Cram for Grading

Warm-up was a bit more vigorous than usual. Suburi was done in sets of 30 all linked together, and all done quick fast. Halfway through, I sacrificed the quality of my cuts to maintain the speed. However, I found that doing snappy footwork made the cuts easier. Tom also made us cut shomen in response to his shomen, a bit like a showdown in a western. He’d cut and we’d have to react to cut him before he cut. It was done in a the warm-up circle, so we’d just all face him and did the suburi. It was quite fun, especially when he purposely changed the timing of the cuts and caught some people trying to jump the start so to speak.

Sensei started us off by dividing everyone into groups depending on what grade they were going for. I guess he separated 5/4th kyu’s from 3rd kyu and above. I was in the 5/4th kyu group and he took us through some basics. I’m assuming he spoke to the others about how to grade by doing jigeiko. Anyway, for us, sensei emphasised that we should go for the ‘medium’ size cuts (not huge all the way back and definitely not tiny tappy cuts). Also, for kirikaeshi, we should be performing it at a ‘cruising’ speed. During normal trainings I find that the speed of my kiri kaeshi is relative to the amount of energy I have. For grading, I should remember to slow it down a bit and make my cuts snappy and accurate. We also did some kihon men/kote/dou and some kote-men, kote-dou and kote-men-dou.

We then joined the others who were up to doing uchikomi geiko with a set pattern of cuts, men, kote, dou, kote-men, kote-dou, men. As Chris P. said, it contained the 5 most common cuts in kendo. I wonder if you can incorporate tsuki into uchikomi geiko, that’d be interesting.

We then did some waza practice which was suriage and kaeshi waza. First up we did men suriage men. I’ve tried doing this during jigeiko now and then, but it never seems to come off. Normally I’m more intent on trying to get debana men than do a suriage anyway. But I assume this would be a powerful waza if I got good at it. We then practiced men kaeshi dou. I don’t think I’ve ever pulled this off…EVER! Even during the waza practice, I always struggle. I’ve tried it a few times during jigeiko but yeah, I always end up twisting my body to do the cut. I think this waza must be rather ‘wristy’ where you really need to whip that shinai to cut dou just as you feel the kaeshi. I think I’m still at a stage where I’m doing a block-cut… where I probably should be thinking about the cut even before I do the block, so that when I feel the block, the cut just snaps around… Hmm, should try to practice it more often.

Then jigeiko. Fought Pei. She wasn’t intimidated by my kiai. Need to work on it. Then fought Chris P. I was surprised that I managed to score a few cuts on him. After training, he told me that it was hard for him to go all out during jigeiko, which is something his trying to correct, but yeah, when I was fighting him, he seemed… hmm, well for want of a better word, ‘easier’ to fight than usual. Perhaps I’d improved a bit since I last fought him, perhaps the recent shiai made me more of a ‘fighter’, but yeah, most likely its cos he didn’t go all out. Ah well, the fight was fun. At one point he tried to go for a cut but I stopped it with my shinai and pushed his kensen slightly to my left, leaving his men open which I cut. Don’t know what this waza is called, but I tried it last week and it worked then too, and it feels really good! The stopping of the opponents shinai feels a bit like when you show your hand in poker and your opponent realises your hand is stronger, hehe, then you collect the chips, but in this case, its score the point. Chris must have liked it cos he replied with ‘nice…’.

An aside to the jigeiko itself, I think Chris was kinda ‘giving me face’ when he said that he didn’t go all out, in a way apologising. I’ve realised that I’ve done this before aswell. Especially against people I like to fight. I remember when Chiaki was here last, I couldn’t fight at 100% during jigeiko, and well I felt bad about it, such that I apologised to her after the training. Ah well, don’t know what the correct etiquette is but I guess you should just be going at it 100% at training at all times.

The other fight that I remember was against Josh. Hehe, before the fight started, I insisted, ‘Josh, nito onegai shimasu’. Nothing doing. Anyway, we got up from sonkyo and he went straight into jodan. Hehe, well I guess this would be better than your average jigeiko after all. I tried to fight in segan against his jodan. It felt kinda ok, and it seemed to make more sense to me as we were fighting why this would be better than just chudan. I was mainly trying to do men suriage men. I also tried to cut his left kote in the jodan position too. At one point I was about to tsuki, but I held back, then kindly asked if I can tsuki him. He said ‘Sure, if you want to’. Cool! Too bad the I didn’t feel the opportunity to go for it after that though. Anyway, overall, I guess he’s still a novice at jodan, like he is with nito. He doesn’t quite kick my arse like he does when just fighting from chudan.

Anyway, overall, training felt good last night.

Too tight? You can fit a jumbo jet in that, and you're complaining that its too tight?

When its 30+ degrees, its always worrying if you can make it through the training or not.

We started training with a debrief of the Mumeishi seminar on Saturday where a few members went. As Tom said, a lot of the information is esoteric, so yeah, maybe a bit out of my league to try and comprehend. I think there’s a danger with trying to run before you walk so yeah. Something I did pick up on though, was that the angle on the left wrist should always be the same no matter the cut you attempt. This gives you the greatest reach for all cuts, and also stops you crossing your wrists during a dou cut (which I seem to tend to do, especially when I twist my body).

Then into menstuke. Damn tenugui. Had to re-put it on like 3-4 times cos it kept slipping off. Last time that this happened, I decided to shave my hair… Anyway, as it stands I wasn’t the first to get my men on, nor 2nd, nor 3rd. Bah, I’m getting too sloppy.

Usual training routine, with kirikaeshi (which seemed to flow from me nicely on Monday. Seems like I was back to my fastest pace). Then some kihon with an emphasis on picking the time to cut. The times to cut are: when you opponent has an opening, after you seme into uchima thus creating an opening and just as your opponent does his seme. We did all kihon cuts in sets of 3 in the aforementioned situations. I must have tied my men himo on way too tight, because at this point I was starting to get a headache, and couldn’t concentrate as much as I would have liked to. I probably should have stepped out to fix it, but I carried on, whilst trying in vain to relieve the pain during kotai. Baka…

Then had some uchikomi geiko, where I focussed on maintaining zanshin and continuously attacking. When watching sensei do it, he immediately does a seme step in after he turns around, so yeah, perhaps I don’t have to cut straight away as I turn, but rather, I need to be in an attacking frame of mind that I’m moving in to the cut, rather than just stand there. This was made clearer to me when I saw some others who did pause after turning around in between cuts. So yeah, the uchikomi seemed to flow better when I did this.

Then jigeiko. Just remember that I fought Kristina first up. My head was killing me, but I tried to persevere. The fight kinda felt good in a way, cos I didn’t feel like backing down, but rather, I tried to fight through the pain. Can’t remember much from the fight though. I vaguely remember fighting Sue, Blaine and one of the juniors, I think it was JC.

Probably should get off my high horse during training, but yeah, sometimes I just can’t help it. I tried to correct a few people on their cuts where I noticed that they were right hand dominant during their cuts. I find it hard to not correct people when I feel like I can help them. So yeah, this soup nazi is closing up shop… No more soup for anyone.

However, an interesting twist happened after training, where Kay (a visitor from Adelaide), asked me for advice after training. Hehe, I looked at her stunned, saying, but you’ve done kendo for 5 years! There wasn’t much I think I could help her with because I didn’t really come across her during training anyway.

Mumeishi 3’s

Had the mumeishi 3’s comp on Sunday. Had Kev Wu, me and Hiro on Team B, with Alex, Russel and Andrew on team A.

A bit disappointed for team A. If only Russel hadn’t stepped off the shiajo…twice! Still going into the final match, Andrew had to literally score 3 points in a row, without getting scored on. After his first point I was thinking he might be able to do it, but his opponent then equalised. He ended up winning the match 2-1, but it wasn’t enough to get them through to the next round. I remember sensing just a little bit of extra pressure on our team when they went out...

The match before us had a forfeit from the ANU team, so we had to rush to get ready for our fights. We played MBK B for the first round. Kev fought first against Sanday. Quite a close match ending in a 1 all draw. I went into the match trying not to think of anything. As soon as I stood up and gave out my best kiai, I immediately saw an opening. My opponent was Corrigan, and I noticed that he swung his shinai from left to right to maintain centre. So I applied a slight pressure with my shinai, and as soon as I felt him moving his shinai again (from my left to right), I went for the kote cut… Kote ari! Man, I think I fell in love with shiai at that moment. It was such a nice feeling, better than when I beat Viet at the club championships. After that point, the seemed to stick to me in tsubazeriai a lot. I didn’t mind because I figured I can block his cuts if he went for any hiki waza, and I had the upper hand, so I didn’t really need to score. So yeah, the game ended with me wining 1-0. Then Hiro fought and one his match 2-0 I think clinching it for us. This was my first team match and I really felt the ‘team’ spirit. Very different from individual matches.

We then fought Sydney B for the second round. Sydney kendo club decided to field 2 teams, and packed their A team with their best players, so I guess we got a bit of a reprieve. Their ! team consisted of 2 dan grades, one of which is a godan sensei, and an ikyu player, who Chiaki regards as the best kyu player in Sydney… These boys weren’t mucking around. They came down to Melbourne for the seminar with Sumi sensei and decided to play in the mumeishi as a bonus (well that’s what I got from talking to one of them).

Kev fought first and won 1-0 I think. Then my fight. Can’t remember what I was thinking at the time, but soon after the start I got scored on. Damn. I then remember I worked hard to try and make the openings, and forcing him to cut. I think I ended up equalising with a men cut. At one point in the match, I had his back to the edge of the shiaijo in tsubazeriai, so I waited for him to make a move and cut as soon as he cut. However, he ended up just moving back to issoku itto no maai, and stepped out. The match ended in 1-1. So yeah, going into the final match, we held the advantage, but Hiro put it beyond doubt by winning his match. Woot, into the semi finals! I really didn’t think we’d make it this far. In the morning, I had diarrhoea and had to take a nasty dump. By the time we got to the venue, I still wasn’t feeling 100% and felt like I was going to let the team down by not being able to even stand up. During our warm-ups I had to sit out before the other two finished because I really wasn’t feeling well. But yeah, once that first match got underway, everything seemed to just click into place and we just rolled along.

Anyway, there was a break before the semifinals. I could have spent this time keeping warm, but it was a hot day, and I really felt my energy draining. At this point I was feeling quite happy with the way the team was going. I was told by Mike that last year, the losing teams in the first round were fed into the other half of the draw, so you get at least two matches. This year, with 17 teams, they made it into a knock out comp. So yeah, I guess you can say I achieved my goal of going through 2 shiai matches, and these extra ones were bonuses.

Anyway, We fought mumeishi B for the semi’s. I think Kev drew his first match 1-1. Then my match. I can’t remember what I was thinking going into the match, but upon reflection, I felt like I was rather impatient. My opponent was at tsubazeriai a lot and pushing me, so I couldn’t set up my cuts from IINM. I think this led to my impatience, and I went into for a men cut soon after a separation from tsubazeriai, only to have my opponent score kote on me. Damn. Now the heat was on, but I felt my energy draining. I tried to kiai loudly to maintain my spirit but I this only resulted in a superficial increase in spirit. I just wasn’t mentally there as I was with my previous matches. Again, I felt like time was running out, so I rushed in for a men cut only to have kote scored on me again. I just wasn’t fighting the best I could, and I really felt like I let the team down. In hindsight, I should have played it a lot more patiently. I was always too eager to get back to IINM from tsubazeriai, rather than just waiting for my opponent to make the move. Sensei came up to me after that match and mentioned this to me, that I should be confident in blocking any hiki waza, and wait for my opponent to make the move, since he’s the one that wants to be in that position. Bah… Anyway, then Hiro fought. He needed to win by 2 points to get us to encho. Afterwards, he told me he felt like he let the team down too. I felt that during his match he rushed some of his cuts a bit too, just like I had. He ended up winning, 1-0, so it wasn’t enough to get us through. Overall, though I felt the team did well. I think on paper, we defeated teams that were better than us so I was quite happy by that. But yeah, the thought of playing so shit against mumeishi B just lingered with me.

I thought it was all over, until they announced that there will be a playoff for 3rd place. We played against the fudoshin team, Rees, Chiaki and Kristina. Kev lost his match 2-0. I had to face Chiaki, and thought well its all over now. That thought and my lingering thoughts from my previous match just killed my spirit. To start the match, I tried to do a chiki-kaeshi-dou buster men cut, where I hold the shinai high for a moment and wait for her to move her shinai away from the blocking position before I strike, but it didn’t come off, and from a few spectators’ points of views, looked quite funny. Bah! That was my secret waza designed specifically for her… damn, back to basics for me. However, after the match, Andrew said its ok to try something like that, but I should have done a couple of normal speed men cuts before I alter the rhythm for that kind of waza to be more effective, and yeah, I guess it makes sense, but I also wanted to surprise her. Oh well… She won 2-0. Men and kote. I swear, I got a hiki men cut on her at one point during the match. She even looked around to see if flags were up, but they weren’t so she just kinda shrugged and continued fighting. I think I may have gotten 1 flag for it, but well that’s shiai. Perhaps I didn’t cut with the monouchi, and it landed more on the tip of my shinai… Should have asked her about that after the match. Anyway, that was our campaign all over, no medals for us. Hiro went on to win the final match 1-0, but we’d already lost. Overall, it was a fun experience. Mike was right in saying that its somewhere inbetween otsuka and VKC. Not quite as laid back as otsuka, but yet not as serious as VKC. I look forward to trying again next year.

DB is a Dickhead

Seems like the start of trainings are becoming a bit slack these days. We seem to start the warm-ups later and later. I know I’ve been late the past few trainings, but I don’t mind doing my own short warmup if it means we get to do more kendo by the end.

Anyway, straight into menstuke to do the usual routine, and I was up first. Take that P<3i.

I’m really starting to not like dick balls.

The routine is similar to what we were doing at the very start of the year. Kirikaeshi, kihon, maybe some waza, uchikomi then maybe some kakari. Uchikomi and kakari are against senior motadachi who then do it against each other to gives the rest a bit of a breather. DB seems to think he owns the dojo so he sits right in the middle whilst everyone else is relegated to standing to the side.

During kihon, I tried to put into practice what Fenessy sensei said about cutting dou, and it felt really good. Cut straight in then step to the side. I made a point of only stepping to the side after I had made contact, and it seems that you do this by doing the fumikomi straight, rather than the side. The really good thing is that I don’t think it took away any speed from my cut, and I think it automatically fixed my posture too, since I was cutting straight forward, rather than to the side, where I’d twist my torso and it looks like a mess. So yeah, lift shinai like you’re going for men, fumi komi like you’re going for men, but angle your cut down to the dou. So simple really.

Another thing sensei said during kihon was that you shouldn’t ‘bounce’ your shinai after a kote cut. During kihon, the motadachi should move out of the way so that you don’t have to take evasive action with your shinai. I developed a bit of a habit of lifting the shinai up and to the left to avoid skewering my motadachi, though I do make a bit of an effort not to ‘bounce’ the shinai, where the shinai stays in place for that fraction of a second, a bit like I do during hayasuburi. Anyway, for one of the kote sets, I had DB. I did my cuts first, then he just osameto-ed. Ok… less work for me, but then he realised that he still had to cut.. DOH. Anyway, he did two and I stopped him because the class had all fnished, and so I waited at kamae to osameto, he just walked on pass… Hmm, this from the same guy that stood at kamae when everyone was finished because he thought that his opponent hadn’t shown him the proper respect. Bah. I don’t like DB very much at all.

Then jigeiko. First up I had DB. Man this just totally ruined my night. It kinda just stuffed up my rhythm for the rest of my fights. He seems to really like to cut dou a lot… A LOT, especially when there’s no opening. So I stopped him and told him that men is the main cut you should be going for, then kote, then dou. I wasn’t telling him to stop cutting dou, but he was like going for it everytime. Anyway, his reply was ‘its my favourite waza’. Well learn to do it properly first then dickhead. Bah. So then he starts doing some men cuts on me. What a clobberer. To do the cut, he dips his shinai down, then goes all the way back, then wham! Foolish me, I opened for him to cut me to encourage him to cut men. So I stopped him again. I told him to try and stop the shinai properly with his tenouchi, and that the cut doesn’t have to be so huge. So then he asks me ‘how big are your arms?’… WTF? Ok… they’re not that big, I’m quite skinny. DB, ‘Yeah, well my arms are HUGE, I can’t help it if I’m just stronger than you’. Bah, no more help for you! (said in the voice of the soup nazi). I just decided to go kakari on him for a bit, until I saw sensei come so I just stopped. Oh yeah, when I was first talking to him about his clobbering, I mentioned that he’s not going to make many friends if he just clobbers people, he said ‘I haven’t made any friends here anyway’ Well thank you captain obvious. That’s the only sensible thing I have ever heard you say, now perhaps you should think about why that is.

I then fought Reuben for all of 2 seconds. I was the odd man out, because Reuben hurt his finger or something, so I just did a bit of mitorgeiko.I then fought Melva, then Frankie. I’d noticed that Frankie had fought DB too, so I thought I’ll try to disorient him with some DB waza. Went for the huge men cut, but I obviously stopped it properly. Don’t know if he got the reference though, I even included that little dip at the start.

Bah, I guess I should have the sense to refocus, but I was just a bit annoyed after my battle with DB which affected the rest of my fights.

Sensei's sensei visit

Hmm, the class last night seemed to have grown from last week. People must be finishing off their exams… Damn. I was hoping it would get smaller.

However, we did get a bonus in the very special guest that came. He’s Australia’s first (and only I think) 7th dan kendoka, and he was Yakov sensei’s sensei!!! To quote Yakov sensei ‘You’ll be getting it straight from the horses mouth’. I had always wondered who taught Yakov so it was a real privilege to have him train with us. Recently I’ve been noticing how ‘beautiful’ Yakov’s kendo is. It seems so effortless. Its like the difference between my kendo and his is like the difference between a baby trying to walk and an adult walking. Hmm, perhaps not the best analogy, but yeah, when I saw Fennessy sensei’s kendo, it seemed ever more effortless. He seems to move slowly but his cuts are quite snappy. It was a joy to watch. I hope he gets to visit us more often.

Started off with the usual kiri kaeshi and kihon. Tried to work my way up to doing the kirikaeshi quite briskly, so that I was puffed out by the time we started doing kihon. I think I’m getting better with the impact of my men cuts but it seems that my kote cuts are still a bit weak. I feel like I have to just be a bit more careful about that, because kote cuts can hurt when done wrong. For the dou cuts, I seem to be moving to the right a bit too early. Fennessy sensei noted that people were moving to the side but the proper way to do it is to cut straight and make the impact before moving to the side.

Moving on, the focus for last night was nidan and sandan waza (multiple cuts). We pretty much did all combo’s of double cuts, kote men, kote dou, men dou, men men. I think the key to it is to make that first cut the best cut you can do. When relating to a real sparring match, you don’t really go in for the cut thinking I’ll do nidan waza, you go in purely for that one cut, however, for whatever reason, if it doesn’t come off, then you can still go for another cut, especially if going for the first cut led to an opening, eg, if you go for men and your opponent blocks, it leaves dou open. Another important thing to remember is the distance of the cuts. Its very important that you adjust your step so that you cut with the monouchi. No use trying to do a full step cut when your opponent is at chikama.

Then had jigeiko. I was lucky enough to fight the two visitors from kenshikan and mumeishi. The mumeishi visitor gave me some really good advice. He noticed that I was holding strong centre with my kensen but he didn’t feel any ‘pressure’ from me. He advised me to use my shinai to gauge my opponents reactions, and to do that, I need to vary the pressure of my shinai against his. If I just maintain the same pressure to hold centre, I become predictable. Will try this out at the next training.

I also fought Hiro which was fun. I was expecting him to kick my ass as usual, however, I noticed that he swung his shinai from side to side in a rather rhythmic motion, so I tried to pick up the start of that motion and scored a kote on him. He was quite shocked, and maybe a bit disappointed in himself, but I was quite happy that I can be that dynamic during a fight and pick up on my opponents idiosyncratic motions and exploit them.

All in all it was a fun training, I felt like I still had a lot in the tank, even though I tried to go all out from the beginning. I still don’t know what it is that makes me feel this way or gives me that energy, perhaps it was that muffin for breakfast, hmmm. Looking forward to the next training.

Game of Dice

Got to training kinda late again last night, but rushed to get my gear on so I didn’t miss out on the warm-ups. Instead of a circle we managed a dodecagon. I reckon we’d get a hexagon by next week.

I lost the race to menstuke again last night because my chin rag fell out as I was putting on my men. Damn. I’m sure if I had kept a tally I’d be way in front of anyone… ie Pei…

Did the usual kirikaeshi and kihon. Then a lot of harai waza practice. Harai men on the omote, harai men on the ura side and harai kote on the ura side. Tried to get more a of ‘J’ shape to my harai as it has been commented in the past that my harai was lacking any oomph, ie. it was too straight up and down. I needed more of a sideways movement to move my opponents shinai. Anyway, we did a lot it. Then did sets of it, ie, 3 harai men on the omote then 3 on the ura side. Harai kote men, etc. all the while building up the speed at which we do the cuts too. I liked it. I treated the fast cuts like it was jigeiko, ie. not just rushing in to do it, but trying to apply pressure then cutting. I think I just need to get some consistency now. A couple of my harai kote cuts felt really really good. Like it was just a degote cut, but with a harai thrown in. However, not all of them are like that. I think I just need to get some consistency in my kendo in general, even fitness wise. Last Wednesday I felt really good, yet on Monday I felt completely shit. I don’t think its just nutrition or the weather either. Gotta learn to focus more.

Anyway, we did uchikomi, and quite a bit of it too. Had 4 motdachi. Did it slow and big at first but built up the speed. At the end we did it kakari style. The whole training seemed to fit in nicely. For the uchikomi and kakari, I got through it ok, but still didn’t feel 100% of what I can do. At one point, Hiro (motadachi) was pushing me during my follow through, so yeah, I’m going to be working on that from now. A few weeks ago, I felt my follow through was quite good, but may have something to do with my busted right ankle that I can’t seem to go as fast anymore. Been wearing the heal protector but its not much of an ankle support… well I guess its better than nothing.

We then did jigeiko. Spoke to Tony after training and he mentioned that you can’t get better unless you play with the big boys. Well I guess I was lucky last night cos I got to fight against Michael, Tom and Andrew. Apart from Hiro and Josh, they were the most senior guys around. Pai Mei wasn’t at training because his wife has a bun in the oven… I very much doubt he reads this and I hope to god that he doesn’t but yeah, congrats to Pai Mei.

Anyway, I fought Mike first up. I think he’s improved quite a bit since I fought him at the start of the year. I remember he used to go backwards quite a bit. He then improved that to moving backwards but still in an attacking frame of mind. And he’s now improved more because he doesn’t seem to move back anymore, but rather forwards, and always applying the pressure. I wish I had some tangible improvements like that so I can gauge how much I’ve learnt.

Then Tom. Hehe. I felt like doing shiai style against Tom, so I tried to show strong kiai. I remember being scared of Tom at the beginning of the year. We he fights he’s quite aggressive, but as soon as he lowers that shinai he’s a really nice guy. I think out of all the people in the club, Tom has the biggest difference between Kendo mode and normal mode, and I think that’s why he’s so good at kendo, he’s like the incredible hulk, hehe. Anyway, I only landed 1 nice cut on him. He was suckering me to cut kote so he can do nuki men, but my kote was too quick for him, hehe. He still kicked my butt though. He was getting a lot of men cuts on me. Somehow, just before he cuts, he moves to his right, and just as I’m adjusting my body to realign my centre he goes for the cut… Hmm, a bit dodgy but well I need to learn to maintain that centre. Anyway, this action led to me doing a few air cuts where his men would have been.

Then Andrew. Again, he’s a rock. Hold strong centre, cuts very straight and direct. I seem to have this habit of twisting my body after I cut, so a few times I crashed into him from side on against his straight on. Hit my right arm on his mengane at one point, but luckily didn’t get my elbow, otherwise I’d be real sore. Don’t remember much of the fight, just that I didn’t have that constant attacking spirit as I did last week, I was doing more reactive kendo than proactive kendo. He caught me sleeping a couple of times at tsubazeriai and did hiki men cuts on me. Blah, need to find out why I felt so good last week so that I try to achieve it consciously rather than just show up at training and roll the dice.

Anyway, I’m in the B team for the Mumeishi comp coming up. In the team is Hiro, myself and Kev Wu. The other team has Josh, Russel and Alex. On paper we seem to have weaker teams than last year, however, last year were both all kyu teams. We have at least a dan grade in each team this year. Doesn’t really matter though. I’m looking to enjoy this comp and try to do the best I can. Lets hope I can roll double 6's for the event.

Dead tired

Got to training late last night. Missed out on the warm-ups with everyone. Man that’s gotta be the smallest circle yet this year. More like an octagon, and that’s with guests from other dojos! Those from other clubs were Chiaki (woot), Barnett (he’s been a few times to the club), and a couple of others that I’ve never seen before, one’s from MBK and another from Mumeishi (I assume it was mumeishi from his tenugui). Due to my lateness I did my own warmup, but it probably wasn’t enough, even though I was stuffed afterwards.

After the rei, it was straight into menstuke. Got beaten by not one but two (rather short) kendoka!!! Man, my kendo is going way downhill! Though Pei had a twist in her men himo and the lengths were all over the place. Tsk tsk tsk.

Kirikaeshi and I was just about done after 2 sets, and I wasn’t even doing them fast!!! From then on it was a struggle to stand for me. My feet were just shuffling, lacked any real spirit. A bit embarrassing considering there were a few guests. We did a few kihon cuts, then moved onto uchikomi against motadachi. Sensei picked me as one of the motadachi only because there weren’t enough seniors around, but then gave me a reprieve when Jon joined the training. Was really struggling at this point. Tried to do each uchikomi set in one breath but that was impossible. Had two of the motadachi urging me to follow through faster. Quite embarrassing. I tried to but yeah, my body just didn’t want to do any of it.

I’m blaming my lack of breakfast for my low energy… that and the spicy beef noodle soup my mum made for me the night before. It just didn’t sit well in my stomach all day. No wonder I had no energy. I feel like I need a decent bowl of rice for dinner the night before to keep me energised.

Anyway, we went onto jigeiko. Now, at any other time I would have relished the opportunity to spar with Chiaki (since she doesn’t train at UMKC anymore), but Monday night, well… I was almost ashamed to go up against her. It’s a bit like when I go up against Pai Mei. I feel I have to give face, and by that I mean do my best. I guess my thinking is that I want to make it worth it for them to be training with me. I don’t have delusions of kicking their asses, cos I know I’d get my ass handed to me, but yeah, always want to do my best. It’s the same with sensei I guess. Yeah, anyway, can’t remember much from this point on. I remember I landed a men cut on her, hehehe. She’d tried to resist doing kaeshi dou on me for the first half, but then she threw a couple in, so I tried to beat her with mixed timing, but hmm, this one may have been a bit unintentional. I remember lifting my shinai for the cut, but held it up for a bit, and saw her raise her shinai to block my oncoming men, but then she lowered it because I held the shinai there, and that’s when I cut, hehe. Sneaky. I found it amusing because my cut was quite slow. It bit like the exercise we did the other day, where sensei just made us lift our shinai, and let it drop (without forcefully bringing it down) and stop it with tenouchi. Anyway, I’ve been invited to train at Fudoshin if I want to spar with her again before she leaves for Taiwan. I’m just a bit intimidated at the thought of having to spar with Brett Smith sensei…

Anyway, not much more that I can remember. There was a point where I was sparring with Barnett from MBK. I noticed that he didn’t like being at tsubazeriai, and would always retreat back quickly, however, I actually don’t mind fighting from tsubazeriai. Anyway, he’d nod to me to indicate that he wants to go back, but I never nodded back. Well at one point, I decided to cut men just as he went back. This prompted an annoyed tilt of the head from him. Hmm, don’t know what the etiquette is, but I didn’t acknowledge that I was going to let him go back. Besides, he should still be alert when going back. I know I am. I try to move back as quick as possible to avoid being hit, but I also try to be ready to counter attack if my opponent does. So yeah, I didn’t get to talk to him afterwards, but I don’t think I was wrong to try and cut him. How else am I going to practice my hiki waza.

Small class

Smallest class at training last night since I started this year! Less than 20 people, which was really good cos sensei generally gets to see everyones kendo up close.

During the warm-ups he came up to me and corrected my suburi. It appears that my arms are too rigid during the swing. Sensei suggested that I should bend them just a little bit, so that I can get the ‘whip’ action on the down swing. The idea is go get the upper arm, elbow and wrist to all ‘snap’ at the same time. I think I mistook the advice given earlier by Ben sensei when he said that the wrist shouldn’t change angle during the upswing. I must have subconsciously reduced my left wrist movement on the down swing whilst trying to achieve this. Another important thing NOT to do is have arm, elbow and wrist snapping in place one after the other. Hard to explain, but if done like this, then the power of the cut is only coming from the wrists, because you loose the power from the elbow and arm since they locked into place before the wrist does. Hmm, I should be doing my suburi homework!

After warm-ups we did some more suburi where sensei emphasised the above points.

Menstuke, and I was first to get up! Hehe, Take that Pei! Sensei even came up to me and said you’ve beaten everyone by a fair bit Son, hehe. However, he then noted my uneven length men himo! DOH!!! Damn… I remember not really taking care when tying them last night, don’t know why. But yeah, the lengths weren’t too bad, but its my knot. It seems that I tie it a bit to the right, which stuffs up all the lengths. Man, I should have learnt this the first time sensei mentioned it to me. Tsk tsk tsk. I’ve also noticed that my men flaps aren’t exactly even. For some reason they’re a bit off. I think it may be due to me laying it to one side in my bogu bag. I should alternate it I guess. Or perhaps I should remember to tie the himo knot in the centre, as being off centre might be causing the flaps to fold unevenly. Man, now I have to reshape my flaps, being the anally retentive virgo that I am…

Anyway, on to training. I worked on getting more oomph out of my cuts. I slowed down all my kirikaeshi and didn’t speed up at all. I tried to focus each cut, with the thought of them landing on target with the desired impact. My cuts were still relatively soft though, compared to others, but I think I made some improvement. Don’t think I’ll be doing a Josh-like ‘Do I hit too hard?’ post on the forums any time soon though.

After the kihon practice, we did some kihon style uchikomi. First just 5 men cuts, then alternating men-kote cuts, then alternating men-dou cuts. I focussed on getting my feet right to cut as I turn around. I’m still shuffling a bit though, esp against those who just stand in one spot and don’t correct the maai after my follow through. I guess its up to me a bit, but yeah, I still can’t judge exactly how far to follow through so that I’m at the correct maai when I turn around. Anyway, I don’t know what it is, but my shuffling feet weren’t as bad as what they were on Monday, I felt a bit more coordinated. A bit frustrating, because not know how this comes about restricts what I can take out of the training. Bah. At one point, sensei stopped me and noted that my right hand wasn’t exactly on the shinai at all times. Must have kinda lost grip during the swing. He said that you should feel the shinai with your palm at all times. Making a mental note… Hmm, I wish the classes had been smaller at the start of the year, so that he can note some of these things to me before they become bad habits, as they are now. Ah well, from the wise words of Pai Mei…’It takes time’.

Then jigeiko. Sensei split everyone up into 3 random groups, though not quite random. I was in the most experienced group I guess, but I saw Andy was in the second group, so yeah, I don’t know what sensei had in mind. Perhaps Andy was picked as the ‘sempai’ for that group. He told me later that he didn’t have much trouble fighting them so yeah… Anyway, I got to fight Pai Mei, The Chin, and Reuben. Fight with Pai Mei was quite fun. He kicked my arse, which made me lose focus every now and then (when he cut me), but near the end, I just gave out a big kiai to refocus, and the fight was really fun for me. Don’t remember landing many good cuts during the fight, but I think I tried to apply pressure on him. Hmm, did this by trying to manufacture that constant attacking spirit, where its not just that I can cut at any moment, but that I actually want to cut him, at every moment!!! I think this manifested itself during ippon shobu, and I scored a hiki men cut on him!!! WOOT! Not every day that you get to score ippon against Pai Mei. Hmm, I just remember that I landed the cut, and it felt very similar to when I cut a men on Tom on Monday, where he commented that I had really good timing for that particular cut. Its wasn’t a conscious thing, perhaps its mushin, or as close to it as I can get anyway. But I know at tsubazeriai, I’m always looking to cut hiki men, and I’m very aware of the position of the opponents kensen. Trying to slow-mo the cut in my mind, and from what I can gather, I seem to pick the time to cut as when the opponents shinai is just starting to move to either side. This time against Pai Mei, it was moving from my left to right. Hmm, can’t explain it well, but I guess the timing would be similar to when you want to do a debana cut, either men or kote, where you cut just as the opponent is moving his shinai. Anyway, the fight was fun for me.

I then fought The Chin. He’s a rock. In the past, when I’ve gone for the ‘lets cut and pray/hope’ kinda cut, he’d just hold centre and I’d just tsuki myself. So for this fight, I focussed on his eyes, and tried to feel this shinai with mine, looking for signs of movement. Nothing doing. I tried a couple of harai waza, but they didn’t really work, as he holds his centre quite stongly. Guess you can really only do that against someone who has weak centre. I remember I scored a couple of cuts on him, one in which he responded with a ‘ooh, nice cut’ and another where he was more frustrated with himself and responded with ‘Domo’. Can’t seem to remember how I did those cuts. Bah, was too focussed on cutting, ie treating it like shiai geiko. Anyway, ippon shobu, and to start off we had a bit of a kiai match, hehe. I’d kiai, he’d respond, I’d kiai louder, and he’d respond, hehe. I quite liked it at the time. It was like both of us telling each other that we’re both ready, and not in a kinda disrespectful way, such as the NZ haka (well from what I understand, its rather aggressive). This was, well, intense, but with a certain kind of respect, which I wouldn’t call aggressive… Fun more like it. Anyway, I scored ippon on The Chin too! All my xmas’ came at once! Wasn’t as proud of this one though, it was more like ai-men, though I felt my cut was straight and landed first (by a noticeable margin). I was ready to keep going considering it ai-men, but The Chin gave me the point.

I then fought Reuben. Tried to focus more on my technique than the cut this time, ie. posture, grip etc. He liked to go for dou cuts, and missed a few times. Hit me in the rib, arm, fingers… ouchies… I think this is the reason why I don’t really go for dou cuts, because I feel so incompetent at it that I’ll just end up hurting people. A thing he also does, which I’ve been trying to correct myself is the moving to the side before the cut. As I told Alex a couple of weeks back, the upswing of the dou cut should be identical to a men cut. Don’t know if its good practice, but during kihon dou practice, I’d aim for men, then strike dou on the downswing, just so that I do the straight step forward and straight swing up.

Wow, such a long post already. I guess it shows that I wasn’t just going through the motions last night, but that I tried to think about my kendo… either that or its just that sensei had a few things to say to me, hehe. Either way, I’m really happy with last nights training. Small class and learn a lot.

Pinky and the Brain

Last night seemed hot. I was really tired. Half way through training, my wrist started hurting, my left hand index finger got hit again, and my right ankle felt like it was going to fall off! Man I’m getting too old for this shit. 5 years ago, such injuries wouldn’t mean shit to me, they’d just heal in about a week and that was that, now little injuries like these seem to linger around a bit longer than they should.

Menstuke, and I’ve kinda given up the race. Ever since sensei picked up my ‘ever so slightly uneven’ men himo, I’ve been rather self conscious about it, and have made sure that they’re properly tied every time. I’m still always one of the first two up anyway…

I’ve been told this a few times before, but it was really driven home to me by Tom during jigeiko… that my cuts are too soft. During my fight with him, I wasn’t concentrating on anything, I treated it a bit like a rematch of our UMKC championship match. Got a couple of good cuts on him, but don’t think he was going all out. Got a nice men cut on him, which he said was really well timed, and a nuki dou cut, which he wasn’t expecting, hehe. I’ve decided to throw one or two dou cuts in during jigeiko now, rather than just using plain old men all the time. Been focussing on making it look like my men cuts but then cutting dou on the down swing. Still can’t do a kaeshi dou though.

Against the other partners, I concentrated on keeping my posture straight, and trying to give my cuts a bit more oomph. I think its true that men can’t multitask, because when I focussed on my posture, I felt a bit flat footed, and my cuts were soft, when I focussed on making more impact with my cuts, I inevitably leaned a bit forward. Bah. I felt good fighting one of the juniors though. For most of the fight, I just focussed on posture and kamae, and tried to open every now and then to let him cut, or seme in for him to react and cut. Then towards the end of the fight, I started making proper cuts, and they were all landing. Hmm, didn’t realise the gap was so different, but I guess its like when I go up against Pai Mei, the gap is somewhat the same, like he can cut at will.

Eager to correct my pathetically soft cuts, I approached sensei after training and asked for his advice. He told me to improve the ‘snap’ at the end of my cut by using my pinky finger. Also need to really push off with my leg to get that feeling of a snap. Other than that, he said he’ll have to see what I’m doing during training to give more advice. I think I’ll try the pinky finger thing for tonights training, and also try to use my brain so that I'm able to do more than one thing at a time.