Tonight practice starred three godan. I only practiced with one, satellite Sensei, but he was tough and fast and surprisingly nimble, but he had good things to say about my men strike, the straightness, but cautioned me to cut more with my left hand and to not bend or twist toward the right like sometimes I want to and do. He has this habit of going into what is almost a gedan, which I find very difficult to deal with, as the angle is difficult to harai, makiotoshi, or otherwise work with, and is aimed right at my mune or do. His makiotoshi is also pretty wicked.

Regular sensei suggests we work more on ai-men, and I agree that this is a good idea. I'm told that I lift back too high and should try to lift straight up, therefore never exceeding 45 degrees.

Sensei, meanwhile, still says that I need to put less power into my hands, which I agree with, and today against him I felt like the keiko went on a little long, or I was just tired, and flailing left and right, all over the place. I wasn't holding the center line before going in, and my form suffered greatly. I did manage to land somehow a nice ippon shobu men-uchi which was a nice thwack and penetrating, though at one point, I nearly suffered a balls-waza. I am able to tap his kote, but I should be hitting harder and more accurately with better zanshin.

In the first part of practice, I was surprised by how sucky my tsuki was, but then how gangbusters my tsuki-men actually is. I think I just more fully commit to the strike and gain center more solidly. It feels like it could be a very effective waza after a few more years of practice.

It was interesting practicing two bogu-newbs. I can hardly remember what it was like those days, not without effort. It's good to be so regular that I am constantly in the flow of things.

My energy went both up and down against the other people I keikoed with. J in particular and I have gone into a much slower, kamae-bound kendo rather than power-power-power, which is hard to describe but still very demanding. Otherwise I just wasn't as aggressive as I could have been today, probably just tired out.

Oh, yes--I should mention that during men-tsuke, my himo broke, which required me to run downstairs, miss about 10 minutes of regular keiko, and be very very embarassed.