A Beginner's Point of View 96-99

Day 96:

My wrists seem to be healed nicely from the seminar. I think I’m just about ready to go back to the advanced class. I think I’ll finish this week in the beginner class sharpening my waza and then go on my vacation. Today I spent the entire class assisting sensei as he taught the beginners how to do one-step strikes leading up to kiri-kaeshi. I skipped warm-ups to put on full bogu.

Sensei took a brief opportunity during warm-ups to delegate the warm-ups to one of the sempai. Instead, Sensei showed me the basics of debana strikes and let me practice kote-debana-men and men-debana-men on him. I think this was his way of filling in some instruction my way since he knew he would use me all class to help others train instead of getting more training for just myself. The class would take turns striking men on me and then striking kote on me. Eventually, sensei would lead up to having the class practice one round of kiri-kaeshi on me (instead of the normal two rounds for a full drill).

The Head Sensei showed up close to the end of class and gave me the advice that if people were not hitting too hard then I should skip the step where I would block their strikes with my sword. I can understand this as it lets them get used to striking sayu-men on target. He even performed an example of kiri-kaeshi at his full speed, which was blindingly fast. I could just barely keep up. I did remain calm, however. I think that was the important part. However, at the end of class I felt the beginnings of such a headache. I can appreciate my teachers taking those same lumps for me, letting me learn at their expense.

Day 97:

This class was fully delegated to the sempai from last class. I think he is a shodan and getting ready to test for nidan. I think Sensei delegated the entire class to him as training to get him ready to be able to teach a class himself one day. That’s a great idea. Sempai led us in warm-ups and then started in with waza. He suited up in full bogu and we took turns doing simple one-step strikes on him.

Eventually we went up to kote-men strikes by the end of class. It was a good class. Now I think I’m ready to go back to advanced classes after my vacation. I really need to rest after the horribly hectic work schedule in the past few weeks.

Day 98-99:

No class because I am on vacation.