Thursday, August 25, 2011

A Beginner's Point of View 297-298

Day 297:

In Iaido, there was only the instructor and two of us. We had the gymnasium again. We had a free practice today. I tried to make the chiburi for the first and second kata into one fluid motion instead of three separate actions. That was harder than it looked. I kept hopping up into standing stance and that made me a little unstable. I need to slow down and make it smoother.

In Kendo, I led the opening ceremony. We did a whole lot of wind sprints. We also did a drill about turning around in tai-atari. A pair of kenshi would match up with one going forward and one going backward. They would go across the floor until they reached a line. They went to tai-atari and use three steps to turn around 180 degrees. Then they repeated until the next line. We did this several times. It was fun and a good lesson.

I stayed for advanced Kendo today. The wind sprints left me tired and exhausted. We did several rounds of kiri-kaeshi and men strikes. I tried to do the men strikes the way Guest Sensei told us. After several rounds of men strikes, I was out of breath. I drank some water and sat down. I went back in after missing the drills about kote and kote men. I did participate in the drills for kote-suriage-men and men-suriage-men. Men-suriage-men is harder than it looks, especially if you don’t step to the side wide enough. I finally got the rythym by the end. We did a few rounds of ji-geiko. I received a comment from an instructor about how I am ‘forgetting’ that I am a shodan. He meant that I was not trying my full compliment of techniques and relying on a chosen few. He’s right, so I need to remember to try nuki-waza and hiki-waza from time to time.

We finished class by doing kata. I love kata. I spent the class with an ikkyu candidate, teaching him the finer points of the first three kata. We did this over and over until the end of class. I gave a few pointers on how to compose himself so the judges will like him. I hope he passes.

Day 298:

Today was a free day. I practiced my kata alone again. The instructor came over and commented that I’m still cutting too high on the first two kata. Maybe I should aim for ‘chest-level’ when I cut horizontally. I asked about bringing the sword up for the first cut in the fifth kata. The tsuka bumps off my forearm when I stop the blade. The instructor never had that problem, so he conjectured that I was cutting too forcefully and snapping my wrist too hard. He suggested that I cut more gently to avoid it. Makes sense.

In beginner Kendo, we were in the gymnasium again. The workers were not present to certify that the church building was ready for us just yet. We did stretches and suburi normally, and then went right into wind sprints. I helped the instructor demonstrate the proper way to turn around in tai-atari. We also did a nice ‘caterpillar’ footwork drill all across the lines of the gymnasium court. Very good workout for the legs and ankles.

In advanced Kendo, we only did one round of kiri-kaeshi and went into the 5-7-9 sets of drills for men, kote, and doh. I was exhausted halfway through, but stuck in there. I simply slowed down and paced myself and I did not need to stop for a break. There were several lectures, which gave me time to catch my breath. We had a couple of ji-geiko matches at the end. I overdid it a bit, pushing the tendon on my wrist and slamming my left forearm into the men-gane of my partner over and over. I was too close for strike and my opponent was fast.

To end class, we took off our bogu and got our bokkens. We did the kihon drills with the bokken. Men-ouchi, kote-ouchi, doh-ouchi, and tsuki-ouchi were the first drill. Kote-men-ouchi was the second drill. Men-hiki-doh-ouchi was the third drill. Finally, suriage-men was the fourth drill. The suriage is the same-side of the bokken, so no dipping down and bringing it up to the other side.

At the end of class, my wrist and arm were hurting me. All I could say is that it was a great practice and ow-ow-ow-ow.

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