A Beginner's Point of View 134-135

Day 134:

Today was the day sensei came back to class from healing his knee. So, he decided that he needed to work hard and we all worked alongside him. The big focus here was for endurance and timing. We only did a little kiri-kaeshi, and then went right into one-step men and one-step kote.

Afterwards, we did a series of drills to work up to reactive waza. At first we would hit men, then we would try to hit men while our partner did suriage and surige-men. Then we would try to hit men while our partner would do men-suriage-men and men-debana-men. Then came a freeform drill where we would do men strikes and our partner would choose any reactive drill they wanted, such as kote-debana-men, men-kaeshi-doh, or men-suriage-men.

After that it was keiko, a lot of keiko. I’m happy to say that after all of the drills, I did not have to sit down once. Of course, there were an odd number of us and therefore we had to rotate in and out, but I did not have to step out of line once. I may have come close, but not enough to do so.

We faced off in a series of practice matches where sensei would designate someone as a shinpan to decide who scores a point. We all had several keikos where one point won the match. Some matches between Dans lasted multiple minutes.


Day 135:

Today was another hard day. After kiri-kaeshi, we worked more on stepping up to oji-waza. We would do ten aiouchi-men, then one side would do men while the other would do doh strikes. Then we would rotate and start again with kote or maybe do debana strikes. Instead of five times for each drill, we did ten times for each drill. I found myself out of breath quickly, but I pushed onward to fight against my fatigue.

There was also a keiko where I tried to practice my one-step strikes. My partner would occasionally leave an opening. Sometimes I would recognize it and attack. Sometimes I would put up a defense, fearing a trap. Sometimes, I would strike a different target on reflex, seeing it open before anything else. Over and over I took time to catch my breath, but eventually, I had to sit down.

Afterwards, we did kata. I love kata. After rehearsing the first three kata (and trying to remember the footwork), sensei taught us the sixth kata. Both partners start in chudan. The shidachi moves into gaedon kamae and the pair take three sliding steps forward. The shidachi bends their wrists to bring the saki up a little and then steps forward once boldly, bringing their bokken up towards the uchidachi’s wrists. The uchidachi must step backwards into right jodan to avoid the attack, then they must come to chudan. The uchidachi then tries to attack the shidachi’s kote. The shidachi performs suriage-kote, a small move but deliberate. Then the shidachi moves into left jodan to threaten the uchidachi, who takes a step back. Afterwards, the pair relax and go back into chudan. That was a nice exercise.