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.
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.
posted by Son at 6:04 pm
4 Comments:
one sentence for jigeiko with me? awww...anyway i didnt even realize if you're kiai-ing, i cant be intimidated by you if you keep making funny faces at me at tsubazeriai
update your blog you lazyass!
some people had been waiting ages for this abandoned blog to be update...
Wow, as the first poster on my blog for 2007 you have won a prize!!! Too bad I don't know who you are, and since there is no way to verify your identity, I will have to abandon my prize giving generosity.
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