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.
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.
posted by Son at 2:54 pm
1 Comments:
I think I was doing many small strides, that may have been why I was in front. But it's kinda tricky doing long strides, because at the same time you want to keep your head at the same level rather than bopping up and down...tricky!
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