Long time listener, first time caller
My first post in a while. My kendo felt quite shit from Feb through to March, so I hadn't been really enthused to write about my kendo. But a lot has happened since then, and I plan to go to more trainings now, so I want to get back into the habit of detailing my progress.
Anyway, I've signed up to the victorian squad trainings and will fight for a spot on the kyu team. Had 3 trainings so far with Kelly sensei as the coach and Ron Walker in charge of the kyu team.
For the first training, we went through some technical stuff. The best thing I got out of it was the suburi from sonkyo. This exercise really makes you focus on your abs when cutting. If you don’t use your abs properly, you rock back and forth, which is incorrect. When you translate the use of abs when doing cuts standing up, you feel much more stable. I should endeavour to do more suburi at home with this exercise. In the past I’ve neglected my kendo homework because I don’t like to do suburi from seiza cos my legs go numb. The other things we worked on were holding the shinai correctly with our left hand, ie at the correct angle and with the 3 fingers always closed.
For the second training, we had shiai. 2 fights each. I just remember that I didn’t really bring my spirit that day, and just felt really flat in each fight.
I didn’t train for the third session cos I had some food poisoning. I got there a bit late and pretty much went straight to the toilet. Not pleasant. After that I felt better but was a bit too embarrassed to join the training, since Kelly sensei had made a point about lateness prior to that.
Now to the regular trainings. I’ve tried to go to all the regular trainings in the past couple of months in order to get my kendo back to where I felt it was. I was only training once a week for a while and felt like my kendo just went downhill, and I don’t want that to happen, especially now that I’ve committed myself to trying to make the vic squad. AKC is only 2 months away now.
Luckily for me, my recent efforts to attend more trainings netted a very nice surprise last Friday morning when I went to training. Not only was Shepard sensei there, but Macak sensei also showed up! Now, training with 2 sensei, with only 3 others! That’s the best sensei to student ratio I’ve ever practiced with. Unfortunately I didn’t get to spar with Shepard sensei, but the overall training was great. I’ll try to remember that focus I had throughout the whole keiko in the presence of 2 sensei, and try to bring that feeling to every training, regardless of who is taking it. I also got a souvenir from Alex during jigeiko where he tried to go a gyaku dou on me which landed on my left elbow. Nice dark purple patch from that one.
Anyway, I’ve been trying to work on correct use of my left hand and I think its slowing me down. I’ve tried to put more of an angle on my grip (more towards a golf like grip rather than a hammer grip). It feels a bit weird, like I don’t have the same control as I did before, but maybe its just because I’m not used to it yet. I’ll try to persist and see if I improve or not. Its probably a good time for me to reassess my basics, since the beginners course has finished and we’re doing combined trainings now.
Anyway, I've signed up to the victorian squad trainings and will fight for a spot on the kyu team. Had 3 trainings so far with Kelly sensei as the coach and Ron Walker in charge of the kyu team.
For the first training, we went through some technical stuff. The best thing I got out of it was the suburi from sonkyo. This exercise really makes you focus on your abs when cutting. If you don’t use your abs properly, you rock back and forth, which is incorrect. When you translate the use of abs when doing cuts standing up, you feel much more stable. I should endeavour to do more suburi at home with this exercise. In the past I’ve neglected my kendo homework because I don’t like to do suburi from seiza cos my legs go numb. The other things we worked on were holding the shinai correctly with our left hand, ie at the correct angle and with the 3 fingers always closed.
For the second training, we had shiai. 2 fights each. I just remember that I didn’t really bring my spirit that day, and just felt really flat in each fight.
I didn’t train for the third session cos I had some food poisoning. I got there a bit late and pretty much went straight to the toilet. Not pleasant. After that I felt better but was a bit too embarrassed to join the training, since Kelly sensei had made a point about lateness prior to that.
Now to the regular trainings. I’ve tried to go to all the regular trainings in the past couple of months in order to get my kendo back to where I felt it was. I was only training once a week for a while and felt like my kendo just went downhill, and I don’t want that to happen, especially now that I’ve committed myself to trying to make the vic squad. AKC is only 2 months away now.
Luckily for me, my recent efforts to attend more trainings netted a very nice surprise last Friday morning when I went to training. Not only was Shepard sensei there, but Macak sensei also showed up! Now, training with 2 sensei, with only 3 others! That’s the best sensei to student ratio I’ve ever practiced with. Unfortunately I didn’t get to spar with Shepard sensei, but the overall training was great. I’ll try to remember that focus I had throughout the whole keiko in the presence of 2 sensei, and try to bring that feeling to every training, regardless of who is taking it. I also got a souvenir from Alex during jigeiko where he tried to go a gyaku dou on me which landed on my left elbow. Nice dark purple patch from that one.
Anyway, I’ve been trying to work on correct use of my left hand and I think its slowing me down. I’ve tried to put more of an angle on my grip (more towards a golf like grip rather than a hammer grip). It feels a bit weird, like I don’t have the same control as I did before, but maybe its just because I’m not used to it yet. I’ll try to persist and see if I improve or not. Its probably a good time for me to reassess my basics, since the beginners course has finished and we’re doing combined trainings now.
posted by Son at 2:41 pm
1 Comments:
you have to attend more trainings...gambarimashou!
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