A Beginner's Point of View 236-237

Day 236:

In Iaido, I did the same routine over and over to hone my technique. First I did rei-hou to bow in, then I would perform 1-2-12 in that order over and over. Sensei commented on how my arm in the first kata was too high. I seem to keep cutting at my own eye height rather than an imaginary opponent’s eye height if they were in seiza. Sensei knelt in seiza in front of me to give me a target. I need to practice that. He promised to teach me a new kata, but he didn’t get to it today. I told him he owes me a new kata next class and he just smiled and agreed.

In Kendo, we were spinning the lessons of fumi-komi and men strike together. We would practice kiai all the way down the floor, then men strike all the way down the floor, then fumi-komi all the way down the floor. We added in a few drills to have two partners cross the saki and hold the shinais like that all the way down the floor. I helped receive men strikes for a short time while others were putting on their men and kote. I didn’t bring my men since my kote were in the shop for repair. I could have brought it, but I wanted to practice with the students this time. The end of class was practicing a half-round of kiri-kaeshi using very slow strikes and being perfect with each one.

Day 237:

In Iaido, I started off same as usual. Bow in, 1-2-12, bow out. However, Sensei taught me a new kata. It is the sixth kata, using tsuki. You start off standing with both hands on the hakama. You step forward with the right foot, then the left foot and put your hands on the sword. Then you step forward with the right foot and draw, threatening the chin of your opponent. You bring the left foot up into chudan while moving the left hand up to the sword. Then you step forward to attack tsuki. You use the special turning around step where you move around the sword. You attack vertically behind you, and then do it again to face front. You perform small chiburi to the right side and then noto. There’s a lot of steps involved, but it looks impressive when you do it. We had another competition for students going to test at the seminar. I timed the first group, and participated in the second group. The others had a random combination but I did 1-2-6-12-6 for mine. My first time was 5:53, which is good. We squeezed a last set in before the end of class and my time was 6:03, which I believe is not good. I had several seconds where I just could not get my saya into the obi. I think that was what made my time bad.

In Kendo, we did a new drill where we kiai all the way down, then all the way back. Also, we did all the way down, all the way back going backwards, and then all the way down. That was a new one. We added men strike to the drill to make it interesting. Then the instructor asked us to put men on and receive. I received men strike and half-round of kiri-kaeshi from the unranked students. Then the advanced students paired up to do kiri-kaeshi, men strike, and then a very short ji-geiko.