12th Dresden Seminar Part II

This morning I arrived at the sports hall with Georg at about 8:30am as yesterday. From 9am onwards was the Kyu examination time. All passed. Just before we started the seminar, while the newly donned Kyusha were enjoying their new status, Kumpf-Sensei walked towards me, and asked me where I train and how long have I been doing kendo. He seemed very suprised to hear that I've only done it for a year. Well, strictly speaking less. He went on to say lots of complimentary things which I would rather not repeat here ha ha ha. ^_^;

I used this chance and asked him for advice from yesterday's jigeiko with him, he said basically

• The sweeping should be small and sharp, after which the shinai should be brought straight forwards.

He led the morning and the last session for the bogu wearers. Apart from Kihon, we did some exercise on: hiki-men, hiki-men-suriage-men, hiki-do-uchiotoshi-men. In genergal I did well, but sometimes my men-strike slid off on the side. More tenouchi and accuracy are needed.

Jigeiko

I first faught with Miwa-Sensei. This time I tried to use more hiki-waza as he told me yesterday, in order to gain enough distance. I was also able to create openings myself by using quick and small footwork and maintaining a strong centre while doing seme. One particular moment I landed a kote-men on him after some seme action which felt good, and he said "Super!"

The jigeiko with Kumpf-Sensei was slightly embarrassing. My shinai flew off twice. Both happened when I was really tired, and while running through after striking my grip was probably too loose plus I lifted shinai upwards instead of forwards, plus I was too slow... He struck my shinai from behind. It was funny seeing it flying forwards out of my hand. Well, until I remembered that many people were watching...

I kept the same spirit when fighting with Kumpf-Sensei. Again like yesterday, he used a lot of men-suriage-men. But I added an extra stwist by doing harai-do. Namely, I swept the shinai first, and when he lifted his shinai up to perform suriage, I struck do. This worked, and earned some appause from the "audience". But he pushed me when I passed him, and I must say that I was too tired to run any faster, which I should have done.

At one point, I tried kote-men, with the men-strike landed on target, but I wasn't committed to it. I stood at the same place. Why did I do that? It doesn't make sense to hit kote-men without committing to the men-strike, i.e. running pass and showing Zanshin.

Summary:

• Fast footwork after every strike
• The shinai should point forwards when runing pass the opponent instead of upwards, the worst is if it points backwards.
• Commit to the strikes, especially the last one in a renzoku-waza.
  

All in all, it was a good seminar. Lots of practise on the kihon, hiki-waza, and counter hiki-waza. The jigeiko with the senseis were in particularly useful, who gave very useful feedbacks afterwards.

The seminar ended at about 1pm. We ate some light beverages in the sportshall (bread, sausage, etc) for lunch, and then we spent all the afternoon make some samurai film for the Kendo Verband Ost website. I had a special part in it, so I'm quite curious to find out how it will turn out to be haha.