Eventful Times

Well, it's been a while since i've had my last blog update. In terms of training, some interesting things have happened.

Tuesday 18th November,
- Daniel came over my house, we caught up, played some games, ate Pho, etc. Then we made our way towards Blue Leaf Kendo Club for the 5-6:30 training session. Mainly consisted of being a motodatchi. I didn't mind being motodatchi, it allowed me to pick up on somethings that the other peopler were doing wrong. I would've said something, but it wasn't in my place to change the way they were teaching.

- Fast foward an hour or so and then the other guy in bogu (his name escapes me) did kakarei-geko and was a some what, a demonstration to the non-bogu people on how to zanshin properly, and go for the next cut. After understanding what kakarei-geko, I noticed that I was doing the wrong thing with Walter the week before, I was only supposed to remain in Chuudan, which was my bad.

- We Jigeiko'd for a while, and then had session where we tried to land an ippon. I tried, but failed. I felt a nice cut that he landed on me, which had ended the practice. We sat in seiza, took off our kote and Men, did Mokusou, and training was finished for the day.

Friday - 21st November;
Training for USYD kendo was still not on as exams officially finished on sunday, 23rd november. We did some more kata practice, revising over 1st - 4th Kata and learnt 5th kata. Didn't go to dinner because I had work the following day.

WORK - SAT & SUN - 22nd & 23rd Nov;
To sum it up in one word;; tiring. Haha, but good to not work with my manager who seems to boss us around allthe time. haha. did 6-4pm on both days. Helped make a platter on Sunday for a customer which is something new for me. haha

Monday - 24th Nov;
Went to training early, around 2-15pm. Jinny came at around 2-30pm. did some warming up at the start and big kihon cuts to get into the mood for training after a months or so without training at USYD.
Mark ended up coming training today, and only bogu people ended up coming. Focused on Kirikaeshi with tenouchi after each sayu-men.

Then we did some basic cuts, Kihon Men, Kote and Dou. Except for the Dou, Mark taught as a new way in that we slide up our hands when we make the cut in the attempt to do a Nuki dou (opponent goes for men and you do a dou cut). My skills were a bit rusty and I sucked. haha. Nothing new for me.

Did some Hiki-men afterwards from tsube-zeriai. Was a totally new thing to me and luckily it was broken down into steps so we could follow on with what we were supposed to do. Somewhere during his time before doing Hiki-men, we did kote-men cut. Footwork stuffs me up really badly. Need to see how the foot work goes for kote-men.

We then did some shiai with Mark which was over really fast for me. Marks men cut is soo fast. I observed from the other beginner bogu people, that when we go for men cut, Marks men cut arrives earlier then ours. Need to do weighted training with a suburito.

Tuesday - 25th Nov.
Training outside of HKGYM with Kelvin & Takuma. Phil was supposed to go but he was busy.Did warm up, basic kihon cuts, Uchi-komi gekom Jigeiko & Ai-Uchi Men. Was good training session. 12-3pm in teh sun so it was a bit of a work out. I wasn't huffing and puffing, but my arms were tired. lol
Need more practice in jigeiko. Hmm. My weakest point in kendo is going for that deciding cut, making & identifying an opening. Zanshin was pretty bad though as well. Not sure why.. maybe it was because i was tired or just because it was grass.. but my zanshin could've been better.

Anyway, this is my post for the moment. Nearly midnight and im getting sleepy, so I'm going to head off to sleep. Staying up for no reason isn't good for your health ((in my opinion)) x]

Looking forward to Fri Training. PEter's leading training and it's supposedly going to be like highschool kendo training in japan to (as per Jinnny) make us buff for States.

Will I be better before State championships? Probably not. But time will tell. Need to start to put more effort into my kendo.


Until next time-
Kent~