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I had a day off today! With my work schedule constantly changing I have to rearrange my kendo schedule as well, and I was a little disappointed to lose my Thursday evenings. Today though, my student was absent, so I jumped on the opportunity to go to Ren Shin Kai again.

As Majima-san said, it was incredibly cold. Only half the people even showed up. Even Sugaya Sensei was absent. Some of the women and I got into a discussion as to which is better to practice in, the heat of summer or the chill of winter. Only one person suggested that summer was better and we all kind of exchanged looks like she was crazy. Sure, it's freezing cold in the winter time, but at least you can warm your body up during practice. There's no escaping the heat of summer.

Majima-san was excited to practice kata and so was I, though I really need to ask Koyama-san to go over roppon-me and nanahon-me with me. I'll need them for san-dan and I want to be able to practice all the way through the kata forms in the near future when people ask. Unfortunately I was a bit rusty today. I could feel that I was a bit stiff and unbalanced. Majima-san complimented me as always, but it didn't feel as fluid as it usually does. More practice is needed. She suggested that (as shidachi) I take larger steps back to center in sanbon-me. I think that's what I'll work on next in kata training; being able to accurately place myself back to center, and to remain on a straight line.

Practice was tough today. I hadn't been to practice since the women's practice a week and a half ago, which put a lot of strain on my still recovering respiratory system. I've been taking it a little easy in the hope to heal quickly. Also the medicine the doctor gave me makes me a bit sleepy so I haven't been inspired to do much more than slug around the house.

But one can't hibernate the winter away as was demonstrated today. Stamina was low, in part because I still don't have full lung capacity yet and in part because I haven't been moving much recently. My muscles got stiff very quickly and my body wasn't working in sync with itself. I was reaching too much with my arms and not lunging far enough with my leg. More than once my left leg got left behind and my right arm extended too far. Amateur mistakes that I could absolutely feel I was making. I did my best to make up for it with ki and kiai, but there's only so far that can get you. I ended up with another nice bruise from a dou hit that went too high.

My last fight went a little bit better. Body had warmed up a bit and I was feeling a little more cleared out in the lungs. My opponent however, was shorter than me, so he kept creeping in closer than I would have liked. It forced me to either attack before I was ready or retreat. Retreat is rarely the better option, so all that remained was to make myself ready faster and try to catch my opponent off guard. It was a good fight, but I was exhausted by the end of it. I'll need to up my training some more and try to recover some lost stamina. I'll go to Fuchou tomorrow and see what I can do there.