Shyugyo 3

Yesterday evening I had a very good training, in which I had jigeikos with Kuroda-san (first time seeing him in Tokyo), Ozawa's son, Gibbo (the British Champion), and Yasuko. Kuroda plays very beautiful kendo, not the competitive type, but the type that everyone in Japan considers as beautiful and as the ultimate goal. This is mainly due to having a very good posture. Ozawa-san has blitzing fast attacks. His kote-men fumikomis are virtually indistinguishable from each other. He could use keishi-men to avoid the shinai which I put in the centre line, and struck
my men beautifully. Yasuko was also difficult to fight though I could defend better then when I was fighting with the others. Gibbo does a more active kendo. He doesn't put as much pressure as the other people I have fought with in this dojo, but he sees the openings and seizes the moment.

I had many valuable advices from them, especially form Kuroda-san who corrected many fundamental mistakes I make on men-uchi.

The advice from Kuroda:

• Use more kote-men in jigeiko

About my men-uchi:

• Don't use fumikomi. Just let the gravity to do the job. If take a larger and faster step then it sounds naturally louder.
• My hip was not even while striking. The left side is lagging behind.
• My right wrist is turing the wrong way while doing the tenouchi. The inner side of the wrist should not be facing downwards.
• The left-right weight ratios of the feet, and hand grip are 7-3.
  

From Yasuko:

• My kote timing is good but it's a shame that I tend to go backwards.

From Gibbo:

• I ran into his kensen many times. I should try to take the centre. ``The solutions are there, and you just have to find it''.
  

This training really made the whole week worthwhile. I'm starting to find mistakes I make and things that I have to improve on. It's one of the main purposes of being here.