Rising star

In the past two week I have been training three times a week. Not all of them went as well as I wanted, but I have improved on my men-strike to a point where I don't hesitate. But my strike is still too slow, and I need to push my body farther, or otherwise at the end of the day I would be packing home with a bagful of debana-kote.

Sometimes it did happen though, that my strike was further enough. Today Georg praised my men-strike during the jigeiko with him, which he did not expect to reach given the distance in between.

After some jigeiko we had some team shiai practise. Three teams were formed, with a girls team, a Budoclub's team, and a university team. I was on the university as well as Martin, Tino (the beginner), Lino(?), and Stephan, as the taisho. We played the system like the Gyokuryuki competition in Japan, whereby the winner stays on until he either looses or draws.

The star this evening was undoubtedly Lilli, who served as the senpo. She single-handedly eliminated the first three opponents of both the other teams (including me), almost all won on men/kote-nuki-men.

Yes, so here we go, what you guys have been waiting for...

Lilli defeated me with 2-1
(honestly it was 2-0, because my kote was on the tsuba)

Well, deserved Lilli, I have to say. Now it's your time to make a speech here...

We also gave Georg his birthday kakari-geiko. I especially took care to give him that extra push during the taiatari, hee hee.

Lilli (far right) smelt blood..

Georg explaining distance

Tino, I and Stephan's hands

Stephan measuring the depth of Patrick's nose.