Masago sensei visited, with mostly a focus on seme–if opponent does nothing, tsuki. If to his right, men. If to his left, kote. Also some oji-waza and applications of kata, with an emphasis on the left foot, but rather difficult to learn anything directly from his lessons.

In my keikos with him the men were a little exhilirating but it’s clear that I need to work a heck of a lot more on my kote, as tonight for instance the kote were these loops which were over-extended. That and momentum are difficult.

Keiko today was breaking everything down all the way down to basics. This meant that we started without even a shinai in ashi-sabaki and then we worked our way up to fumikomi and then striking small but still in a full arc without fumikomi, just suriashi all for nearly if not over an hour before men-tsuke and even then really relaxed waza, “Hi, how are you” rather than the downcrushing tendency we all have with overstriking men.

Waza included kote-ojigaeshi-men (take your time), kote-men (pause), men-suriage-men (point up, not lift up). Keiko itself was pretty great, with me up against sensei and scoring some nice kote and even a men or two. Felt relaxed but was told I still use too much forearm power.