The end of a training is important

Last night I led the training, as the usual trainers have gone to the Tengu Cup in Frankfurt with many others. Normally one expect very few people and beginners, but there were, nonetheless, a few more experienced kenshi present. In total there were 9, so we could have a very decent training.

Before mokuzo I reminded everyone to have good etiquette, good body posture and the ability to learn by observation. We started with 4x kirikaeshi, 2x dou-kirikaeshi, followed by the usual men, kote-men, kote strikes. We did also 2 rounds of oji-waza against men-strikes. The first oji-waza to learn is perhaps debana-kote. With debana-kote, the most important thing is to have a clear strike without the upper body bending sideways due to wanting to avoid the men-strike. The strike has to be straight without an inclination. If the strike is not straight, very often the shinai hits the tsuba.

Before the 20 minutes mawari-geiko, we had 2 rounds of butsukari-geiko, and we finished the jigeiko with kirikaeshi (50 sayu-men). When everyone was exhausted, I asked them to make two last big men cuts. Reminding them that it was the last chance to make perfect men-cuts with good posture and ki-ken-tai-ichi. I think that helps psychologically so that everyone goes away with positive feelings regardless of whether they had won or lost in the fights.

I was quite pleased myself with the session as I didn't speak too much and I had a good training myself too. I hope everyone went away feeling the same.

Wish the others do well in the competition!

So tell me....

.... who is the daddy?

Huh? 

Huh? 

^_____^

New blog on Taoism and Kendo

I created a new blog to discuss the connection between Kendo and Taoism. Follow this link: KendoAndTao.blogspot.com.

Sauna

The weather is getting warmer and warmer. After each training my whole body felt well-cooked from the steam. Perhaps if I can convince myself that it is a kendo + sauna, then it would have been doubly enjoyable. However, just kendo is enjoyable enough anyhow!

Yesterday we had a good solid training, with about 20 mins kihon and 40 mins mawari-keiko. I fought with Patrick, Georg, Stephan, Theo and Lilli. I think sometimes it is fun to change my style of fighting according to my opponent, even though it is not the style I prefer, which is useful for shiai when participants' levels are mixed. 

A couple of thoughts:

• When doing tsuki, it is important to keep the left hand in the centerline and use the hip to push the body and the body to push the left hand and the left hand to push the kensen forwards. Another problem is zanshin. I landed one tsuki spot-on, but didn't execute the zanshin (stepping backwards, etc).
• In jigeiko, I was too tense to bring speed to my kote-men. Next time I should remind myself that.