Von nichts wird nichts

What a f-*beep* shit day I had at work yesterday! However, the usual Friday bashing helped a lot to get my center back.

We had about half-an-hour of devilish kirikaeshi (courtesy of Georg), consisting of normal, 30-sayu-men, 50-sayu-men, and moving on to finally 100-sayuman. My shoulder and forearm muscles were cramped up after the exercise, which was good since I used the right parts of my body. The last 30 minutes we had shiai-geiko and then jigeiko. Out of the 4 matches in the shiai-geiko (ippon shobu), I drew one and won 3, with 2 men-strikes and 1 kote, which was a good ratio.

After the training, as usual I teased myself about how useless my body was and how quickly I got tired. Georg said to me, "Von nicht wird nichts." Which is an equivalent to "no pain no gain" in English. Bang on!

Squad Training 3

I joined the afternoon session of the squad training yesterday. There was a long jigeiko session which was a good chance to work on seme. However, before that we practised about one hour of more advanced techniques:

• From issoku-itto-no-maai, seme with the shinai on the right side of the opponent's shinai, until the kensen reaches about the nakayuki (the leather tie) then drop the shinai and immediately raise up to strike men. Because the opponent's shinai would tilt momentarily to the left, an opening is created. The important thing to remember is that the shinai should lower straight down and raised straight up to attack, without swirling in the course.

• Hiki-dou with stepping to the left-back to avoid possible men attack. If done correctly the oppoent's shinai would fall on the right shoulder.

Miwa-Sensei also encouraged us to try different techniques for opening the target during kote-strike.

The jieiko session was good. My timing for oji-waza has improved which was encouraging.

Use the pressure

At the end of yesterday's training, we had a team shiai practise, I was the oldest of the team so became the taisho and was up against Stephan. It's been a while since I fought in a shiai-situtation, therefore it was a good opportunity to see how well I cope with it. We had a draw and no one got a point. I think I applied good pressure and often forced him to step backwards, but I didn't use the pressure well. I had this same feeling a while ago. It was as if I was afraid if I missed I would have gotten a hit. This prevented me from striking when where was opportunity. I need to practise applying pressure and scoring as a whole complete routine in every training from now on.