Back at training

Went to my first training for the year on monday, and now I’m still sore.

Got a bruised heel, so I’m hobbling around, and both my wrists are stuffed. Got hit on my left wrist by Pei, and got my right wrist yanked out of place by Avi. I really should go and see a physio to check my right wrist. Its constantly sore now.

Anyway, I didn’t get much out of training. My aim was just to get my kendo fitness back. The warmup felt alright. Suburi’s went a bit faster than I like but I scraped through. By the time we did hayasuburi, I was barely able to keep up. From this point on, I was just struggling to keep standing. Did 4 sets of kiri kaeshi. Lost my voice by the 3rd set, and was a complete mess by the 4th. We then did some kihon, with an emphasis on ‘building’ it up with each set. Start off with big cuts, then progressively get bigger. It’s a good reminder, because I find it hard to kind of hold back to do the big cuts. I should learn how to do them with everything I have but just make them big, but it just doesn’t come out that way, they kinda come out a bit limp. Anyway, I was actually happy with my dou cuts. They mostly landed on target and without much effort on my part. Anyway, we finished off with 3 men cuts followed immediately with kiri kaeshi. Managed to get through it and thought to myself, cool, we can do jigeiko now. But when everyone finished sensei calls out ‘osameto!’. Damn, I thought that was it! He then delighted us by saying we’d be doing uchikomi. Doh! I was really stuggling with my cuts. I may have gotten a couple of decent cuts in there when I tried, but it was so hard for me to try by this point. Finished it off with kirikaeshi again and I was really stuffed by this point.

Luckily, I fought Candice first for jigeiko. Started off with a men cut, bam! Hehe. Did it more to try and get that jigeiko feeling back. After that, I just kinda, sat back a bit. I was a bit surprised on how good Candice was. I think she won a fighting spirit award at last years club championship, and I can see how it was deserved.

Then fought Tom. Had quite a bit of fun. Managed to score a couple of cuts. The thing was that I was in full spirit fighting Tom. Ever since I lost to him at the club championship last year, I’ve tried to go all out on him when i get the chance. Overall, he still kicked my ass, and I don’t think he was even going at it 100%. But it was fun for me nonetheless. I really felt that fighting spirit in me. I wish I can get that kind of spirit everytime I fight.

I was quite stuffed by this point. Fought melva, nothing much to write about. I kinda relaxed a bit to catch my breath. I then fought Avi. I wanted to fight the same way I fought against Tom, but my body just couldn’t manage it. It was kinda weird, cos in my mind, I felt similar to how I felt against Tom, but my body wouldn’t move when I wanted to, a bit like I was having a dream. Ah well, hopefully my fitness comes back soon so that I can last the whole training without feeling dead.

My final kirikaeshi for the night sucked. My left arm could barely lift the shinai, and I had to over compensate by using my right arm, which I loathe to do.