Wednesday, June 26, 2013

A Beginner's Point of View 487-488

Day 487:

No class today as I am not well.

Day 488:

No class today as I am not well.

Thursday, June 20, 2013

A Beginner's Point of View 485-486

Day 485:

Today was a perfect day. It was warm but not too hot and not very humid. Perfect for training.

In Iaido, I performed a full set of kata and about three-quarters of another set of kata when I had some bad abdominal pain. I felt sick, so I went home. I’m really upset at being sick enough to need to go home. It was such a perfect day to train.

Day 486:

Another perfect day. Not too hot and not too humid. I had a good deal of energy, so I did three and a half sets of Iaido kata.

In Kendo class, the instructor spent a lot of time giving lectures. That gave me a lot of time to recover my breath.

We had a lot of okuri-ashi and fumi-komi work. I need to stop raising my right foot so much.

During waza practice, the instructor told me to stop raising my shinai so soon. I need to ride the line for tsuki into a sashi-men. It’s much faster. It’s just like how a previous guest sensei said not to show the cutting edge too soon.

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

A Beginner's Point of View 483-484

Day 483:

Today the weather was nicer. I accomplished three and a half sets of Iaido kata.

In Kendo, I didn’t need help in figuring out when to step in. There was only three of us students and the instructor. After suburi, we just got right into men and kote.

We worked on men-ouchi, kote-ouchi, and doh-ouchi. Lots of times, the instructor would stop us to give a nice, good, long explanations. Those really helped.

During my turn at kiri-kaeshi, he told me that I was lifting my shinai by using my shoulders rather than lifting with my hands. That makes my muscles grind against each other and that drains my overall stamina. I should remember to just move my wrists forwards and up.

Day 484:

No class today as I was working late at my job.

Saturday, June 8, 2013

A Beginner's Point of View 481-482

Day 481:

No class today as I was working late at my job.

Day 482:

Today was not as hot but humid.

We got through one and a half sets of Iaido before the instructor decided to go through some structure. We practiced the finer points of kata three and four. I need to remember to not put so much weight on my front foot or else my back foot is too high.

In Kendo, I managed to step in at the right time. After an exhausting sets of suburi and okuri-ashi with fumi-komi, I was completely out of breath and light-headed. An instructor even commented on how red my face was.

I had to stay out for a while as the others put on men to do men-ouchi and kote-ouchi drills. After a while and some water, I felt good enough to put on men and participate. I participated in doh-ouchi and helping a new student with men strikes. The instructor ordered me to do kote-men-ouchi and I focused on keeping my left foot turned inward as well as posture. He told me that I needed to assess more and improvise. He purposefully stood at uneven distances to make me change the length of strides to strike kote men. I was concentrating on lengthening my stride instead of improvising so my kote was good but I was too close for men. I need to change that.

Training for nidan is ruthless.