Short training

Fuck Fuck Fuck.. Only trained an hour today, 'cuz we started late and the warming up basketball took another half-an-hour. I was extremely disappointed having expected all day long that I can stretch my muscles more. The kendo worm inside me sure has a big appitite.

On the good side, the hour we spent on training was intense, 2 x kirikaeshi, 2 x 5 men-uchi (large and small), 2 x 3 kote-tsubazeriari, 2 x 5 wazas against men-uchi, and the rest of the time jigeiko.

I still have to do better on my reaction time. Very often I saw an opening, which went away like a flash light, and my body wasn't able to response. On the other extreme, as Georg pointed out later, my arms naturally lifted too high - and too often - to block the strike. Once the opponent realises this habbit of mine he/she can lure me to raising my arms and strike do. Solution?

1. Have a stronger centre.
2. Don't care and strike, especially since it's jigeiko

I definitely have to do suburi this weekend to feed the worm..

Teaching again

Yesterday evening I lead the training again at the uni training. I thought no one else would turn up , because Stephan and many of the senior guys have gone to the Baltic sea. So I emailed Wei earlier inviting him to join me for a small training session. Four other non-Bogu wearers turned up as well, perhaps not knowing that Stephan was away.

I tried two new exercise with them that I invented.

1. Men-suburi, but the left foot stays at the same spot while the right one reaches as far as one can. The right lower leg should be perpendicular to the floor and, best, to the upper leg as well. Body posture should be maintained at all times, with the hip following every strike. This exercise is the promote a large leg movement while doing fumikomi and striking forwards, as well as a good posture.
2. Footwork and reaction. I asked everyone to line up in a row at one end of the dojo, and do the following footwork: forwards, backwards, right and left. Do this continuosly until an appointed person strikes men, at which point everyone else should try to strike men as fast as one can to follow up. After the strike the footwork is resumed, and the process repeated. The person who initiates the strike is rotated, so everyone (including me haha) gets to practise. We did this from one end to the dojo and back. This exercise simulates the situation in shiai/jigeiko, where, during one's movement, if an opening appears on the opponent, one has to attack immediately.
   

I like explaining the ideas to the beginners, but the downside was that I didn't get to practise mouch. On the other hand, when I did get the chance to practise with Wei, who wore bogu, too, I had to concentrate and to make every strike perfect, because the others were all watching.

We did two hours of training, without playing basketball like we normally do to warm up, which was replaced instead by running around the dojo, which I prefer much much more, since it's equally intense for everyone, safer, and takes a shorter time. Considering also that the beginners usually train for 1.5 hours, they had a hell of a exercise yesterday!

What I would have like to do is to practise at least 5 waza against men-strikes at the end with Wei. So that I could get more out of the training. But well, next time.

Yoda's departure

Training yesterday at the uni was so so. My blistered feet was acting up at the beginning and I felt awkward with my foot work. This feeling continued through the rest of the session. I asked Catherine to take videos of my jigeiko, and it was obvious that my foot work needs some improvement:

• Bring the whole body forwards. Use the left foot to push the hip.
• My right foot can take a larger step with a more convincing fumigomi.
  

On my strikes:

• Use the wrist more to achieve a more sudden and slappy strike.
• Punch forward after the strike to reduce the chance of the opponent counter-striking men.

I pushed the beginners quite hard, from at the beginning emphasizing the correct techniques to, at the end, pushing their physical limitations. I was probably one of the most strict person to train with, because I personally benefitted a lot from my sempeis' advices, and also because sometimes seeing bogu wearers making fundamental mistakes makes me cry.






This training was Yoda's last training with us. He will leave for Japan on 28th of August. All the best to him!


A couple of video clips with Yoda:
(1) Yoda and I - finished with his brilliant debana-kote.




(2) Yoda and Stephan - Yoda used first a katsugi-waza and then a spot-on men-strike.

Leading session

Suprisingly, I lead the session at the advanced session of the Dresden Budo Club yesterday. We had at the begining only four, and Stephan came briefly to say that he didn't bring the Bogu and didn't have time to go back and come again.

In the changing room,
Stephan: "Du machst heute das Training." (Eng.: you do the training today.)
Me: (My mouth and eyes wide open.) (Eng.: huh?)
Stephan: "Musst ja machen." (Eng.: you have to)
Me: (My mouth and eyes wide open.) (Eng.: what the f...)

We did lots of Kihon. Men, kote, kote-men, kote-do with large movements first and then small. Then uchikomi-keiko with these techniques. Afterwards, for half-an-hour we did harai- and nuki-waza.

• Harai-men, from upper-right to lower-left; harai-kote-men, from lower-left to upper-right. First, we broke up the harai and the strike, and took two steps. Afterwards, we sped up and took only one step while doing harai and the strike.
  
• Hiki-men

In the last 15 mins we did jigeiko before finishing the session with kirikeishi.

I felt good sharing my thoughts and what I've learned and read with the others. In fact, I enjoy teaching. Most of the time I was just reminding myself what I have to do to perfect the technique - I was just thinking out loud. So if you ask me if I was nervous leading the session? Not at all.

Self-improvement with kendo

Yesterday we pushed quite hard on the beginners. At the end, seeing them panting like mad reminded me of how it used to be, which kept my spirit up for the jigeiko at the end of the training. Among the six Bogu wearers I have the least experience. But I was able to fight more or less on equal grounds with the others (except Stephan whom I didn't fight with). A reason was that I was able to shorten the time between my blocking and striking. I landed a few nice kote-men's on my opponents.

Someone on the Kendo World forum asked about doing kendo as a way of "self-improvement", here was my comment:

Self-improvement wasn't a goal for me before starting kendo. I started kendo because of my long-time fascination of it and, in general, martial arts. But to perfect my kendo I find it necessary to adjust many of my attitudes, those that you use to face daily events and people. It has strengthen my mind, helping me to deal with stress better. It also makes me aware of the importance of having a good basics when learning something new, and that means being humble and self-critical.

I view the unhappy experiences in the dojo as a teaching in itself too. Which happen very often in real life, which you can't turn yourself away. You just have to learn to deal with them.

All in all, on the road to achieve the perfect command of the sword and the body, one learns many things and adujsts oneself from outside and within. As a consequence, he/she adapts to difficult and unexpected situations much better, in dojo as well as in general life. I think this is the teaching of kendo, and the road towards that ultimate goal and what one learns therefore is the way of the sword.