A Beginner's Point of View 267-268

Day 267:

Today was the subject of baiting. We started with a few rounds of kiri-kaeshi, and then started baiting. Baiting means you give a little opening in hopes that your opponent will attempt to strike the opening. When they attack the way you want them to attack, you use an oji-waza to counter and then attack their exposed targets. We used mostly kote-suriage-men. I think I did well when I was expecting the attack. I made sure to slow down make more deliberate motions. We did this many times.

We also did keiko. My first keiko was with Sensei. I made sure to remember not to come in for tai-atari because I might reinjure his knee. I used oji-waza to try to make openings and vary my attacks. He used several extremely fast hiki-waza to show me how much I still have to learn.

After a few rounds of keiko, we broke up into kata. One of the instructors dedicated this time to teach me. We went through the first four kata using each role. He made a few comments such as making sure that the distance in the fourth kata was just right or else I would be too close for the spinning block and counterattack.

We then practiced the fifth kata. It’s fairly straightforward. The uchidachi moves into right jodan while the shidachi just adjusts chudan to threaten the uchidachi’s left kote. Three steps forward. The uchidachi attacks men. The shidachi takes a half-step backward while performing suriage-men. The shidachi then takes a full step forward to strike men. Dragging the blade down and backwards, the shidachi slowly starts to move backwards. For zanshin, the shidachi moves backwards into left jodan. Then the shidachi moves backwards into chudan. The pair than take three small steps back to center.

I need to remember to keep my left foot straight. If my left foot feels comfortable, then I’m probably not straight. That’ll be tough to keep in my thoughts.

Day 268:

Today Head Sensei was here. At the start of practice, he asked ‘do you want a hard practice or a soft practice’? Not really knowing the difference, we said, ‘hard practice’. We then set up to do hard practice, which means once we are assigned our stations and drills, we do the drill, then rush to the next station without being told to rotate. This is supposed to have a continuous flow for a near-constant practice without much rest. We tried to do our best, but some of us caused bottlenecks in the drills. Eventually, we moved to a soft practice approach. We did kiri-kaeshi for a bit.

Today’s best drill was something Head Sensei was trying to teach us. He wanted us to do a very quick and very small kote strike with charging in to tai-atari immediately. The drill seems simple enough, but the catch is that you only need to lift the shinai just enough to clear the opponent’s shinai. It’s trickier than it sounds, however I was really into the drill. I like doing a small kote and charging in. After a few tries, I seemed to have the drill down pat. Head Sensei even had me demonstrate for the call about how to do it correctly. I never felt so proud! We did that drill a lot.

We also did a drill where the attacker hits men five times. The receiver would receive men, hit aiouchi-men, receive men, hit debana-kote, receive men. We also moved to having the attacker attack kote while the receiver did the same responses. We rounded out class with a men-hiki-men-men-hiki-kote-men-hiki-doh-men drill.

Head Sensei seemed to be in pain for all of class, but he never sat down. He never halted class. He did need to have his foot taped up or the tape taken off. He did stop a moment to stretch his back, but it took less than a minute. Then he got right back in. That guy must be made of iron.

The final drill was pushing the proper way. We would strike men and collapse into tai-atari. You are supposed to then push your opponent to arm’s length, raise your shinai, and bring it down for a follow-up men strike. You could call it a men-push-men drill. It’s difficult because you really need to push far enough but not too hard. If your opponent falls because you shoved him down, that’s a foul for you.