A Beginner's Point of View 628-629

Day 628:

Today was probably the most awkward day of practice ever. I thought I tied my obi properly, but when I tried to place the saya in my obi, it didn’t work. I figured out that I didn’t rotate my obi so the knot was behind me. I just gave up and slid it aside and finished class. I gotta make sure to not do that again.

I completed 3 sets of kata with time to spare for exercises. The exercise of stepping across the floor while lowering down to 1 knee is fun.

In Kendo, one of our instructors is out for business travel. The other instructor led class in stride. We worked on kiri-kaeshi, kihon, kote-men, kote-suriage-men, and harai-man. We finished with ji-geiko to tie it together. I notice that we’re really pushing our students with nidan-waza. They’re really struggling but that’s good. It’s important to fail and wonder why.

By the end of class, I felt bad. Maybe I wasn’t fully recovered from being sick last week. Still, I finished.

Day 629:

In Iaido, I made sure to tie my obi correctly, thank goodness. We also got a visit from one of our part-time students that only shows up when he can, which is not often.

In Kendo class, we did a full day. Kiri-kaeshi, kihon, kote-men, kote-suriage-men, men-suriage-men, and ji-geiko. We did multiple repitions for each one.

Today was possibly the best practice ever. When it was time for me to do ji-geiko, I fought against sensei. It was then that I found the Golden Gear. It’s that perfect sync between body and mind where I forgot my pain and dehydration. I just summoned all my speed, strength, and accuracy in an endless stream. I struck great points against sensei over and over and over using maai, closing in, baiting, and zanshin effortlessly. Sensei was impressed and so was I. I wish I could find that sync on command. I only seem to find it by accident.