A Beginner's Point of View 678-679

Day 678:

In Iaido class, our Sensei was ill, so our shodan ran the class. I completed three sets of kata on my own.

In Kendo class, Sensei showed up but was not well. So, he asked me to run the class. This was the perfect opportunity to try the class I designed in my spare time.

I led the stretches, suburi, and kihon. For the waza drills, I was trying to progressively teach to move to the proper maai and then strike. We then did kote-men, kote-kiri-kaeshi-with-tsuki, kote-suriage-men, step-kote, uchi-komi-geiko, men-debana-kote, ippon-shobu, and multiple ji-geiko.

After class, Sensei said he had no advice to give for the day’s lesson, which I interpret to be a good thing.

Day 679:

In Iaido class, I completed 2 sets and 8 kata before the end of class. I had a question about the tsuka-ate of the eighth kata. He said not to adjust the tsuka’s angle, just thrust directly. I guess the point is not necessarily to knock the opponent unconscious; it’s to disrupt their attack.

In Kendo class, it was one of our sensei’s last practice. He was moving away. Today’s class was all about lots of ji-geiko. We had lots of people come to practice with us to see him off.

After we did kihon, we moved right into ji-geiko. We lined up two lines and all went at the same time. That was really tight to try. Two more people stood in with us and we had to shift to having a rotating motodachi line.

I fought against our departing sensei and did very well. I scored a lot of points and felt great. I then had a fight against a visiting sensei and only did okay. I scored a couple of points because he had better center. I did pull a trick of coming to tsuba-zeriai, slowly stepping back while rolling his arms to my right. That opened up his center and I scored a hiki-men. He smiled and was pleased. Then I was asked to step into the motodachi line and I fought a lot of ji-geiko. Against people ranked shodan or lower, I seemed to have a lot of trouble finding the target. I also have trouble trying for debana-kote without dropping my sword and leaving men open.

After class, I complimented Sensei for making us better at Kendo. He complimented me by saying that I made a lot of improvement since he showed up.