A Beginner's Point of View 612-613

Day 612:

In Iaido class, I was able to complete 2 sets of Iaido and then a few spare kata. I remembered to try to cut across the shoulders of the enemy instead of “horizontally”. It seems to make the path better.

In Kendo I was teaching again. I had to compress the schedule since he doesn’t show up twice a week. We did rei-hou and stretched. Then we reviewed okuri-ashi, fumi-komi, and 2-step men. Then I put on bogu and taught him kote and doh strikes. After repeating the strikes several times, I had him doing something like kakari-geiko where I give a random opening. Next week is the last training class and I introdouce kiri-kaeshi.

Day 613:

In Iaido class I tried to focus. I squeezed in a full 3 sets of kata and then immediately ending rei-hou. I’m really losing track of time in class. Cutting lower across “shoulders” helps for the first 2 kata.

In Kendo, we had an old-fashioned stamina-training session. After warm-ups and suburi, we had several rounds of okuri-ashi. We had several rounds of men-ouchi, small men-ouchi, kote-ouchi, small kote-ouchi, ai-men-ouchi, and ji-geiko. The new drill was ai-men against men and kote and doh. After class, I was told that I keep dropping my guard. I give bait and then don’t fully recover. I should fix that.