Thursday, November 4, 2011 - Session 42

Tonight was wicked fun. It wound up being a somewhat lighter class than usual and this was good because I have been having some serious winter aches now that the weather has begun to turn. Lower back goes all angry and circulation is no longer my friend. I will change that though! Time for steam rooms and calisthenics! Anyway, tonight we devoted the class to nito! I admit that I am not quite as excited about nito as my senpai and sensei but I still find it fun. Having a shoto just changes the game so much. For instance, having a shoto gave me something to hold on to after I was disarmed in my keiko with Werden Senpai, thus providing hilarity for all. Oh well. Setting aside the keiko, which happened at the end of class, we started out by running through the kihon kata and then drilled out some katate strikes before Maestas Sensei brought out a few shoto shinai and we got to practicing. We did some rotating drills and I filled the motodachi role for most of those drills. Which was good because I enjoy one shinai quite a bit more and just receiving strike after strike gave me an opportunity to see where I might look for openings were I to ever find myself against someone who practices nito and such. In fact I really do enjoy the motodachi role in general. I feel as though I learn a lot there! We ended the night with some keiko, with me and Amaury Senpai and Werden Senpai as the participants. Amaury used nito against me and - for once - I felt as though I could finally focus on successfully putting down some strong attacks. Granted it was only because he had no experience using nito in keiko until tonight... but still! Then he fought against Werden Senpai with only one shinai while Werden Senpai used nito, and that was fun to watch. The spirit was high! Finally, my turn to try out nito in keiko came and I was paired against Werden Senpai and I totally crumbled. His spirit is always very high and his seme has - thus far - been enough to keep me down. It was still fun though and being challenged like that (even when I am struggling) is always very inspiring! So even though I do not feel that nito is for me, it was fun just watching everyone else get excited about it and pumped. I love fun nights like this. Oh and the new girl will be buying some gear soon! Which means she is liking Kendo! Which is always good.