A Beginner's Point of View 148-149

Day 148:

Today sensei was not here again. One of the senior students taught the class. We spent extra time doing warm-ups. He was stressing about tenouchi and stopping the sword at the end of the strike. We skipped doing haya-suburi as a warm-up because it was the focus of the class.

We would line up in two lines across from each other and practice doing haya-suburi in counts of twenty paying attention to different things. First we concentrated on footwork while doing it slowly. Then we would concentrate on swinging arc by doing it quickly. By the time the class was over halfway through we were all doing it very well.

We filled out the class by doing basic strikes with a partner. Without putting on full bogu, we would hold our shinai for a strike five times, then repeat for kote, and then for doh. We would then switch roles for partners. After a full set, we would rotate partners and do it over again. By the time we did this three full times class was over.

Day 149: