A Beginnner's Point of View 7

Day 7:
Things are shaping up nicely. It turns out that I partially twisted my left foot during leaping drills on Day 6, but it's mostly healed. After a quick stretch, we started off with normal drills and footwork. Since there was a new student, he just watched a lot. My foot was stiff from healing, but it was all right to practice.

Then we started in with the leaping footwork again. I performed the drill with a little fear because this is was hurt me in the first place. I'm normally slow with drill since I'm not used to leaping back and forth quickly, but I gained speed. I did lag behind everybody else, though. I wonder if I'm not doing something right or just too cautious. Either way, I began to pick up speed when OUCH! I landed wrongly again. Fortunately, this time it wasn't painful, just undid the last day's healing. I was good enough to perform the rest of the practice.

Most of the rest of class was simple footwork drills. The class was segregated again. The more advanced students were learning to quickly run while balancing the shinai on their heads. The point of this was easy to figure out. The Kendoka must separate their body into upper and lower parts. The lower part must not influence the upper part. Otherwise, you would bounce the sword up and down on your head. Since the shinai represents a real sword, it would injure you. The point is to Kendo-run across the floor while keeping good posture and not bouncing.

I'm still rusty with my footwork and still need to extend my arms fully for a men strike, but I can tell I'm improving. My instructor seemed to notice that I was tired from all of the drills. I'm normally not so exhausted, but I was breathing harder than usual. I think maybe we were doing more exertion than usual. She was concerned that I was pushing myself too hard, but I've worked harder than that before.

I think one of the reasons that Kendo stance is difficult is because I try to lift up the heels of my feet too high. Maybe if I just shift my weight to the front of the feet and just lift up slightly, then it will be better. I also need to work on my speed.

The new student kept shouting sarcastic comments for attention. I didn't like that. It's disrespectful, but it's also disruptive. I found it distracting and almost decided to tell him to be quiet. Instead, I let the instructor deal with it.

The tournament is this weekend. I'm not nearly good enough to compete, but I'm going to show up. I'll at least learn some court etiquette and buy some more equipment. I think it's time I got a real uniform and carry case for my shinai and bokken.

We also ended class by doing a practice for the tournament. It wasn't very complicated, but it did have the Kendoka seeming to start the entire process. That's different from other events of other activities I've been to. In Foil (and other types) fencing, the judges control everything. They tell you when to show up, when to step into the bouting strip, when to adopt the proper posture, when to move to "en guarde", and when to began or end. There's more personal initiative in Kendo, and both before and after the actual fight, both Kendoka must perform their actions simultaneously. Different, but good.