Hunger

Went to training on Monday. Good to see the numbers have lifted slightly. Mike was there so he took the warm-ups. Maybe I just haven’t done it enough, but last week, being the dojo ‘steward’ kinda took my mind away from my kendo a bit. I just realised it, but Kristina was telling me about her sempai from Sweden the week before. She said that Carolina found the training in Melbourne more relaxing because she didn’t have to take the trainings. In her own dojo, she actually takes the trainings because there is no sensei. So though I still find it a bit nerve racking, I look forward to being the steward any time I can. I guess one good thing about it is that in a way, it actually gave me some confidence. It’s a bit like doing keiko (all except jigeiko) with a junior. Somehow my kendo feels ‘easier’ than normal. I’m assuming that I should bring this confidence against all opponents, no matter their level. I think I was able to achieve this to a small extent at Mondays training. We had jigeiko against motodachi. The great thing was that all motodachi were at least shodan or above. I was able to fight high level players one after the other. Anyway, back to the confidence thing, I felt this most when I went against Alvin. The last time I fought him, he completely nailed me with all his tsuki’s. When lining up to face him, I was actually looking forward to it, rather than think ‘shit, he’s going to kill me again’. I think this is a huge step forward for my kendo in the past few months, which I think was helped by the state trainings.

Anyway, as for the trainings, we just did kirikaeshi, some kihon and a little uchikomi. Then we did jigeiko against motodachi. I was able to fight Hiro, Kevin Chin, Alvin and Andrew. Can’t remember much about the actual fights themselves now. Just one thing really stuck out in my mind. Last week, I asked Hiro about doing tsuki, and he advised that I should try to practice morote tsuki rather than katate tsuki. Anyway, I was kinda practicing this whilst waiting to fight alvin, and Mike noticed it and encouraged me, hehe. Anyway, when I went to fight him, he played jodan against me. Sweet, what a golden opportunity. As we both stood up, I felt the maai was a bit close so I went for the tsuki. However, it felt like I had a bungee cord strapped around me because I couldn’t feel any power going forward. I realised I wasn’t pushing off strongly enough and it made me reach forward with my upper body. Then it struck me, ‘was I doing this with all my cuts’? Anyway, that’s on my ‘to do’ list for kendo, and its second from the top which is maintain good posture. Hopefully this is a good combination of things to work on, since trying to push forward can also cause you to lean forward, eg trying to cut from further away.

After jigeiko against motodachi, we did mawari jigeiko. Sensei instructed that we should treat each of these jigeiko as a series of ippon shobu. I also really liked this. Especially going against someone who’s better than me. Thinking this way helps me to refocus after each point and just get back into it. The only thing was towards the end of the training I was starting to feel a bit run down and my cuts became flat. I really hate when this happens. It’s a dream where you try to run but you can’t seem to move too fast. I hope this is not a psychological thing where I’m mentally giving up. I assume it might have more to do with nutrition. I think this is something that I’ve neglected when preparing for training. I always make sure I have something to eat in the morning and have a decent lunch on the days of training. However, I think more can be done. I find that having a huge bowl of rice the night before seems to give me more energy, the low GI type where I can last a bit longer. Anyway, since I restarted kendo last year, I’ve found that I am eating more than I did before. I think its time I start to eat smarter rather than just more. Those shrek toys at Macdonalds have been killing me.

Anyway, I didn’t train yesterday because I finished at uni at 6:30 so I just came to watch the second half of training. I think missing a training here and there might be good. Sensei made me keep time for jigeiko. It was a good chance for me to watch. I enjoyed watching Kenji and noticed how straight his posture was throughout his cut. I find that I ‘learn’ better when I have good examples to try and emulate. Also, standing on the sides and watching made me want to train, which is good I think. It helps to prevent me from the ‘going through the motions’ mode and makes me a bit more enthusiastic to train.