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!