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...