Nihonme. Second Kata. Kote, Nuki-Kote. At least at this point in time, in my very short time practicing Kendo, this particular kata has had the most influence on my performance. It is the kata which introduced me to timing after all. In shiai keiko, the majority of my attacks start with the same drop that the uchidachi in the second kata uses. Not in response to a kote attack though. I simply find that I can best visualize my attacks when I first drop my own shinai below that of my opponent. When I first started doing this in keiko, it was being done to strike at the kote as in the form. But then I started going for a men attack as well. In part because I knew that it would not be what was expected but also because I am more confident striking for the men. Tonight I focused on striking for the do after that drop, to minimal success. Each time I went for the do, my brain paused for a moment because I was striking gyaku-do rather than the more standard do and Justin Senpai has told me (several times) that gyaku-do is not particularly appropriate at my current level. But it is the side that feels most natural when striking from that dropped position. Drop the shinai into gedan, bring it up along the right side (my left side) of the opposing shinai into jodan, and then down for gyaku-do, is basically what happened. No good. BUT! When I was in shiai keiko with Himitsuheiki Senpai (Joke: He is the best in our regular group and came outta nowhere but I cannot remember his name so I call him this as a joke and he is not Japanese) I managed to switch it up at the end and strike for men rather than gyaku-do, which he said confused him and which allowed me to strike a solid and clean men! Both he and Maestas Sensei said it was a very good men.
Hurrah!
But I do feel that I am becoming more sneaky as I become more confident. I drop the shinai sometimes before an attack because I know that - in part - it helps to conceal the potential target that I am aiming for and such. Like intentional telegraphing or something, at least in my head. I know that it really is nowhere near as tricky as I imagine it to be in my lofty imaginings, of course! I want my Kendo to be more direct than that. But it does help me visualize more effectively for whatever reason. Amaury Senpai suggested that I feel more comfortable dropping my shinai before a strike because I am so keen on gedan-no-kamae and the drop allows me to switch from chudan to gedan just before attacking, and I think he is right on that count. It makes sense in part because Maestas Sensei told me that I am too receptive in my keiko and that I play almost exclusively on the outer boundaries rather than fighting for a more central position like I should. I am all reaction and very little proaction. I agree. I really do like gedan a lot and my hope is that I will someday be able to successfully play in that stance and put its value on display, but I also know that (as with any stance other than chudan) my first priority needs to be chudan. I need to become very strong with chudan before I can begin entertaining other stances. And not just in the actual position but in the mentality as well! Right now I am only reacting because I am an instinctively reactive person. I cannot truly entertain a reactive and receptive stance until I am good at acting aggressively, until I can proactively react. Does that make sense? I think it must be like that little half step that people at my level (including me) take before fumikomi. Technically, it is proper footwork. But not at our level. We need to be able to do proper fumikomi before we can do that little half step with intention. The same goes for gedan and reactive technique, or at least that is what I have been told.
A great practice overall.
Thursday, October 27, 2011 - Session 40
Thursday, October 15, 2011
Back when I first started Kendo (oh those many sage months ago, when I was yet but still a child and unlearned in the ways of the world) I had my pride assaulted. Assaulted is actually a strong word. More like poked. My pride was poked. I had heard several men in the online Kendo community go on about upper body strength limits and so forth. Because my pride was poked in this way, I wound up committing to using the heaviest shinai I could find. I had actually started out with a pretty standard size 39 practice shinai intended for women from the E-Bogu website, and it actually did feel heavy to me when I had first started despite being on the light side at only 460 grams or an approximate single pound. But that quickly changed and the shinai now feels light as a feather when I hold it and its grip feels much too thin. Which seems to limit my awareness of the shinai in space due to poor proprioception or something like that. So, after the previously said pride poking, my first shinai was ditched (and later scrapped for parts) and I traded up to the ise bessaku shinai and its approximate 530 grams weight. It definitely helped train up my arms and it was a definite adjustment. Now I tend to switch between the ise bessaku and the kamakura shinai which has even more weight in it. Consider both very much recommended. The ise bessaku is my favorite for life.
But times change. Oh yes! People mature and pride can sometimes be set aside. Well that or a person can realize that - unless she really commits to doing some intense strength training - simply swinging a heavier shinai will never really get her to a point where she can wield the heavier varieties as though they are nothing at all. Humility, friends! Humility and frugality! At the moment the ise bessaku I practice with is actually using a slat from my very first shinai, which made for some interesting weight distribution in the resulting frankenshinai that I made. It is simply an expensive shinai to replace seeing as it costs about a quarter of my current paycheck. Woe to the part-timer! No. Scratch that. About a third. It is about a third of my paycheck. I need more hours. Anyways, at this point I am considering picking up a few of those that I first used and see whether or not I can perform better with something lighter in my hands that I can actually move about with some speed. I can definitely practice katate more effectively at least! But lest you think I am finally sweeping aside the chip I have on both shoulders, stand corrected! I will keep on with my ise frankenshinai for practice outside keiko and I might just start hitting the weights at the gym again. In fact! I can even do ten push-ups now, which is ten more than I was able to do one month ago! I am such a beast. Oh yeah!
;)
Thursday, October 14, 2011 - Session 40
18:18 PM: Kendo cannot come soon enough tonight. I will be leaving for the YMCA in about five minutes or so and I could really use the practice. I am having one of those low nights, where all I want to do is run away and go someplace new where nothing is the same as the life to which I am accustomed. Vacation time in just another week and some days though! So I can run about then. For now, what I really need most is some Kendo to help me feel grounded. Holding a shinai always centers me and helps me feel more focused. It helps me feel good about who I am and where I am. It can never come to soon.
12:51 AM: Some nights Kendo is fun. Other nights, Kendo is the most perfect kind of good that I can imagine. Tonight there was someone who was new (to me) and who has been doing Kendo since he was sixteen years old. Much like Justin Senpai in fact. Karen Senpai also showed up with Maestas Sensei. Amaury Senpai and Cameron also showed. So it was a great night with a full group and all! Cameron actually inherited the loaner bogu that I had been using once I purchased and received my own bogu and tonight was his second night with all the gear on. Hmm. We pretty much jumped right into practice and began the opening reiho with our bogu - all but the men and kote - on from the start, and we did several rotating drills after our suburi. Men, Kote, Do, Kote-Men, Men-hiki-Do, Men-hiki-Men, Kote-nuki-Do, Harai Men, and so on. We worked up a sweat right from the start and it was great! Although I had tied on my men a little too tightly and there was a knot right on the back of my head which was rather uncomfortable. I was glad for a free moment in which I was able to adjust it when I was the odd person out in our rotation. We ended the class with rotating keiko and I was able to keiko with Cameron and then Amaury Senpai. A few times, I was able to work with maki waza and at some point I would like to try using maki waza to bring the opposing shinai down, drop my shinai just a little bit when it is below theirs, and then smack it upward before going for men. Not sure it would be effective but I hope to try it. Sad to say, my attacks still need a lot of work before they are truly clean and I am still probably only fifth kyu material... but someday soon! I just need to start committing myself to practice again. My depression really gets to me at times and it can be easy to try and hide from everything, including Kendo. But once I am practicing all the sad feelings go away and I feel so good. I am fortunate to have this in my life. I am very fortunate. OH! We also went out afterward! My first second practice!
Thursday, August 4, 2011 - Session Thirty Eight
Kendo journal. I have missed you. I have also missed Kendo! I have been absent from practice for something like two weeks, in part because I got overzealous and tweaked up my right ankle a bit. It was super minor but it was sore when I walked so I chose to miss class last week so as to prevent it from becoming something worthy of concern. We did some Iaido tonight. Which was fun. Murder on the knees as usual. Discovered that the Boulder Circus Center has an Iaido group or something as well. Might check that out soon. Still waiting on my bogu to arrive and the anticipation is killing me. Not a whole lot else to write about tonight. But in a real fine mood.
Thursday, August 4, 2011 - Session Thirty Six
I wonder where Amaury Senpai has been? I do not have a working phone otherwise I would be bugging him with text messages and telling him to get down to practice and hit me on the head. We had a new student tonight who I think has all the right motivation to keep on coming back. Sensei was running a few minutes late so I introduced her to some basics like how we hold the shinai and how we move our feet. Sensei then showed up and I feel like she had fun. It is always great to see how people respond to Kendo at first. What practices make them nervous, what practices they get into right away, and so on. For me it was the screaming which was the most difficult when I first began. I tried to get into Kendo several years ago before finally getting started because I was so afraid of all the screaming and all the noise. But then there I was after class was done, saying to watch competition videos to see how men scream and women scream. Kiai is a real pleasure for me now and I am glad it is something I can be comfortable with. I am looking forward to having her in class next week. She was fun to speak with and fun to practice with.
There were several small moments during class tonight in which I spontaneously realized that I had made progress in my own technique. My attacks still wobble from side to side somewhat but they are so much more fast and more strong than they were when I first began. My footwork has improved a great deal as well. I feel more and more as though different elements are beginning to work together more and that feeling has helped me become reinvigorated. It is so good. I think that - sometime - when we run through this or that over and over again I do not recognize that I have made progress because we are moving forward. But when we have a class like the class we had tonight - in which we focused only on simple men strikes and sliding backward and forward on our feet - I am given the chance to look backward and see just how many footsteps I have left behind me. Or something like that. Returning the core basics from time to time drives home the progress that one makes because it is the foundation rather than a repetition of that with which we might still be unfamiliar maybe? It was wonderful.
Thursday, July 29, 2011 - Session Thirty Five
There was no practice last week because Maestas Sensei had to go and pick someone up from the airport or somesuch and Amaury Senpai needed the time off for something, and there was a Dungeons & Dragons game I wanted to attend. BUT! Practice this week was great. It was just me and Sensei again and he ran me through the first seven kata like we did two weeks ago, but this time it was much more thorough. He had me run through both the uchidachi and shidachi sides to the kata and I think that going through the uchidachi side helped me cement the shidachi role a bit more in my head. I still have trouble remembering anything at all beyond the fourth kata. Or really the problem is that I have trouble remembering them in sequence but I definitely feel that I remembered them better this week than I have in the past. So that is a good sign. Sanbonme remains wicked hard. The seventh kata is also pretty difficult. It requires so much coordination!
But the difficult elements in Kendo are the elements that help a person improve! And they are also what help a person have fun! I have not had the nervous/excitable laughter experience for a long time, but tonight it was hard to stifle the grin. I was having a great time running through the kata with Sensei. Although there was this one moment during gohonme (kata five) when he advanced as uchidachi and I totally blanked. He came forward for the men strike and - rather than reacting as prescribed in the kata - all I did was utter the absolute girliest squeak-and-shriek that has ever left my mouth. My shoulders tensed up and I think my body prepared itself for death or something because I felt this sensation that I imagine must be the opposite of seme or somesuch. Like suddenly the actual physical air opened up around me and I become one hundred percept vulnerable and open to attack. It was weird. We laughed about it though. I am not normally such a girl about things and I definitely do not shriek like that. I rebounded though! Totally got back into the swing of things (pun!) and I feel as though I did pretty decent. Nights like tonight help make Kendo great. It is just so full up with good times, you know?
Thursday, July 14, 2011 - Session Thirty Four
Kendo was good. Just me and Maestas Sensei tonight. Ran through the nihon kata a few times. It was good. Sanbonme remains my favorite. Made some progress on improving my gedan stance and made some progress on improving my performance in the first three kata as well. I am still having some issues with physical stability and balance but correcting that is really a long term goal. I have had misaligned everything for years now so acclimating to normal body movements and alignments will take some time. I would write more but I had to pick my brother up from a bar and so I am not really in the mood. Kendo can erase my stress like nothing else but some problems just do not end.
