So Sundays tend to generally be more intense and all, but today it was odd as no Sensei showed until nearly half an hour into regular practice, so while everything was accelerated and we went through yet more much-needed training in taiatari-men, as my hikiwaza still suck. But somehow, during jigeiko, my attention wandered and I again started to be half-seriously playing, not keeping the intensity between strikes, rather than keeping my focus throughout, in a life-or-death attitude. So it was just strike-men, try for ai-men, reset, strike again for a while, which wasn't the best way fo doing things. I did, however, land a passable give-it-all-away do, faking out my opponent completely, and with decent zanshin. That's still not one of my standard waza, though, and I feel that do is still a little exotic for someone my rank and experience--I should probably think more about refining my kote-men, which has gotten very very sloppy of late--I guess that is in part because in the past I would habitually hit kote-men rather than men straightaway in order to try and create an opening and close the distance. These days with my efforts to hit men all by itself, and of the debana or uchiotoshi varieties, I tend to eschew kote, perhaps too much.

But I should remind myself that I'm much better off focusing on kihon, kihon, kihon, rather than anything fancy-shmancy at this point. Still, an occasional men-misete-kote can't hurt.