Today's Fuchou practice was a little better than the last two. My body has grown a little lazy from the November of inactivity, so I resolved to recondition myself as fast as I could.
Fortunately, it was snowing this morning, so I had a little extra motivation to haul ass up the mountain to see the city scape under the snow. The snow fall didn't last long, but the air was crisp and clean and it was pretty going up, with the temple under a light white blanket. It was good to be moving again. I realize that since bicycles are so convenient in Japan, I don't walk nearly as much as I used to. I would like to walk to work, but carrying my bogu with me for the 40 minute walk would be too much, I think, especially considering the hour and a half walk from work to Fuchou, and the 2 hour walk from Fuchou back home. It would certainly be good exercise, but I don't know if my body could handle that. Instead, I'll incorporate an hour walk up and down the mountain and around the neighborhood in the morning to make up what I would be walking in Canada.
I was still feeling a little uninspired for kendo today, even after the walk, but really, there's nothing to help that feeling but to keep going, so I went, and I'm glad that I did.
I practiced kata with Koyama san and Ino san. Ippon-me to gohon-me felt a little smoother today than it did on Thursday, but I could still feel a few clunks in the works. I need to practice making myself more fluid. Mostly they worked me on roppon-me and nanahon-me which I know very little of.
The footwork of roppon-me was tripping me up a bit. I always get a little confused as to which foot goes where for the side stepping kata like nihon-me, yonhon-me, roppon-me and nanahon-me. Since roppon-me happens so fast, I had to keep asking to stop and analyze what they were doing and what I was doing. It's such a tiny motion, the side step with the left foot, the forward step with the right foot and the suriage-kote that I needed to do it a bunch of times on my own before I felt confident enough to do it in the kata itself. Fortunately I have really patient teachers.
Eventually I was able to do it to my own satisfaction, but it'll take more work to make it perfect. Nanahon-me, however, I couldn't complete today. It took a long time to get the dou footwork correct (I'm still not comfortable with it) and during that time my poor left leg took the task of supporting my weight awkwardly as I tried to pivot in a crouch.
What it came down to was, I continue the pivot directly into a charlie horse or I fall on my ass. I fell on my ass. Everyone got a good chuckle out of it, but a chuckle is better than a scolding. In the end it came down to my leg being too weak to perform the motion, so I'll be doing more squats as well in the morning to make sure I'll be able to swing down into that kneeling position again.
By the end of kata practice I was wheezing, but practice was starting so there wasn't much time to clear myself out. The suburi drills went by as usual, though I couldn't do choyaku-suburi today. I wasn't going to attempt it while already wheezing from just kata.
We went through the usual men-uchi and kote-men-uchi drills as well as some kirikaeshi. I pushed myself through all of them, not at full strength, but at least thankful that I could do them better than last week. Itou Sensei caught me, however, and told me I should take a rest. So, I sat out and watched the rest of the drills and a round of mawari-geiko. I tried to jum in for the second round but Itou Sensei told me to sit out again. In the end, I managed to pop in for the third round and had a decent fight with Ino san. I was happy that some of the fight had come back to me. By that time, I actually did want to fight again, which was a welcomed relief. It's hard doing kendo when you don't feel like fighting.
After that one keiko, however, I sat out for the rest of practice. I need to push myself, and force myself to go, and to try and to recondition my body, but I can't break myself. I've been out of practice too long now. I don't want to miss even more.
So watching from the side lines how people moved and hit, Itou Sensei tells me it's cold and I need to put on a jacket. I wasn't feeling cold at the time, but he reminded me how often I get sick, and so I relented and got my winter coat. Even at 27, I still need someone to tell me to put my coat on when it's cold outside.
I love kendo.
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