Distance is important

The training today was intense. Very little time was wasted - the way I like it. After kihon we practised debana-kote and kote-nuki-men.

Debana-kote:

• the kensen needs only to be raised slightly in order to be as quick as possible. Usually in the debana situation the opponent would have raised his kensen as well, so to switch to the other side to hit (assume starting from your right side) kote, one doesn't need to raise it very much.
• the upper-body should stay up-right after hit.

kote-nuki-men:

• when avoiding the kote-strike, draw the hands slightly inwards while raising it for the men-strike. Drawing the shinai straight up is too dangerous.

At the end we line up with one person as the motodachi. The motodachi will have jigeiko with the kakarite for 20 secs, in which they both have to try to score as many points as possible. The motodachi would stay until a full rotation of the kakarite is complete. Good exercise for reaction speed and physical condition.

Some afterthoughts:

• Overall speaking my tenouchi still needs to be improved.
• When striking kote-men, very often the opponent would come forward so the men strike could be too close. Try to keep the right distance.