Stay humble

First before the training started I helped Tina to improve on her fumikomi by first running across the dojo with okuri-ashi a few times with shinai locked behind the back under the arms, and then with fumikomi. After she managed that, we repeated the same exercise with shinai in kamae or men-uchi. It seemed to have worked.

Some notes from the kihon practice:

• Kote: bring hip forwards. Don't take the shinai off the centre. Left hand should stay in the centre.
• Kote-men: the tenouchi at the men-strike not sharp enough.
  

I should really work on both of them if I want to keep on improving.

We also practiced kote-uchiotoshi-men. The movement is very similar to kote-men, except because the opponent is moving forwards, the kakarite should not go too far forwards. The most difficult thing is perhaps to judge when the kote comes.

Jigeiko: I need more variation of waza. Should keep my posture while doing renzoku-waza, and quickly draw my left foot towards the right.

I did a nice men-nuki-kote on Jan with the kote really popped. At the end we had an ippon-shyobu. I wanted to do nuki-kote again but he didn't launch the strike after a few steps forwards, at which point my backward movement was slowing down and I got too close to him.

Bang! My men was hit.

Jan refused to call it a point because he thought it was a bit short. While some referees might think so, I felt I already lost because his kisei was much stronger, and coming towards me like a wall or a mountain. His self-criticism and humbleness are also why I respect him, not just for the physical kendo. It is very difficult sometimes to stay humble for kendo being primarily a competitive sport. But whoever manages to be confident, strong, but at the same time humble will improve faster and do good kendo. It is a long journey ahead.