It’s been quite a few days without practice–an entire week, due to the usual Tuesday class, Thanksgiving, and a bus that never showed up. Still, I find that the home conditioning has been paying off well, if only in my general fitness and tone, an emphasis on the core and now on endurance. What I need to find some more of is something plyometric, as it seems that the biggest complaint in terms of my waza come in two directions, which are perhaps related. First, my 面 is too shallow in its cut and with far too much tension as always, to say nothing of too big. Second, and perhaps more fatally, my kote is all sideways, to say the least, and moreover it is not forward enough, as if i were just thrusting or lunging with one foot rather than two, which makes me dip and wobbly and not so good at all…

So today was an energetic Sunday keiko with some old familiar faces who don’t show up quite as often as before, and whose kendo challenged mine greatly to say the least. I have gotten really sloppy about somethings, most notably my kote and the size of most of my strikes, as well as this whole kikentai thing: I think that all this conditioning needs to be matched with more footwork drills for snapping forward that left foot. The aching in my left calf muscle also doesn’t help. I guess part of what I need to do is to start conditioning again for upperbody strength, which is not so much for kendo as for general balance. The core work I’ve done has paid off, or so it feels, but there is plenty far to still go in that direction.

I’ve been exploring conditoning
aside from the 100 lungiburi/squatiburi daily in thsi here month,
I have also been doing Janorek circuits
and considering tabatas
plus jackknife bicycle crunch routines.

I won’t blog today about how I learned today from my two keiko with Ortho-Sensei and Rival Sensei (at last! After 4 years!). Rather, I blog what I did in terms of mitori-keiko:

They move so little. They just test, tap, test, and their feet move, the back foot planted, or solid, though the heel a little bent and blue (from the protector), but their front feet are all seme-ashi, meaning that they never fully rest and are always moving, as if feeling the floor for vibrations, ready to move. And boom–such momentum all the way across the room, though the elder sensei has a kensei that too easily moves up and out of kamae at the slightest threat, but somehow manages to do a loop in the air before landing a solid thwack on the junior’s men, the dojo is silent watching and listening, transfixed by the invisible struggle which seems so much move alive than any video on Youtube. The senior sensei seems not to move at all sometimes, meanwhile, and both seem as if their right kote are too far out, so inviting of attacks which do not come–because they don’t attack kote, or if they do I miss it–all they need to attack is men–all that counts is men, men is all you need–ippon dissolves into another draw.

Tonight was deserted which was fine because I was energetic and attacky against all comers.

Last night was painful on my forearm because one of the lesser sensei kept on hitting “kote” and then claiming that it was because my kote were too “open” (the actual tubes). Being kendo, I didn’t disagree, even though there is a large welt and some residual pain.

It was good to return today I think amid kata and what was reported as added aggressiveness. I do, however, need to do a better job of kote which while loopy and landing won’t help out long term. Other than that I’m not sure what else to write, as it’s just another day, or something… consistency is the way to go..