Saturday practice (9/9) was a return to kata and of newly Nanadan Sensei after a long absence. On the kodachi kata I seemed to have more of the details down but am still missing a lot of the flow. Said Sensei also focused his comments on my powers of observation. Almost-Godan Sensei says that I really need to cut smaller as I am currently lacking in kikentai.

Sunday felt incomplete somehow, with most kohai-keiko and lots of solid basics. My kote-men felt better than before, somehow.

Last night, kyudo was a fine return after too long of an absense: I still have bad habits (including completely forgetting ashibumi at one point), and my shoulder turns much too much outward where it should stay orthogonal to my erect body.

Thursday practice seemed very underattended, so Newly Godan Sensei focused mostly on kihonwaza for the whole time, and we reconfigured ourselves to actually all line up against him--the goal was to lift up completely first, and then strike forward with proper kikentai. I still need to relax, but I'm passably okay at all of that. It's hard at this distance to remember any of the keiko.

Saturday was more kata, all ten, actually, followed by four-way oji-waza practice: someone is the monkey in the middle, and the others all launch some pre-designated attack (men or kote), and then the monkey must respond with a counterattack (although it wasn't clear whether this was supposed to be an oji-waza or any old waza). Younger Saturday Sensei helped me with harai/makiotoshi waza, and cautions me against too much right arm again. Saturday Sensei says I am in transition: from one stage where I am aggressive and attacking, to another where I am observing the real opponent (not the multitudes of fake opponents (what the opponent looks like, what I think he looks like, what he wants me to think he looks like, etc, etc)) and attacking only the real opponent.

Today no Sensei showed up so Alma Mater Sempai took over and led us through a pretty routine series of exercises focusing on kihon without men. I got banged in the eye or so, but I don't think there will be any lasting damage. It felt really sweaty somehow, even with limited (two rounds of) kakarigeiko, so by the end I was really overheating and dying to say nothing of relatively ineffective against the various people I was then sparring against. It's odd, though, having this punctuated schedule. We'll see how it goes from here.