A Beginner's Point of View 248-249

Day 248:

A few of us were asked to do a Kendo demonstration for the fourth grade of a nearby elementary school. I took a half-day off of work to participate. My wrists have been sore and sprained all last week so I’m hoping not to hurt them again. I showed up early and first. We were asked if we could move the demonstration to the stage of the cafeteria instead of the gymnasium. The teachers mistakenly scheduled a class during our time. When the others showed up, I showed them the stage and it was hard tile. Very bad for footwork. We instead decided to move three of the tables and used the soft tile floor instead.

One of us took over as the leader and began talking to the students about the history of Japanese swordfighting, the creations of wooden and bamboo swords, creation of modern armor, and the ceremonies of respect to each other. Another of us talked about the pieces of armor as he put them on as well as the uniform. We lined up for a short suburi session of shomen, kote, and haya-suburi. We put on men and did a few waza with three of us in line rotating to show how efficient we were training. Speeches on kiai and rei-hou were explained. We then got four volunteers from the kids to take turns hitting men and running through.

We then did some keiko. I got to have two keikos, one against a nidan using itto and the other against a nidan using nito. I did surprisingly well this time. Against nito, neither of us could score very good points. However, when we declared ippon shobu, I hit opposite-side doh averagely well and he gave me the point. Three student volunteers tried to be shinpan, but they were overwhelmed.

Two of us took off men, kote, and doh for kata. We did the first two kata with myself as the shidachi. We did the first just fine and the students gasped at the closeness and sudden stopping of the bokken before it hit the uchidachi’s head. The second kata I messed up. Instead of dropping down and stepping to the left, I did a nuki-kote. His bokken was only three-eighths of an inch from my nose as it came down, but I managed to stop in time for kote. He did not react, but we finished rei-hou well. Clearly, I need to practice Kendo kata some more. It’s been months since we all practiced it as a class and the introduction of Iaido kata has messed me up. Fortunately, I’m not testing at the next tournament so it’s not a big issue for me now. Perhaps I’ll be asked to help others train in kata until then. I should probably rest my wrists instead of going to class tonight also. Better to go to tournament whole than injured.

Day 249:

No class today as I am recovering from injury.