A Beginner's Point of View 12-13

Day 12:

Today was a good day. After a full stretching exercise, we worked on some more footwork. Progress seems slow, but steady. I like to say that my footwork is getting better "percent by percent". Before, I was standing too far forward on the front of my feet, tiring them out quickly. I still need to stop turning my left heel inwards.

There are so many Japanese terms to memorize that it's overwhelming. I'm still keeping tabs on the document I'm writing, and it's filling up fast. I split it into two separate documents, one for Japanese language and one for Etiquette and Drills. Now, I need to record the names of the suburi drills. It's hard since I must use phonetic language and I have to remember them even after concentrating only on footwork and strikes.

Halfway through, the class was split up again. This time, sempai took the newer students aside to work on footwork, while sensei took us to refine our men strikes. When striking men, he would lean back some, forcing me to extend my arm fully to hit him. It took a couple of strikes, but I'm getting more comfortable extending all the way. Now, standing at the proper distance for men strike doesn't seem so far away. You only have to be close enough for the saki-gawa to cross, and no more. Only about 1/4 of the shinai is needed for men strike.

I also learned that I was gripping my shinai too tightly. I was squeezing it, as if trying to keep the staves together with my hands. This is not correct because the staves will stay together by means of the saki-gawa and naka-yui, not me. I only need to "carry" the shinai through my form. It does not "carry" me through its form. Once I loosened up and extended my arms fully, striking men became much easier. We also learned to follow our opponent with our eyes so that we turn around sooner after passing through.

In retrospect, I figured out that I was taking too big a step forward and too small a step backward. They need to be equal in length. Whenever I do the forward-back-right-left drill, I need to end up back in the same place I started. Sensei says that "We learn to do things. Then we do things 'flowing'. Then we are good." So, more practice will help me tone down my efforts to a more proper proportion. Sempai also had something good to say. She said, "We strike men lots of times. Eventually, you get tired but still need to keep striking men. Your last few men strikes are close to perfect because you're so tired, you stop forcing it and just do it."

Day 13:

What happened today? I started off with warm-ups like usual, but I was so clumsy that I hit myself in the head with my shinai three times. Each time I reflexively looked around, hoping that no one saw, but I know at least two people saw me (one of them being sensei). Maybe I didn’t stretch my shoulders enough or maybe I was concentrating too much on extending that I didn’t pay attention to how high I was raising it above my head.

We did mostly the basics of footwork and men strikes today. Good refresher for me. Either the floor was sticky or I wasn’t trying hard enough because when I tried to kendo-walk, my feet just wouldn’t slide very well.

Being embarrassed by my warm-ups (I also messed up the rhythm on the first set), I tried extra hard to just let the men strike flow. It worked. By the time practice was over, I was back to proper form. Also, we did a drill where an instructor would hold their shinai high up horizontally and we would men strike to extend our range of strike. It was a lesson in just how big the shinai really was. Good practice all around.