Ippo Furyu - A single step without Stopping

Here I write again, after friday training at USYD.

It was quite a different training regime, with the upcoming Uni Games & ACT competition. I would compete, but I have other committments i'm afraid.

Anyway, we started off training with warm up, lasting about 30 minutes or so, and then we had Shiai practice while the beginners sat down and watched us.

Matches came and went in a maximum of 2minute bouts, which was enough for me to work up a sweat. When my match came, I was pumped up. I wasn't thinking of anything, just attacking and showing my spirit, in which both my opponent and I received compliments about from a Sempai. However, one thing that was apparently lacking was zanshin, in respect to our kote strikes.

One thing i'm not sure about what my opponent did, was not maintaining chuudan. I have encountered this technique before, and mainly it was a technique to induce the aite into going for men and then countering that with a debana kote usually. I generally kept my distance where I noticed him creeping closer when employing this technique.

Eventually, I scored a kote off him, and he got a point off me in which the match ended in a draw.

After our shiai practice, it was followed up with Ippon Shobu for 30 seconds with hayasuburi as punishment. I did hayasuburi every rotation unfortunately- mainly drawing but also losing to a person or 2.

This was followed with Free-jigeiko.

One thing that I tried to practice during both Ippon Shobu & Jigeiko, was kote-nuki men. I was able to avoid their kote hits, but wasn't able to push off to complete a good, clean men cut. Oh well, more practice.


This sums it up for now.
My current focus atm is:
- Posture
- Zanshin
- Men cuts (I have been focusing too much on kote cuts lately, so best to go back to the fundamentals)

Good training

Yesterday was my first training in a while, I forgot how it felt to train.. I missed it.
It may have been because of the good streak that I had this week, but I felt training was good training for me. My cuts in basic training felt crisp (all except my dou cuts >_>) and I apparently haven't regressed from the time I last played.

A lot of people have improved though, guess it shows through their training. haha, while me and my suburi at home. ;(

Some interestingly new thing we did (well for me) in training today. Seme-ing and fighting for center, and once you feel the pressure of their shinai fighting back, lift up and go for kote as your shinai would be gone, leaving nothing but air as resistance against the aito's shinai, hence opening up kote. Much more efficient than harai waza in my opinion. I tried to use it several times during jigeiko with no avail, but I guess I can always practice it more.

Another thing is Penalty Ippon Shobu. Pretty interesting - I knew what it was from a sempai's blog post, but it was nice to try it out. Albeit, i lost/drew every round so I had to do hayasuburi every match. Oh well, no pain no gain!

Short post today. Anyway, until next training,
Happy training!

- Kent