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.