A Beginner's Point of View 194-195

Day 194:

Last class I did so much kiai that I wound up using my vocal chords to augment it. Bad idea. Now my voice is damaged and I can hardly talk, much less kiai. I really can’t contemplate doing Kendo silently, so I decided to take the day off and rest from class. At the end of last week, I nearly lost my voice at work.

Day 195:

Today, my voice feels fine. Still, I sound just the slightest bit funny when I talk, so I’m going to take it easy on the throat. I’m only going to do a half-strength kiai during waza or keiko. We started out doing kiri-kaeshi and one-step men. Today was just as much instruction for the nidans as the lower-ranking students. Whenever we would start a drill, the senior students would counter-attack with anything they wished. They would use aiouchi-men, men-suriage-men, kote-debana-men, or anything else.

The lower-ranking students worked on just one-step men and one-step kote for the most part. Sensei said we should start off doing it the way Guest Sensei showed us. We start at to-ma, which is farther than itto-no-maai. Here we give a big kiai (I did a half-kiai) and step to itto-no-maai. Then we perform one-step waza. It does seem to help us keep good center.

I took a break halfway through class to rest, drink water, and stopped using my voice. Sensei also called for a 5 minute break because it was humid. After a short break, I went back to it. We did some keiko, and I concentrated on keeping center and pushing past my opponent’s defenses. I wasn’t as fast or accurate as I normally am. I think it’s because I wasn’t using my full kiai. I’m not happy with how I did, but there’s nothing for it but to accept that I need to pace my voice or risk damaging it again.

During class, one of the students developed a blood blister on his foot. He expected to lance it at home after class, but it popped during the tail end of class. There were splotches of blood scattered across the floor, including one ‘puddle’ where the skin broke and dumped most of the blood. One of the senior students helped him wash and bandage his foot while another naturally moved to step it and clean the floor. Things happen in the dojo and you gotta deal with it, but it’s nice to see people just automatically try to keep the floor clean. It’s respectful in general and it keeps the floor dry and not slippery.