Across the Atlantic 2

The training just got better and better. Yesterday more people turned up for training. We did a couple of interesting exercises apart from men- and kote-men-uchi. First of them was kote-taiatari-men-taiatari-kote-taiatari, and we executed it across the dojo from one end to the other. I really found that my taiatari was too weak, which was something I didn't train at all when I was in Tokyo. Back in Dresden, everyone else's taiatari improved a lot as well. Improving my taiatari might help bringing my hip forwards when doing strikes. The second exercise was kote-men-dou. Following from the previous exercise helps to keep the upper body straight during the continuous strikes. So it made complete sense to put the two exercises together. Kimura Sensei came to tell me that I should make my kiai louder.

After the kihon exercises we did a few rounds of jigeiko with rotations (mawari), before the free-jigeiko. I again went flat out fighting with Kimura Sensei and Awaga Sensei. At one point I was frustrated that his kensen was against my chest when I struck his men, despite that I waded his shinai off centre. So I continuously made the same strikes, but none of them succeeded, which made me even more frustrated!! He told me that very often I was too close, and at this distance his kensen is already in the middle. Our jigeiko finished with me doing kakarigeiko, and I made sure I gave the loudest possible kiai for my last strike.

There are many people here who have strong centres, and I think it is a good opportunity to explore different footworks during seme. I also want to make sure I strike kote in the way that, if it fails, I can immediate strike men. [Edit: Georg wrote in the comment a list of one can do when kote-strike fails, see below.]