I'll first list the excuses: Thursday tired, sleepy, Perlas ng Silangan; Saturday tired Wifey's going-away party and for pickup for Storage USA next morning; Sunday exhausted and headachey after moving everything in two hours into Storage. But really just to snuggle a little more with Wifey.

But I can't resist Tuesdays, since the only ones I'll have left will be the conversion Mondays. Today was laidback with the A/C on, and led by Sensei rather than one of the regular Tuesday Sensei. The focus was on SAR-heavy ashisabaki, regular menuchi, koteuchi, kote-men, suriage-men (the trick, which I finally got sometimes today, is to raise the shinai a little bit, straight-up, not to block, and then to hit a small men after receiving the strike. Stay straight!). Squat-suburi hurt at the time, but I think that my posture there has goten marginally better--I don't yet hurt, but soon might; the tsuki-straight-in-then-tenouchi-kote was also very helpful and accompanied by a few satisfying thwacks. I still need to work on my sashi-kote-men. Keiko itself was not remarkable, with oddly enough no Sensei... I'll miss it all, though.

Why do so many people show up on Tuesays, especially when I can't anymore after next week, at least until January. I managed to practice with all the Sensei today, after Godan Sensei and Junior Sensei returned today. There was plenty of advice, and I felt that my men was kind of crooked, and my tenugui was really terrible all of the time. Sensei says I was cutting too high, not far down enough. Godan Sensei complimented me on mixing things up, and my kote and kote-men waza in particular, but asks me to try more men-waza, such as harai-men and suriage-men. I miss my old debana-men. Finally, Regular Sensei tells me just that my kote was much better today, but should try to be much straighter.

Instead of kihon we had lots of small waza, taiatari-hiki-waza, and counter-waza (degote, suriage-men, kote-nuki-men), and then some nice kakarigeiko.

I felt off balance at kyudo today, with my shoulder still veering the wrong way all of the time, and then too much tension in the left hand and elbow in hikitori and after hanare. Still, mostly straight shots, though my ya were probably a little too long for my own good,but better safe than sorry. I went down to a lower weight bow to get the proper over-ear draw on the right hand, and I still need to use the shoulders in the right way. Funny how I'm cross-making mistakes.

Having skipped two practice due to laziness, exhaustion, and general selfishness, I have less to recap--just today's Sunday practice, which thankfully had no SAR, just plenty of back-and-forth-men-on-the-blocks drills. Immediately followed by mentsuke, we then ended up lined up doing men-uchi, followed by a complicated men-taiatari-hiki-men-degote combination, whcih Sensei deemed perhaps too hard for us to master. Kote-men felt better today, as the emphasis was not at all on kote, but rather on men--and the key is to shorten the kote-step, but of course this is easier to say than to do. Several rounds of kirikaeshi (but not kakarigeiko) later, it was time for keiko.

Nothing too stellar, though three sensei. Visiting Sunday Sensei advised me to always go through (having demonstrated on me first with his devastating taiatari). Sensei himself told me that I need to practice and emphasize my shoulders, by which he probably means my lats--possible the same as the kyudo muscle. The bi/triceps should only be used at the moment of tenouchi, and only at that moment!

I've gotten very lazy, and probably will need to reinstitute some of the old habits which were paperbound and carefully checked off all practice dates on a calendar in the back, with monthly tallies and so on. Now instead I don't even do this adequately: this entry will contain two practices (in two do's!)

Monday kyudo was good, with my first foray into group shooting, which was also the first time I've shot two ya. I have been running into some problems, I feel, keeping my left shoulder straight and bringing the yumi and ya closer into my own face, at the mouth level. Getting that big rounded feel on the hikitori has also been difficult, I tend to drag too far diagonally down, I think, rather than over my ear. I also came close several time to losing my grip on the ya, which probably means I need to hold it tighter, or just better with my left hand. Sometimes I think that my shot tends to go off too high--in the one case almost clearing the top of the makiwara entirely, which seemed rather dangerous. It's comforting to see how even experienced students can lose their yumi and ya sometimes. I just need to keep going. It was also interesting, though, to see what "work night" was like--maintenance, stringing, and unstringing.

It's interesting because people there were former kendoka, or at least knew of both my dojo and the other major ones in the city. I guess cross-training is common enough or at least people try different things once in a while.


Last night's keiko was miserable, and I'm not quite sure exactly why. I just felt tired--not tentative, but overheated and under-aggressive. With even more beginners (why in the middle of August?? The worst time to start, and before the start of a new semester), the class was split and there was lot of kihon men-uchi, followed by Sensei-led counter-waza (though unspecified and unclapped) drills. Plenty of jigeiko, including both Sensei and Long Island Sensei. Sensei's main comment was that the right hand is like the cradle-thingie on a rowboat--the oars are fixed, and so the cradle-thingie doesn't move at all--it's the left hand that does the rowing, and the right hand is only the pivot. I should isolate this motion and practice it more often.

Two more practices have gone by without so much as a post, I'm afraid, and it's all fading again.

Saturday we did a bunch of kata, all seven tachi-kata, in fact, but it was not clear what the beginners managed to pick up. Then it was the usual warmup routine, which was rapid and to the point before keiko proper. The same old problems, and I felt like I was even more tentative than usual, not really cutting with decisiveness and going forward as much as I should have. Too much kote-waza, and not straight in enough, while my attempts to use harai-kote also were too far to the left. Sensei remarks that I do fine when attacking second--after he has already overcommited. But I am too tense to reattack, counter, or do anything after the first strike.

Today was a Sunday classic, though it feels like we've abbreviated the entire lead-up to men-uchi. With an energetic kirikaeshi-kakarigeiko circuit, it was off to keiko, including some with visiting godan-sensei, who reminds me not to block, though I didn't even realize that I had been. I should try to regain that feeling of debana-men all of the time, as I used to be that way, but now I'm not anymore: I have gone through several phases in my jigeiko, I think, and it 's hard to identify them all, but roughly speaking when I started out I could not hit men without kote-men, then there was a phase where all I did was men-men-men and could not bring myself to hit kote, with a good period of always-trying-debana-men, and then finally this current period of too-much-kote.

A lacklustre Thursday practice--the focus was mostly on kihon, led by Regular Sensei, but the problem wasn't that or the weather, which was a little muggy, but just that I wasn't pushing forward nearly enough--I am feeling more relaxed after the strike, but it still isn't quite enough. I also need to figure out what to do against beginners, the ones who are mudansha or newly in bogu, as I'm again having problems dealing with them--they wind up too big and I can't really get inside, or debana-kote well enough. It's intersting also the different advice you'll get on kiai: I should tone it down a little, but have it on slow boil, and just be more commited in my strikes.

I really will miss Tuesday practices, and tonight was a classic Tuesday Sensei practice: joge-buri plus regular, ashi-sabaki focusing on left foot, with no-striking fumikomi practice and blocks coordination. Kihon-uchi: men, double-men, kote-men, do, kote-doh, hiki-men, debana-men, degote, nuki-do, kakari-geiko.

Managing to practice against three sensei and a number of sempai, there were three lines of advice: relax more, putting less power in shoulders; to aid in this, it's possible that I have too much kiai, which is the wrong kind, boiling up and tensing up my shoulders, or on too much of a constant-burn, rather than a slow burn, calmness like water, ready to explode loudly, as only that kiai really counts; in striking kote all of the time, change it up a bit, going for kote-men once in a while, and try to strike straight and centered rather than shiai-waza.

I do, however, feel as if my kote-men has improved greatly, if only when I totally relax and don't try for it--it's not quite nidan-quality, but it feels a lot better and not getting-ahead-of-myself like I sometimes do when I try too hard to strike...

I really need to be more conscientious about keeping this up, especially if I put into effect my plan to start some Friday budo at some point (probably February, after things settle down grad schoolwise). At that point, I will have a lot more to keep track of.

Sunday practice was short and to the point, led by Sunday Sensei with all the old standbys, modulo some omitted kihon-men-waza, and perhaps more tsuki than usual. I am now a big fan of tsuki, though I'm sure it's all psychological. Other than that, it was hot but I didn't feel that despite my too-wet tenugui, and there was a nice variety of keiko, including four sensei. Sensei himself remarks that although I managed to hit his men, my shisei was wrong--as I was shrinking backwards rather than remaining upright and moving forward. Smaller waza also seem to be the order of the day, befitting my rank, or so I'm told. Relax relax relax. I do feel better, though, when in regular kamae at least, but it's the after-wards which matters more.

With kyudo it's hard to know. We take two shots. Does that mean that we should make the first just like the second? That we should have them stack up like Robin Hood? Or should each shot be individual, subject to its own type of reflection? Group shooting looks interesting, like a game of Chinese Whispers--go not by what you have to say but what others have already said, as best as you can get. I felt like my left shoulder couldn't quite stay straight and perpendicular, and often more than before, as if I was losing my grasp with my right hand. My hikitori is still not very good, especially my righthand not drawing back over the ear, and my left hand going too far horizontal rather than diagonally-toward.

The new crop of beginners numbered roughly half tonight's total turnout. Somehow, Sensei expected us to do both all 9 kihon bokuto waza as well as all 7 tachi kata. Then there was some actual kihon before mawari-geiko. I have the same old problem, but I need to "figure out" things for myself better, rather than taking advice wholesale. Tenouchi and smaller waza are the key, somehow.

I missed two posts: Sunday Kendo and Monday Kyudo. And then I must add tonight's practice too.

Sunday is blurry, but it was hot, and as I recall pretty no-nonsense: the dreaded SAR drills during ashisabaki, followed immediately by infinite-kirikaeshi, which is like regular kirikaeshi except you keep going on each of the two cycles until Sensei feels like hitting the blocks. After that it was straight into several types of kakarigeiko: i forget exactly, but probably the normal type. I went up against a handful of sensei and they had helpful advice, and deadly taiatari and tsuki: keep center better--I tend to go overboard in issoku, hit smaller!

Kyudo was interesting, to see the coordinated practice against makiwara. I already have bad habits, though I've fixed most of my nocking problems: in dozukuri I need to better move everything in front--in yumigamae I need to not move my shoulders, which tend to turn too much, and when I bring might right hand back in should be in more of a rounded motion, rather than straight diagonally down--over the head, behind the ear!!

But I think that kyudo may have helped my tsuki-waza, which I managed to land 9/9 today in kihon-keiko. Still too tense after, but both the A/C and the more relaxed pace with a focus on kihongeiko was appreciated, despite multiple shinai-failures.