Being shinsa season and all, the last half hour and then fifteen extra minutes were devoted to shinsa practice and commentary.  The only thing I haven’t written about before in detail is what Sensei calls, “kurai-dori”–winning by coming from a superior position, as if you’re the CEO of a company and the opponent is applying for a job.  This sort of dignity and domination is winning before striking.  I guess I’ve felt something like it before in shiaigeiko against opponents who were clearly kohai–a loud kiai and then just seme until they attack, confident in victory.  The tricky thing is that being at the same dojo against the same opponents most of the time it’s too easy to get into patterns and think too much about how to create specific counters, which is not a terribly hopeless thing but still somehow short of the ideal reaction–too much planning, thinking.  Still, I can think of a couple points I’ve gotten in shiai due to thinking.  So it’s worth considering more carefully.

Quite possibly the boringest practice ever: watching other people do kata, watching other people in mock-shinsa. My kamae is too tense–my elbow should rest against my body, ready to spring, not already sprung. I should feint less and use big old waza more. That’s about all.

The Koreans all showed up today, which meant I didn’t get any Sensei action, but my knuckles but got plenty of shinai action, to the point where I actually had to stop, but now it feels better, even without icing. The focus that Sensei had for us was mostly on kihon waza, but he already started the speeches about shinsa, probably because it’s so close to when we come back from vacation and kagami biraki. So we did lots of men (closing in: shokujin, kojin, issoku-itto) nice and explosive sutemi style. Then we did some degote, some nuki-men, some kaeshi-kote/kaeshi-do. Kirikaeshi and kihon-men-kakarigeiko finished us off. A good, sweaty practice, and the focus on shinsa is nice, because it’s something I needed to start working on earlier.

Today’s shinsa was successful for me, in terms of shodan, though it was also successful for 90% if not more of the candidates, which is not to say that I feel any less proud and relieved, but just that I know that this rank is in a broader context, and after all just a beginner’s grade, as the kanji readily reveals.

Still, it felt from the matches I saw that it was just a whole not of diagonal corner-to-corner men-kakari-geiko, and not much actual seme or waza other than straight up men. I managed to land a few decent kote and kote-men, I think, and resisted the urge to do my usual hiki-kote nonsense, so I felt like I did a good job either way. Kata too was a breeze–everyone passed, even though there were some substantial bloopers in most cases. I still felt nervous though.

One more year before I’m eligible for nidan. Should be worried that our dojo produced no ikkyu this time ’round?