Much to improve

Yesterday was my second training at Taipei Kendokan. As expected, many people turned up on the Friday's session, and the good thing about this dojo is that, there are enough space and enough people to practise the whole evening without rest. After two hours of solid training, I could hardly walk straight.

I expressed my wish to the leading teacher Ming-Hua Ho Sensei (7th Dan who had been on the national team many times until 2006 WKC despite being almost 50 years old) that I would like to join the dojo. After the training I went to have some food and drink with him and other sempais. I felt much welcomed there.

There were plenty of advices from sempais and sensei:

• The left foot should not raise upwards during the men-strike. It should follow quickly up with the right foot.
• When striking kote, extend the arms forwards more, instead of making the kensen pointing vertically upwards.
• Got the same advice from another sempai to relax my right arm when striking men, so that I can extend the kensen forwards more. So it must be an obvious mistake..
• For doing small men-cuts, raise the hands until the right one is roughly at the level of the oppoent's tsuki tare, then flex the wrist to strike.
• Ho Sensei said my kendo became worst compared to last time when I was here !!! He said I had much stronger seme before (a few months ag0), but this time it was gone... It sounded like a sharp knife carving from my forehead straight-down to my testicles. But I know what he meant and it was true. It was partly because I was too tired already when fighting with him and I just wanted to do men-uchigomigeiko. However, on the positive side, he thinks I HAD seme. ;-) I need to work hard now.

Two Sempais, a male (Mr. Su) and a female (Ms. Hsieh), kendokas from the dojo who happened to be a married couple are selected to represent Taiwan in the World Kendo Championship this year. I was told that for the selection of the men's team, there were 63 candidates, all 3rd Dan above (which was a minimum requirement), and they must fight with each other until the final 7 or so winners. Imagine the number of matches they had to go through ... Anyways, I wish them luck!