Saturday, April 18, 2015

A Beginner's Point of View 670-671

Day 670:

I felt questionable at the start of Kendo class. I was trying to decide if I should go home and not risk injury but both sensei decided I should start teaching classes. I was told to start with keeping the class in 15 minute chunks. Keep each chunk with a certain theme and then move on.

I taught the class with the schedule of suri-ashi, kihon, suriage/harai, and ji-geiko. I was given advice sporadically through class about speaking clearly and only occasionally giving demonstrations. I gave one demonstration about doing a drill on harai-kote. I was praised for the pacing today.

Day 671:

Overall, I’m healing but my left leg is sore. Still, I felt so focused today. I powered through three sets of Iaido and still had time for leftover exercises, such as cutting across the floor and the four-way Maai.

In Kendo, I was asked to teach again. This time I decided to just go right into men-tsuke. We did kihon, seme drills, suriage/harai drills, and then multiple ji-geiko. I got advice form sensei about I always make huge openings before attacking. I should be making smaller, quicker openings. He said I should believe that I can get into smaller openings.

I got positive feedback for the class. The criticisms were that I need to always demonstrate new or unfamiliar drills and also I need to always speak the proper names of the waza. That makes sense. Personally, I think I should start thinking about themes for classes instead of randomly picking waza.

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