. I think he let me get a couple in towards the end there, but they felt pretty good. I then fought Pai Mei. Wanted to give a better showing that what I did last Friday where I just got my ass kicked. Again, couldn’t hold my concentration for long. Towards the end, he’d open for me but I failed to cut, showing my lack of concentration. The motadachi then had jigeiko with themselves leaving us to fight ourselves. I fought Nicole and a couple of others whom I have forgotten now. Damn, been too busy to update and I’ve forgotten everything already!

WEDNESDAY

Just made it to training on time, though it was running a bit late. The floors weren’t even swept by the time I got there. Slack arsed juniors.

After the warm-ups, sensei made us do a few more suburi with an emphasis on the ‘snap’ of the cut, with a pause, ie. not just bouncing back up. I think I’ve managed to do this, though lately, I haven’t really thought about it, and I think it may have gotten back to the bouncy way. Hmm, learning kendo is like trying to catch water with your hands, there’s always some spillage.

Menstuke, and I got my men on first! By a long shot too! By the time I was finished, no one else had even starting putting on the men, they were all just tying up their tenuguis. Tsk tsk tsk.

As I was standing around waiting, sensei approached me and asked me about my fluid consumption for the day. I told him that I’d had about 2 liters for the day… he asked, 2 litres of what? I’m like… well… errr, water… sensei: ‘no coffee? Softdrink?’… err, no sensei, I try to avoid those in general, and especially before training.

Not much to say about the training, just a lot of the usual stuff, 3 kiri kaeshi’s (sensei realises that not everyone would survive more than that in the heat). Then a lot of uchikomi style practice. Before each set, he’d name the cuts we’d do, always in sets of 5. He watched me at one point, and noted that I wasn’t cutting fast enough, that I was pausing inbetween cuts. I think this has to do with my feet. I’m not getting them in the right position after I turn around. After that, I made an effort to cut as soon as I turn around, no matter what my feet were like. By the end, I think I was getting my feet in a good enough position to launch for a cut. However, it was still difficult, because some motadachi wouldn’t move to maintain the correct distance so sometimes I was too close or too far. I’d tried to fix my follow through and kinda got it to an ok distance.

Then did a few jigeiko. Fought Natalie, Guest from kenshikan and Alex wong. Bleh, didn’t really have much in it. Not much of a contest with Nat and Alex. Kenshikan guy was ok, seems like he’s done kendo for about a year or so.

Sensei then wanted the juniors to have some shiai practice, so the seniors did kata. I was in the ‘I know more than kata 5’ group, so we learned kata 6 and 7. I’d always thought 6 was difficult from watching it, but after doing it, its not that hard. Obviously, as with all kata, doing it well is another thing, but I managed to get the sequence of movements right. We just barely went through 7 once, so not really enough for me to remember all the steps. That nuki dou cut to kneeling waki gamae combo is kinda tricky. Hopefully I’ll get to practice that again soon, cos its one of the cooler looking ones to do.

Note to self, need to blog this shit earlier so I that I can still remember what happened.

Barely standing

Boy yesterday was hot! Made sure I drank heaps of water during the day so that I wouldn’t get dehydrated at kendo, but it seems I pissed out more than I actually drank.

Survived the warm-ups, but knew I wasn’t feeling too well. After the first couple of kirikaeshi I was struggling to stay upright. I think I suffer from postural hypotension, because everytime we stopped for sensei’s explanations, I’d start to feel lightheaded. After a while this just became nausea and I felt like throwing up. But I soldiered on. Did the ‘long’ kirikaeshi quite fast, though my partner was a bit slow when I was going backwards. Damn, why do they do that! All the juniors I’ve done this against have done the same thing, even when I was almost not cutting him, he’d still just leisurely walk forward. I felt like disrupting my kiai to yell at him to hurry up, but I just did it at his pace. Had to squat down after that.

Most of the training, I just slowed down and tried to work on my fumikomi. My heel has been in slight pain since camp, and I think its due to bad angle on my foot stomp. The pain resides towards the back-right on my right heel, so I focussed on trying to get a flat foot stomp. It actually felt good. I managed to stomp harder than I usually do, and somehow it seemed to propel me forward, not that I was speeding through with my cuts or anything, but it seemed to take less effort to follow through with the correct stomp. From this, I seemed to ignore what my arms were doing, and as a result, got told off by Pai Mei. He said I should try to do faster cuts with my arms, or push faster with my feet. I guess I slowed down too much, but hey, I felt like I was dying.

Then 1 jigeiko. I had Andy. Always like fighting Andy. By this stage I was quite out of it, nauseous, lightheaded, etc, so to start the fight, I gave my best kiai, that extended for quite a while. I think Andy sensed that I was quite serious, but it was all I could do to try and stay up. It was almost like I was yelling at myself to stay up and fight. Did quite a few of these during the jigeiko. I tried to focus on his eyes this time, to try and find a reaction in his eyes, but he’s got a really good poker face. I think I focussed too much on his eyes, and didn’t ‘notice’ the rest of this body/kensen, because a couple times, he cut kote on me and I didn’t even pick it. And when I tried to go for cuts, his eyes didn’t even flinch. This was very reminiscent of Tony, who has a really strong gaze. Don’t think I fought that well because I was too focussed on one thing. Will try to work on this with more awareness next time.

I think sensei realised that everyone was pretty much buggered so he made us do kata. I was paired with Mike, we were the only 2 that apparently know kata’s 1 to 5. He was a very good partner to have. Really good focus/zanshin, which helped with my own. A few minor points about some of the movements:

• For kata 2, as shidachi, I need to wait for the cut to come down and move a little later. Also lower my kensen a bit more before I cut, and cut with more confidence, ie. closer to the uchidachis wrist.
• For kata 3, as uchi dachi, I need to give a better slap against the shi dachi’s tsuki when going backwards. We worked on it, and in the end, I managed to do 1 that I ‘felt’ was really good. At least I know have a reference for future practices.
• For kata 4, there was a bit of a discrepancy about who should take that step backwards after both go for a men cut. I’ve been told that the uchi dachi should take a small step back, but I’ve also been told that both uchi dachi and shidachi should take a small step back. Anyway, I’ve adopted that the uchidachi takes the step backwards, because it is he who is ‘controlling’ the kata.
• For kata 5, as the shidachi shows his zanshin, he takes two strides back ayumi ashi style. I think I took a small step back as I lowered my kensen to his eyes to show zanshin which is incorrect.

Stupid soccer

Played a staff vs student soccer match in the afternoon (I was on the staff side) and screwed up my ankle quite badly. Damn! My shin was bleeding too, which I didn’t even notice until Yvonne pointed it out to me. So yeah, just watching the training last night.

During the warm-ups, Mike got to the hayasuburi, and asked everyone how many they think they should do, so up in the stands, Yvonne yells out ‘100!’. Mikes’ like ‘Oooh, 100, who said that? Must be Yvonne since she’s not trainging’. Hehe. Anyone reading this that had to do it, be sure to ‘thank’ Yvonne at the next training.

Sensei didn’t come last night, nor did Pai Mei, so Josh took the training.

Throughout the training, there was a common theme. I’d noticed that the level of the juniors was quite poor. I remember that after about 6 months of training in kendo, I had at least some decent basics, which few from this batch seem to have. Even Yvonne noted that they were shit. This may be due to the large size of the group, so they don’t get as much attention from sensei as I used to get. My beginners group was merely 15, and by second semester it was probably down to about 7 or 8, so we’d obviously get more attention. Maybe it was just because it was the first training back from holidays, and all the non regulars decided to come back.

One thing that kinda annoyed me (and I’m sure this is going to come back and bite me in the arse) was the number of times people decided to drop out, either to fix their himo or catch their breath. It just kinda fucks it up for everyone else. I think during every single rotation, there was at least one person left stranded by themselves without a partner.

Hmm, not much else. I tried to note P<3I’s performance so I can give her advice, since she’s always asking for it. Hmm, didn’t know where to start. However I’m still jealous of her hiki men. Mine just plain sucks.

Another thing, I noticed Chiaki fighting one of the juniors during jigeiko (one of the Potter twins). He’s only a part timer so I guess I shouldn’t be too hard on him, but yeah, at one point, Chiaki opened for him to cut men, and he jumped back in fear, hehehe (she was making mince meat of him prior to that).