So practice is over, but in another city! Penance suburi later tonight!

So Sensei’s off in Latin America, and so tonight was a different brand of instruction. I feel looser after the shiai but still wait too much without seme.

The one thing we hadn’t counted on was the strength of Central Kentucky Kendo. Every kendo-doing Japanese man in Kentucky showed up to hand us a 2-0 defeat. At least I tied my match with a sandan. My first individual match was doable, against a chubby nidan who I tricked into first a men and then a nuki-men. The second match I got psyched out after a dodgy kote, and then fell to my own nuki-men. The rest was all waiting. It is all waiting. I still need to relax more.

Tonight was a surprising shiaigeiko that was not very well shimpaned, but I got plenty of practice as I neglected to take off my men after my match. I did well, winning three matches and tying one, albeit to a beginner, with six points overall, but all against kohai. Kote, men, hikidoh, men, hikikote, hikidoh. Or something. Felt different than regular keiko and a lot less amped up. Interesting because shiai was not at all the focus of the basics we did all class leading up to it.

Tonight felt odd, as I seemed to do pretty okay against the instructing sensei, especially with all that nuki-men I was pulling off (though my own kote was a different story–I need to work on that a great deal more), but the same old problems when it came to Sensei proper. I am cutting out the home circuits from the conditioning routine, and focusing instead of suburi–back to squatiburi and lungiburi, although I should alternate my days better.

Today was mock shinsa with feedback, and there was plenty to worry about, although my outfit passed muster: the issue again is my right hand, and also my posture, which is all hunched over like it shouldn’t be, and then too much right hand (still) and also my kiai and attitude which is too aggressive and tense and wild as opposed to “educated”–I try too hard to hit down when really I should hit forward, and then I make unnecessary movements to break the kamae, as if afraid to go in. Four months!

I skipped today for the first time in months, but it’s okay–I need to take kendo less seriously, sometimes…

Thoughts on seminar: the arrangement was not exactly very conducive to helpful, specific feedback, and my sparring was against a perpetual kohai and a much older combatant from a northern dojo, with the latter being awkward given the sidewaysness of his men. The main lesson which our visiting sensei tried to impart was a focus on all of the other parts of kendo beyond the actual strike: kiai, seme, strike, and zanshin. The major complaint was that of our collective lack of seme, defined, if such a thing can be done, as the ability to make the other guy come in. This is meant to be distinct from kiai and the strike (which is different from what I’ve heard, as I do think people say that there is an organic seamlessness), and is not to be mixed, somehow. This notion is helpful, I suppose, but it’s hard to know where the line between waiting and ready actually is. And of course, there are many terms which also came up which are untranslateable (but I’m working on it): including kii-fuhaku, sutemi, tame, and the like.

The other major theme was the importance of taking notes and watching other people’s kendo, and the attitude that everyone is my teacher, while trying the best to steal the notes of others, maybe to make a photocopy. This is in line with my beliefs about reflection, but it’s interesting to see how variable my attempts actually can be, mostly due to lack of patience.