A Beginner's Point of View 178-179

Day 178:

We had a simple class today. We did a lot of kiri-kaeshi drills, one-step men, and oji-waza discussions. The unique thing about class today was that Sensei gave us a long lecture on establishing good maai. We also did a long string of our new favorite drill. One student stands in the center of class and then defends themselves against every other student who makes one attack against them. Once the entire class has attacked, we rotate who is in the middle.

Day 179:

Today is great for two occasions. First, it’s Sensei’s birthday. He celebrated by making everybody strike his men over and over. He would counter-attack against senior students in bogu, but not against beginner students. The second great thing is that Head Sensei was here today. Many students have never seen him before. In fact, lots of students from other dojos came by, packing the practice area. We had to have two full lines of students for rei-hou. I have never seen so many people in our dojo at once.

Since we had so many people, we could not form two full lines like normal. Instead we had a few dans on the teacher side and the rest would queue up to form waiting lines on the other and try to rotate as best as we could. We did a few round of kiri-kaeshi, one-step men, and one-step doh.

Head Sensei likes to give lectures about how to do perfect strikes. He always says the perfect strike happens when you launch your attack. If you start right, you finish right. If you don’t finish right, pass by and then turn around and do it again. You have to be at the right maai and see the tsuki. Once you see them, go. We also had several rounds of keiko. Unfortunately, we had to limit ourselves to a simple forward/backward strip of floor for keiko, so there was no real jockeying for position.

I waited extra-long to keiko with Head Sensei. He was just as fast as I remember, even though he had lots of students before me. Still, I gave it my all. I hit properly, good kiai, and charged past when I could. If he struck me with a dazzling move, I did not flinch. Twice, Head Sensei backed off and gave me a ‘thumb’s up’ for a very good strike. I could tell he was getting tired, but he did not complain or let up. Except one time. I struck a great men strike and he backed off, saying “good!” He turned away for a moment and lowered his shinai. I went into chudan and established maai. He rolled his shoulders and breathed. Since he was not putting up a defense, I charged forward, struck men, and charged past. He always said to take advantage of your opponent’s lack of focus, so I did. He did as I expected and just laughed it off. He said, “Good! Very good! Yame!” I bowed out and thanked him.

After a few more keikos all around, Head Sensei gave a final full-dojo match with one of our better senior students (ni-dan). Just when I thought he was too tired and too sire, Head Sensei launched into an assertive fluury and gave it his all. The student was hard-pressed just to keep up with him. Head really is surprising. After class I thanked him again for coming.