A Beginner's Point of View 208-209

Day 208:

Today I come back to class from being sick. I want to pace myself so I don’t overburden my body, but I do need to get back into the routine. I did my kiri-kaeshi slowly and deliberately to save energy. My partners would always speed up the pace to get me moving again on the backwards direction.

We did a series of drills where there would be a total of four exchanges. Each side would attempt a single attack, either men or kote. There was a beginner student there. Whenever we would practice with him, he would always be the attacker. We would use oji-waza in the drill to our advantage if we could. Kote-suriage-men and men-suriage-men were most commonly used. We did a couple of keikos to mix it up. I had a lot of energy, so I used it to charge quickly past my opponent. I got a powerful hit to my right index knuckle. That really hurt. After the keiko, I looked at it and there was an instant bruise. I continued for a second keiko and that one went much better. I stopped for a rest and some water.

I had another keiko against a ni-to fighter. That was the guy who passed his nidan when the judges forgot that he could not sonkyo. He was not experienced with ni-to so he was slower than other ni-to players. I enjoyed lining up the off-side kote and sneaking in a men strike up the center. I did a keiko against someone practicing jodan-no-kamae. I used everything I could think of. I used alternate kamae on the right to block his sword and strike doh. I used alternate kamae on the left to perform suriage and open up his men. I charged forward first to strike debana-kote. I seemed to be successful about half of the time. My adrenaline was racing. Then he struck my right thumb knuckle hard. I tried to keep going for a couple more strikes, but I had to raise my hand and call a stop. When I stepped off again for water and rest, I noticed my right thumb was instantly bruised also. Sheesh, what a night. Maybe I should stop before I break something.

However, after resting and chatting with Sensei for a minute or two, he returned my CD. I put it in my bag and saw the beginner practicing a suriage waza drill. I decided that it was okay to help him and put men back on. I rotated in and helped him learn suriage. He was doing it wrong by dragging my sword along back into line. I showed him from both sides how it looks when it’s done right. We then did endless suriage while the others would push themselves with their combination drills and keikos.


Day 209:

I’m still working my way back into health so I started off my kiri-kaeshi slowly and deliberately. However, I did get excited enough to speed it up by the end. We did one-step men and nuki-men drills to warm up, including a round of Sensei’s new favorite. It’s a total of 4 exchanges between partners where each is trying to win by striking the other and not letting the other strike back. I went up against a nidan and lost 2-1-1, which is not bad.

Today’s focus was on jodan-no-kamae. Sensei wanted us to practice using it and defeating it. We would pay attention to using the right thumb to launch the attack and bringing the right kote to the doh to counter-balance the movement. It’s harder to do than it looks, but jodan-no-kamae can be useful to cover distance and surprise your opponent. Defeating jodan-no-kamae can be daunting but if you have a calm mind, you can see all of the targets available: kote, off-kote, doh, and tsuki. It can be hard to step out of the way and remember to pass through went fighting against jodan-no-kamae. You have a natural urge to stop in your tracks to verify the strike.

Afterwards, I got a lot of one-on-one instruction from a nidan and from Sensei about sharpening my chudan-no-kamae stance. They were tweaking the position of my hands so it would be more perfect. They revealed to me that I was twisting my left hand’s grip on the tsuka when I get tired. They were beginning to groom me for shodan now.

There was also a discussion about how long should I wait before I test for shodan. I distinctly remember Sensei telling me on the trip back from the tournament and testing for ikkyu that he felt it was six months. Today he said 1 year. I don’t mind either one being the answer, but the two contradictory answers confuse me. After lots of discussion from everybody there was no clear answer. They said to enjoy being an ikkyu while I can as long as I can and not to rush it.

Finally, after class I got the ice cream I earned weeks ago by striking Sensei when he had his men off. I plan to eat it this weekend when I don’t have to be at work.