A Beginner's Point of View 162-163

Day 162:

Today was a day of good, solid work. We did many round of kiri-kaeshi to get in shape. One of our students borrowed a set of bogu owned by the club. He was frustrated because he felt very clumsy. It was hard not to laugh because we all felt the same way when we first wore our bogu.

After kiri-kaeshi, Sensei gave us many lectures during the class. He would explain the proper technique for striking a target with the shinai. He explained the motions of raising and lowering the shinai for men, kote, and doh strike. We would then use two lines to practice various waza on each other. We included waza start from tsuba-zeriai, such as hiki-men and hiki-doh.

We also practiced harai-men and also a more subtle way to open up kote. Instead of striking the opponent’s shinai, you slide into it and nudge it aside. It sounds a lot easier than it is to do. Sensei encouraged us to experiment and try different techniques to open up our opponents.

We also had a short keiko where I faced off against a shodan. I got in a few good strikes against him. I just need to remember to keep taking center and not just look like I’m taking center.

At the end of class, that very shodan was part of a new drill. He pulled out his nito swords and gave us lessons on how nito players would strike us. It was just like fighting one of my old sempai before he moved away. Sensei also instructed us on how to strike a nito player on the kote. Left kote is a target in nito since it is a stance other than chudan-no-kamae. We also learned that yoko-men would be the best way to strike the men on a nito player.

Day 163:

The focus of today’s class was hiki strikes. We started off with a slightly different kiri-kaeshi drill. Sensei wanted us to do the strikes slowly, but snap our wrists at the end of the swing. This would give us the popping sound and flex our wrists to get our bodies to feel a good strike.

We did all sorts of different hiki drills today. We started with regular hiki strikes. From tsuba-zeriai, we practiced performing hiki-men, then hiki-kote, and then hiki-doh. Then we added an introduction step to the drill by striking men, and then performing the drill. We did men-hiki-men, then men-kiki-kote, and then men-hiki-doh. Then we added a finishing step to the basic drill. We did hiki-men-men, then kiki-kote-men, and then hiki-doh-men.

Sensei gave us lectures about not stopping our bodies or minds. Our minds have to keep moving no matter what. Then, finally we added all the steps together into an interesting combination. It was kote-hiki-doh-men. This drill is a lot harder than it sounds.

When doing hiki-doh, you tend to want to move back quickly, but when you need to strike men afterwards your balance is awkward. Every other time I performed the kote-hiki-doh-men drill, my feet were slipping on the floor. I need to find a balance between speed and control.