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.

Adios muchachos

Was senor Diablo’s last training with us on Wednesday. Tried to make the most of it since he didn’t really train that often in recent times anyway.

I had to take the warm-ups cos there wasn’t anyone else. Was a small class too, less than 20 to start off with. I kinda got distracted through the warm-ups, and only did 1 set of the second exercise causing some confusion. Also got corrected by Hiro as to the order between the leg/arm stretches and the calf raises/star jumps. I decided to break from the ‘norm’ and do the calf raises/star jumps first, since that’s the way we did it way back when I first started. Don’t know why its changed since then. It was actually not even part of the warm-ups last year, so yeah.

We did the usual kiri kaeshi, kihon and uchikomi sequence, where uchikomi was just done in pairs, not against motodachi. I managed to get David in the rotations. I find that he likes to make you run towards him, actually making the distance between you and him further as you turn around, rather than coming into distance. Any, for my final cut, I did a viet style running jumping men. Was kinda fun. Good workout.

Sensei then chose motodachi for jigeiko. I tried to weasel my way out of it, which I did cos there were plenty of seniors around by that time. I quickly ran to line up to fight David first. Was the first time I ever got to fight him. Was fun. Unfortunately it only lasted 2 minutes. Afterwards, I asked him for advice. He gave me advice on my mental state when I cut, saying that at the moment, I’m still just going for the contact of my shinai on the target. He says that I should want to rip my opponents heart out. I’m sure its just a metaphor for improving my kiai and zanshin. Its kinda funny, cos I’ve commented to others in the past who had less zanshin that myself I guess, that they should want to kill me when fighting me. Maybe that’s the difference between 4th kyu and nidan, it gets more barbaric as you move up the ranks. I lament that I didn’t train regularly when he was, but at least I got to fight him before he left. He will be missed.

Keep that back straight

Trained again yesterday without my heel protector. I find that my heel is a little sore, but nothing like what it used to get. We also got a guest from Sweden. Carolina who was Kristina’s sempai.

Did the usual kirikaeshi and kihon to start. First time in a long time that sensei has trained with us in full bogu. His ankle must be much better now. Been trying to work on my posture lately. As I state in my previous post, I’m working towards a posture like Kate. Anyway, during the kihon practice, I managed to pair up with sensei for the men-do practice. Anyway, I was a bit disappointed with myself that he commented on my bad posture since its something I was working on, and hoping that I’d at least be doing it right. He said that I kinda leant forward for the do cut. So yeah, disappointed with myself that I’d lost focus so early in the training. I guess it was good in the sense that it made me refocus on what I want to improve. I made an extra effort to use good posture after that.

We then did uchikomi keiko. Was picked as the last motodachi. Again, tried to maintain my posture during that.

After the motodachi did uchikomi and kakari geiko, we did jigeiko against a motodachi. I fought Kristina and Andrew. I really liked the fight against Andrew. I remember a few months ago he’d commented on my posture. He did directly tell me that my posture was bad, but instead he told me he liked to have his posture, which was more open and upright which allowed him to look ‘down’ at his opponent. I think that’s more a mental thing, where you can go against an opponent that’s taller than you and still ‘look down’ upon them. Too hard for me to explain. Anyway, I got to practice my kote-kaeshi men on him. I was able to pick it a few times, but didn’t execute it properly. My men cuts seem to land too close and not making contact with the correct part of the shinai. I might have to practice this going backwards to get the right distance, though I loathe to cut backwards unless its from tsubazeriai.

We then separated between the motodachi and others for more jigeiko. There was a bit of a cumbersome arrangement where most of the ‘middle’ level kendoka did jigeiko with each other, with 3 at the end, being motodachi for the juniors. I was one of the motodachi to start off with. I tried to give advice where I could.

Guess I'm back

Haven’t written about kendo for a while.

AKC was a bit disappointing from my point of view. Only lasted 5 minutes all up. Lost to the eventual winner first after he’d won his first match. I knew that I couldn’t get through after that which may have affected my second match, which I also lost. I really need to learn to ‘switch on’. I asked Yakov sensei at the AKC dinner later that night, and he said well you can’t really turn in on, it involves too many factors, or something to that effect. Since then I’ve adopted a training strategy where I try to force myself to ‘think’ that every cut I do is a shiai cut. And I don’t mean physically, its all mental.

Overall, watching the AKC was great. I rarely get to see this level of kendo so I guess I’m lucky that I volunteered so that I can watch it close up. One of the standouts for me was watching Kenji fight. I was lucky enough to be keeping score for all his matches, and have to say he was on fire, fighting better than I’ve ever seen him fight before. Was great to watch him fight Brett Smith who I also got to watch. I really thought Kenji had him beat, but he equalised with something like 10s to spare. Oh well, better luck next time Kenji. An encouraging thing for me was when (before the AKC) I fought Kenji and he commented that I reminded him of himself. Woot!

As I mentioned earlier, I also got to watch Brett Smith fight. One thing that struck me was his seme. Kenji had previously mentioned to me that seme is about creating a reaction from your opponent. When watching Brett fight, I really saw this up close. And not just that, watching how he took advantage of those reactions was great! I saw him do two cuts where he’s first use seme, understand his opponents’ reaction, then moments later do the same seme but follow up with a cut. Wish I could get it on video and watch it over and over.

Another kendoka who I really admire was Kate. I’ve really liked her kendo since last years VKC. She’s got such good posture and fighting spirit. During her marathon match in the finals, her posture at the end was exactly as it was at the beginning. Very straight and relaxed. I’ve been trying to emulate it since then. Its opened my shoulders up a bit. From that I realised how ‘haunched’ I was before and how tense.

Well after that I haven’t been training regularly. Went to Cairns for a week, then came back and got my left wrist almost ripped out of its socket. Really should let it heal completely, but I don’t want to miss kendo. I get the feeling that its not fully healing because of this, so its always at about 80-90% and at risk of further injury.

After missing a couple of trainings I came back last night. Apparently I missed a tiny training of only 16 members on Monday. Damn. The training was a bit busier last night with about 50 people. I eschewed my heel protector for the first time in a long time, and didn’t hurt my heel at all. There was only 1 cut where I felt a sharp sting from landing my foot on an angle, but otherwise my heel was fine. Hoping that its due to improved fumikomi technique.

Did the basic warm-ups, then kirikaeshi and some kihon. We don’t seem to do any waza training at all these days. I want to learn more waza, or at least the basics of which so that I can practice it in jigeiko. After kihon, just did lots of uchikomi. The pace was probably just a bit too quick for me, cos I was struggling after 3-4 rounds of it. I’m blaming not training for over a week for that.

We then did jigeiko. Was really happy that sensei picked me to go with the senior group (he split the class into 3, seniors, intermediate and juniors). I got to fight the new Japanese girl. I felt like a bully knowing that she’s only 16. I wouldn’t say that I was better than her, but yeah, she’s only 16. I managed land my cuts on her. And she’s nidan. Not everyday that I land cuts on nidan players.

Also fought Josh and his two swords. I was able to pick his timing. He has a tell when he’s going to push my shinai down with the shoto. Unfortunately, I didn’t know how to fully exploit it. I did manage to land a couple of men cuts, but then I tried to get more creative and tried for a kote and tsuki. Hehe, always fun, but he seemed to just overwhelm me. Something I need to work on. I find that I still flinch sometimes when I see a men cut. What a chickenshit.

Also fought Avi, Jon and Mike. They’re all shodan now, and I can see that their kendo levels are very similar, though they have different styles. Either that, or they’re just lowering their standards to suit me. Bah. Was fun fighting them all. Though I don’t think my kendo is as good as theirs, I feel I have a good chance at landing cuts and having somewhat effective seme against them, which makes the training so much more enjoyable for me. I think that’s the ideal sitting between being bored with someone with much less ability or being demoralised by someone who’s gonna kick your butt.

And then, there were 5...

Went to the last state training yesterday and was rather disappointed in the in. More on that later...

I think my kendo has been building up nicely in the past few weeks. I've been working more on the psychological aspects of my kendo. I think the main culprit of my inconsistencies are all in my mind, so I've been trying to work out how to switch on my best kendo, rather than just stepping in the shiai-jo and see what happens. Still haven't worked it out, but I'm working on it.

Went to the annual UMKC camp last week. Seemed to be shorter than it was last year, and I didn't feel overly worked, though my right ankle and left wrist were quite sore afterwards. As for keiko, there was nothing new. A lot of the same things, though I do miss the waza session that Kenji took last year. I feel that I really lack different waza. I guess its up to me to work on them during jigeiko, but I still have a lot of trouble with the basics. The only two cuts I feel I have are kote and men, and thats just shikake waza. I really want to learn ouji waza as I seem to just block a lot. We had the usual shiai at the end of camp and I was made to be shimpan. After a quick 'how to' from Chris and sensei, we were off. I quite enjoyed doing it. The mindset is not very different from the fighting mindset in my opinion. You have to focus on the two shiai-sha (like staring at your opponents eyes) but you still have to be aware of where you are in relation to the other shimpan (being aware of your whole opponent). Made a mistake early on, where a flag was raised but I didn't respond. Had sensei come up to me on the shiai-jo and say I need to make decision whether I agree (in which I raise a flag) or disagree and wave both flags over my crotch (sorry, can't find a better explaination). Anyway, not much to shimpan because I was shimpaning the juniors who started last year, so not many good cuts worth taking action over. At one point, Chris raised a flag for a cut, I assumed it was for kote, but from my angle it seemed to hit the opponents tsuka, so in an instant I waved both flags for no. It felt quite good cos I felt I made the correct decision. The only other action I got was when someone scored a men, and remember it connecting clearly and immediately raised the flag. I probably should have tried to note the other aspects of a cut, such as zanshin, but I had already made my decision. It was all over quite quick so I hope I get the chance to do it again soon. Like I said, quite fun, and indirectly helps your kendo.

I also had a shiai against Masa. I won with a men cut. One of those mushin style ones where I see the opening in an instant and the cut just happens. I thought it wouldn't score because Masa tried to duck out of the way of it but it landed on the 'sayu' part of his men. I am now officially Masa's enemy and he has vowed to kill me next time. hehe, I always enjoyed fighting Masa. Haven't really faced him that much this year cos he doesn't seem to come to training that often, but he used to come regularly last year and I felt we were kinda even when fighting which always makes it fun.

Regular trainings should be getting better now that the beginners are now wearing full bogu. A weird thing happened on wednesday, where sensei wanted some motodachi for uchikomi keiko. I had assumed that he would be picking me, since I was always picked at camp. Anyway, he went straight past me and didn't pick me, and I though, hmm, has something happened to my kendo that he thinks I shouldn't be motodachi? Anyway, there weren't enough people, so he called me to be motodachi, but then there were more than enough, so he made join the lines. Confusing for me. Anyway, my first set seemed to go on for quite a while. I was happy to go on, but Masa was my motodachi, and I think he thought it went on for a bit too long too, so he didn't know if sensei had called yame or not. Anyway, he hesitated during the keiko so I stoped to look around only to see people were still going. Sensei also noticed that we'd kinda stopped and yelled for us to keep going, so on it went for a bit more. As I ran to line up again, he said I shouldn't assume that its over just because its gone on for a while, and that I should keep going. Anyway, my turn again, and again it seemed to go on a bit longer than the others but I kept going hard as I could. Went to join the line again, and sensei gave me a chuckle and said to me 'I feel sorry for all these other people who have to do it while you're doing it'. So yeah, it dawned on me that sensei had wanted me to get a good workout. Don't know what I did to deserve it though. I had a chuckle myself and just tried to keep going as hard as I could. After my third set sensei told me to relax more as I get tired and do bigger cuts. Hmm, come to think of it, he may have overheard me say to Alex that I've been trying to take it easy (on my ankle and wrist) in the change rooms before training, and figured he'll have none of that... No softies in my dojo sonny... hehe.

So to the (semi) big day yesterady, which was the final shiai session for the vic squad and team selection. As I was warming up and getting ready, I kept thinking to myself that this would be easy, not in the sense that I'll just beat everyone easily, but in the sense that I've done this before, and that there's nothing to worry about. That the openings will come and I'll be ready to exploit as best I could. I fought Bertie first up. It seemed a bit lethargic. No cuts scored, both of us were a bit defensive I think. This was the same with the first 4/5 matches (most being hikiwake), which prompted Kelly sensei to stop the procession and try to gear everyone up and give a speech about how we should want to win. Straight away, I think the intensity lifted and people were going for their cuts more. I fought Ben next. Scored a kote then a men. For the men, I remember trying to use harai as a seme. As I was doing it, tried to watch his reactions, then somehow I saw the men open and bam, men ari. I love it when that happens, that I pick the opening and I cut without thinking. I think my 'disease' is that I think way too much during a fight. Too much strategising. I think what I should work on is work on my seme to be instinctive, so that I'll just react to openings. Hmm, maybe I just need more jigeiko to make all aspects of my kendo to be instinctive.

Anway, I was lining up to fight Andy next but Kelly sensei called a stop and told us all to keep warm. I was already standing next to the mirror so I just practiced some suburi whilst watching myself. I didn't think I looked very imposing.

After a bit Kelly sensei came back out and read out some names for 4 more matches. I was called to fight in the second match against Masato. I've been wanting to fight against him since we started but I never got the chance, and now here it was, and to fight for a place in the team no less. Can't remember much of the match which he won 2 cuts to none. I felt like I gave the second cut away, which was kote. It all seem to happen so fast, but I just remember kicking myself as I walked back to the starting position. Can't remember why though... Damn.

Kelly sensei then went away again and told us to keep warm again. When he came out, this time, I had two matches. One aginst Andrew and one against Drew, both from mumeishi. Hmm, can't seem to remember much of the fight itself. Just that he tsuki'ed me twice in the right shoulder, both of which stung but went away, then he tsuki'ed me again just below my left clavicle. Now this stung like a bitch. As it happened, I remember freezing for a moment when the pain hit me, then I just kiai'ed and tried to continue on, but painful just to hold the shinai in kamae. Anyway, I found myself shouting a lot after that to try and suppress the pain. I've done this before during jigeiko where I'd just give out my best kiai and I seem to just forget the pain. But this time, it kinda just kept haunting me. Anyway, I lost the match. I can't even remember how it happened. I was tempted to ask for a stop during the match, but I remember from last time when Alex got winded after getting hit in the ribs and asked for a stop, and the shimpan actually discussed whether or not to give him hansokku for doing so. So yeah, I just tried to keep on fighting as best I could.

I then had to fight Drew. I knew I couldn't fight to my best ability, but it all just seems a bit of a blur now. After I stepped out of shiai-jo I tried to give my shoulder a stretch to see if it helped. Wanted to rest a bit longer but all shimpan looked at me to see why I was taking so long, so I just stepped in and away I went. Again, just a lot of shouting and not much kendo from me. Was really disappointed as I knew I was literally fighting for a spot on my team. Now had I been able to fight unhindered I wouldn't be so disappointed if I lost to a better fighter, but as it was, I couldn't play to the best of my ability so I lost out. So yeah, there goes my chance at gettin into the vic team.

Anyway congrats to the guys who made it, who were Masato, Ben, Drew, Andrew and Tony.

If nothing else, I feel that my kendo has improved quite a bit since the start of the year. I'll definitely put into practice what I have learnt from the state trainings and hope that I don't forget anything.

Up and Down

I’ve found that my kendo is very inconsistent. There are days when I feel great and openings seem to just appear before me, whilst other days, I really struggle to see any and just go for the cut and pray style of kendo which I see a lot from last years beginners. Sheppard sensei made a great post about kakari geiko on the forums regarding the feeling during this keiko and the feeling you should you have during jigeiko/shiai. It’s a level of mushin where all you are thinking about is doing a cut, and everything else is automatic. Anyway, I find that my kendo feels the best when I can attain a certain level of this ‘mushin’. When my kendo feels shit, I feel that my conscience kinda takes over, and I’m thinking way too much. I need to learn how to switch this mushin on as at the moment, I only get glimpses of it randomly, and its quite frustrating. I’m sure there’ll be a few more shiai’s during the squad trainings, so being able to turn it on is going to be more important to me.

Squad training. Went through the official Vic team warmup at the squad training. Before that though, we had to do our own stretches, where my judgement of time screwed me over. We were supposed to be ready within 5 minutes, but by the time that was up, I was just starting my calf/forearm stretches. Need to learn to be more efficient. We did suburi then menstuke for the team warmup keiko. The focus was to not do kihon style cuts, but to do shiai style cuts. Very important for motodachi to make it ‘real’.

Shiai time. Only managed to get one shiai. Got a debana kote in the first few seconds. I kinda eased off the attacking after that since I had the advantage. I really should have tried to get the second point to make myself the clear cut winner. I just remember trying to use my seme effectively for most of the match. Another I noted was that my opponent was just going for cuts that weren’t there, but he’d follow through strongly, so I had to walk to him to get to issoku distance. I remember trying to do this with a sort of ‘focus’, where I wasn’t just rushing to him to attack, but I did a measured walk completely focussed on him. Don’t know if this was the right thing to do, but I just wanted to maintain my focus. I’m starting to think that the ‘correct’ thing to do lies somewhere between kakari style fighting spirit and what I did. Will have to work on it.

After all the shiai’s, Kelly sensei mentioned a few things. Firstly, he told us to make sure we understand shiai etiquette. A few of the players still weren’t doing the proper things, myself included. I remember I walked onto the shiai-jo before the shimpan were ready. I only did this because I couldn’t see the shimpan on my left in my peripheral vision and didn’t realise that they were doing a change over. I based my time to walk in on the other two shimpan that I could see. Something to keep in mind for next time.

He then made an important point about zanshin, and how people are still just playing ‘contact’ kendo, where they just swing the shinai to make contact with the target. What we should be doing is ‘cutting’, ie. with ki-ken-tai and zanshin, where we have zanshin before we even physically make the cut (or something to that effect). This whole zanshin thing is still a bit of a flickering light bulb to me, but I understand where he is coming from. I did see some people ‘tacking’ on their zanshin after cuts, where you see a definite pause when they ask themselves if the cut landed or not.


Monady Training.
Again, I was picked as motodachi. Tried to focus on having good kamae. Worked on trying to keep my feet in the ready to cut position. Found it quite hard as I kept wanting to cut. It feels like I’m trying to balance on a knife edge, where I either want to cut, or move back to a position where I’m too steady to cut instantly. It’s a bit like that moment when you seme in, and you have a bit of momentum which can you can either use to drive you forward to stop completely and settle down again. This was something Kelly sensei was trying to iron out, where he made us stop completely after our seme but remain in that ready to cut position which is what I tried to do when it was my turn to cut.

Anyway, after the class separated, we did jigeiko. I ‘hid’ myself in the junior line so that I can fight with the more senior people. Fought Tom, Andy and Hiro. I tried to refrain from the cutting and praying and really tried to force openings. I noticed that I didn’t go for cuts as much as I normally do, which I hope is a good thing. I think should try to do this more often. It reminded me of a keiko that the squad did (when I missed out and just watched), where it was jigeiko but each kendoka only gets 3 cuts to try and score. I think it’s to make you more conscious of your cuts so you don’t just go in wildly and flay away. It must be a good way of improving the quality of your cut selection.


Tuesday at Fudoshin.
Went to Fudoshin for the first time. I can understand why Chiaki ‘defected’. The quality of the training is so much higher, because you’re training with mostly yudansha, and there are 3 sensei there. Certainly if I wanted to be a ‘pro’ kendoka, i’d consider changing clubs, but as it stands, I think I’m just aiming to be a good casual player. Smith sensei was very different to what I’d imagined him to be. I guess I’ve only seen him at shiai’s where he’s got his game face on, but seeing him take the class, it just reaffirmed my belief that the really good kendo players are the nicest guys. The way he takes the class is very helpful and not at all as intimidating as I’d expected. I’m definitely planning to train there more often.

Anyway, to the training. Smith sensei focussed on two things, the position of the left wrist and the snappy movements of the left foot. For the wrist, he mentioned that the wrist bone should be directly on top the of the shinai. He also went through the dynamics of the cut with respect to the arm. On the up stroke, the first movement should be the shoulders moving up, then the elbow bends, then the wrist. To make the shinai come down, it should be in the same order, that is, the shoulder, then the elbow starts to straighten then the wrist then everything snaps into place at the point of the cut.

With regard to the left foot, it should really snap into place. To practice this we did kirikaeshi for the length of the dojo (which is the size of a basketball court). Note that I said length, not width. To start, we did it very slowly, with each cut being an individual cut. Smith made the point that we should be in control of every cut, and not do what people normally do and just use momentum to move forward. Anyway, as we did this, he watched me and noted that my arms were too straight on the upswing and told me to bend it more. I think this may be why my kirikaeshi’s this year have been so laboured, it’s because my arms were too straight and I was only cutting with my shoulders, where I should have used my elbows as well. I think I did this as an antithesis to people who just cut with their wrists/elbows and not much at all with their shoulders so their cuts were just tiny (in some cases the base of their shinai’s didn’t move much from their starting position).

Anyway, I really liked the training. I almost felt as if Sensei was talking directly to me. He said something along the lines of ‘I like to focus on a particular thing every now and then, not that I think that its an issue I need to address in your kendo, but just to set your fundamentals’. I really related to this, as I don’t feel like I’m particular weak when it comes to my left hand and left foot snap, but its nice to practice it directly to solidify my kendo foundations.

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.