On Climbing the Mountain

To get off the plateau I mentioned in my last post there are two options, either quit and go back down the way I came, or buckle up and start climbing higher.

Yesterday I chose the latter. I got to Fuchou extra early to do a little extra practice before anyone got there. I usually sweep the gym floor anyway, but today I swept back and forth doing suri-ashi and then practicing my lunging. 'back straight, left leg primed, visualize the distance, hips forward, start with the right knee, leap!'. Again and again. I don't know if it actually helped much during keiko but extra practice can never hurt.

I got to practice some kata too, which I needed since I forgot nanahon-me. We went through some small details of moving and how one should feel while doing the motions, but again, I had some trouble with the final dou strike. Going down into that crouch is pretty difficult, but I'll keep working on it. I created some giggles from the guys when I accidentally yelped near the end. Oh well.

Practice itself was lively and full. We had a few guys visit us from another club and I got to practice with a few of them. Mostly I was able to keep my energy, but there was nothing out of the ordinary about the practice itself.

I spent the ju-keiko talking with some visitors from Doshisha who would like to practice with us too. The more the merrier!

Today, however, I am paying for trying. My legs are fighting every move I make, and it finally took a hot compress to relieve the pain in my back. Can't expect to get better without a little pain. At least my wrist isn't black today, The way it was taking a beating yesterday, I was expecting something gruesome!

Another Plateau

Well, it's happened again; I've hit another plateau. I've done kendo for long enough now (oh my god, almost 6 years!) to know not to get discouraged when everything feels as though it's coming apart at the seams. Usually it follows a series of corrections that then occupy all my thoughts to correct and anyone who has done any kind of sport knows that the more you think about what you're doing, the more likely you'll mess something up. Of course, not thinking about it means that it never gets corrected. Like most things, there's nothing else for it but to do it, to move through the awkward 'am I doing this right' phase of repetition and practice and correction on into the muscle memory and fluid application of the desired motion.

So yeah, frustrations. I try not to let it get to me, and sometimes I succeed. Today at least was a day of rational acceptance of limitations that didn't dissolve into 'why can't I do this?! WHY WHY WHY?!'.

There weren't many people at practice today. I blame the cold. Kyoto is in a deep freeze at the moment and the flu is rocketing around the city like nobody's business. So with only seven of us there today we had a bit more of an intimate setting to practice in, and I was able to snag some time with Fukao Sensei for a few more pointers on keeping my kote guarded. He worked with me a bit on launching from the hips and the left leg (still working on that, six years in) and we did de-kote drills for about ten minutes. He always gets a laugh from my mistakes, which for me is better than being berated for not improving quickly enough.

It was a good practice, all things considered, but I'm still feeling sluggish and slow moving. I'm hoping that losing some weight will improve that. I'm aiming for dropping 5 pounds a month, so we'll see how that goes. If I could actually get my hibernating backside out of bed to exercise in the morning, it would go a long way, but every morning this month I've woken up with a very strongly punctuated signal of 'NO!' from my body. Warm bed is much more inviting that frozen mountain these day.

On Training Through Thought

During the cold, miserable, flu saturated months of winter, and the sweaty, humid, heat choked days of summer, obstacles can bump up in our lives that make it difficult or impossible to attend practice. However, training fortunately isn't entirely physical and even when we're forced to work overtime crunching numbers in the office we can take a five or ten minute break to pump a little extra kendo into our bodies.

Our brains are truly impressive tools of improvement. Repeated visualization of a motion or a drill is almost as effective as physically doing the activity itself. While in the long run, no amount of meditation can substitute for actually practicing the desired skill, tricking your body into thinking that it's training can be advantageous for those who cannot physically practice with regularity.

The trick is focusing thoughts completely on a desired movement or motion. Concentrating on a muscle group increases blood flow to the area. This is the mind's way of preparing for the activity that it perceives the body is about to engage in. Visualizing the desired motion establishes a 'link' between the mind and the muscle that is a key part of creating the final movement. This repeated mind to muscle exercising separated from the thought and concentration required to actually move continues to develop the muscle coordination learned within a practice.

One can liken it to practicing through watching. Less experienced practitioners are encouraged to observe the practice of their more experienced peers as a form of practice just as important as physically engaging in kendo. When we watch, our brains store the visual information and if we concentrate on what we see, naturally attempt to make the connections with our muscles that we perceive to be the same as those we watch.

The easiest way to get the mind into the mood to train through thought is to empty it. Sit in a distraction free room and concentrate first on breathing. Slow, deep breaths in through the nose and slow, controlled exhales through the lips work best for me. Push and pull each breath from the diaphragm. Feel the stomach muscles expand and contract strongly with every breath. With every inhale, remind the spine to be straight. With every exhale remind the shoulders to be relaxed. 'Ready' for me is when I no longer feel I'm fighting to keep outside thoughts from coming in. My thoughts are entirely on my breathing.

From there I recall a correction that was given to me from a previous practice; a stronger push from the left leg into the hips, for example. I concentrate on the muscle group that I need to focus on. I visualize myself pushing off with my left leg and remember as accurately as I can what each muscle feels like performing that motion. I slow the visualization down in my head and break it down piece by piece. I speed it up slowly until I'm visualizing the motion at a normal speed. When I've analyzed the motion from as many angles as I can think of, I move onto the next correction I need to work on.

So, do we have to sit in the middle of a silent room in seiza with our eyes closed and our hands cupped in front of us? No, but it's helpful. During my first year of kendo my natural tendency for insomnia was increased by my brain being unable to shut off from kendo mode after a practice. Laying in bed my mind would replay again and again a drill or a fight and my muscles would willingly twitch right along with it maddeningly until the early morning hours.

These sort of unscheduled 'review' sessions between mind and muscle can be controlled and structured and made use of during any moment of relaxation or down time. Make room for a few minutes here and there to exercise your mind as well as your muscles and improvement won't be too far behind.

Practicing with the Juniors

As it turns out, Monday is a holiday, so mercifully, I will not have to do kendo four days in a row. My body was feeling it this morning when I woke up. Since I have to make it all the way down to Fushimi-ku to get to Ren Shin Kai practice, I have to get up especially early to catch the train. My body protested the entire way there.

I ended up arriving much earlier than I intended, about 15 minutes into the junior's practice. I was content to watch and wait, but Majima-san invited me to be a motodachi for the group, and how could I refuse? The practice was an hour and a half long, during which time I had to crouch painfully low on my poor back. (After practice Majima-san said that Sugaya Sensei suggests keeping a long stance lunge instead of leaning forward. It would keep my back straight and correct, but also run the risk of pulling my groin again).

The kids varied in skill level from very good to baseball-swing-to-my-arm, but they were all a delight to practice with. Several of the kids were nervous to practice with me, and one tiny little girl started crying. Ino-san told her to do her best, and since it was the mawari-geiko portion of practice, I let it be a little comical for her, so that she could relax. By the end of it, she'd stopped crying, and had an intense look of concentration, so I suppose I did my job well enough.

After the practice was over, Majima-san invited me to sit up front with the sensei, which was uncomfortable, both because I didn't do anything other than let the kids hit me and because I am miles away from being good enough to earn that sort of seat.

There was a 30 minute break between junior practice and adult practice during which time Majima-san was practicing kata with her tournament partner. She explained that kata tournaments are judged between two pairs. Whichever kata is the most beautiful and correct advances to the next round of judging. Watching the two of them practice together gave me a keen appreciation for how lovely kata can look when it's done correctly.

Majima-san spared me the last 10 minutes of the break to practice kata with me as well. She gave me a few pointers on where to position the bokuto and the body. Unfortunately, I completely forgot nanahon-me! I was so disappointed, but she kindly let me do roppon-me twice for extra practice before we began the regular keiko.

Despite that keiko was an hour long today, I only really  fought with two people. It was all my body could take. I did what I usually do, and started with Majima-san, because she lets me do basics warm up and a few of the waza that I wan't to work on. We did some men-uchi and kote and dou and then some ai-men where she cautioned me to go straight at my opponent and not curve around them. We finished with a bit of keiko but my energy was lacking so we had to call it off early.

I then attempted to fight with one other sensei I'd never fought with before, but I could neither get my legs nor my arms to behave properly and in the end he had to tone down the keiko to just a series of men-uchi which was embarrassing. After practice he told me to lift my arms a little higher for my strikes and push off from the hips, which I admit was a large problem today. Hopefully after a bit of rest I'll be able to launch into a bit better kendo again on Friday.

After practice, Majima-san invited me to lunch, but I was so tired I declined and went home to nap instead.

A Little Bit of Shiai

It's so cold today! The Butokuden is a great place to practice kendo in the spring and summer; the wide windows and doors all around that can be opened create a sort of wind tunnel that's great for cooling off, but in the winter, it's not very well insulated. Fortunately, kendo does it's job well of warming up the body. One just has to get through a cold warm up first.

There were lots of people at practice today, about double the number of high school and middle school girls as there were older women. The first half of practice was the basic kiri-kaeshi drills, some men-uchi and some kakari-geiko. We stopped early though because we were going to do some shiai practice.

I have a love-hate relationship with shiai. On one hand, I really like the intense, show-down sort of feel of the whole thing. It's exciting and exhilarating to face off with someone else in a match that you can count as 'worth something'. On the other hand, I'm absolutely horrible at it. There are several reasons for it; I'm not fast enough, I'm not clever enough and all I'm comfortable doing are basic techniques, so I get spanked by people who can dodge, block and create openings. It makes me feel like I have large gaps in my kendo knowledge that I'm not sure how to fill. I've asked for help regarding increasing my knowledge of shiai necessary techniques and I've been told they aren't necessary. I've tried to learn on my own, and I am corrected to do basic, large techniques, so I'm not altogether sure how I ought to learn shiai style, unless I just meditate on it for long hours during my quiet time.

Yuko suggests that we learn shiai from experience doing shiai which makes sense, but I don't think I have enough opportunities to practice shiai to be very good at it. I'm at a bit of a disadvantage from people who have done kendo since middle school, and have run through all the various school taikai and gradings. Oh well.

The matches were three minutes long, and most people ran out the time with their opponent. Predictably, I lost in about a minute against a high school girl, but I wasn't too disappointed. Disappointment comes from expectations unrealized; I wasn't expecting to win.

After the shiai was over, we did some kakari-geiko and some ju-geiko. I tried to implement the knowledge that Fukao-san gave me yesterday, but was again corrected to just do big motion. It was really frustrating again, but in the end I realized it's a symptom of learning under many different teachers. They all see a different error in my kendo that they want to help me correct. What I'll have to do is work on each point individually with the teacher who explained it to me until they can all come together again, but as is the universal truth, "fix one thing, break three more". I think I've reached another plateau.

Apparently my fumi-komi is too weak. I suppose I wasn't concentrating on it very hard, as my mind was on where my hands were and not opening up my kote. I was instructed to make my stomp louder and sharper.

In the end, it was a bit of a frustrating practice, if only because it further confused me as to when and how I'm supposed to learn the things I need to learn. I can recognize that a great deal of it is my own problems that I need to work through. The how, though, remains a mystery.

Welcome Back to Kendo

First practice of the year that I could actually attend! It felt good to be back, though a little stiff at first. There weren't all that many people today; Yuko was absent because the Women's practice is tomorrow, and she wants to be fresh for that. Youko was at practice though, so there was at least another woman to practice with.

Satou Sensei was leading practice today, so we had a good warm up, though he shortened the drill practice and increased the ju-geiko. A couple things were really disappointing about today:

First of all, my brand-new shinai succumbed to the dry cold of winter and produced several dangerous looking splinters, forcing me to use my old shinai until I can get my new one shaved and re-oiled. Fukao-san suggests to mist shinai periodically during the winter to keep them somewhat moist, after they've been oiled. I should also get some candles to wax the edges like I did in Canada. My shinai always lasted a decent length of time after doing that.

Secondly, I was disappointed to find that my lower back still became stiff half way during practice after I specifically worked on increasing its strength with hours long walks every day during the break. It seems that it's yet another weight related issue I'll need to deal with. At least the pain wasn't as bad as it had been before the break.

Aside from that, it was the usual getting back into things routine. I was a little slower than I would have liked, but I was happy to get some instruction for hiki-waza. A lot of the time when I have attempted hiki-waza  or we have done the rare hiki-waza drill, my opponent does not complete a fixed tai-atari. It confused me that instead of colliding and using the body to ground oneself and jostle the opponent, those I practiced with would sort of, shove with their arms at a distance. I rationalized that perhaps it was a more advanced technique, or perhaps a different method of doing it, so I stopped colliding strongly with my opponents (when I tried, they would often take a step back and push only gently with their arms for an opening). Today, though, during mawari-geiko (and several hiki-dou attempts) I was re-instructed to collide firmly, ground myself with my feet and push from the stomach to attempt to maneuver and jostle an opening. It was nice to have that reassurance, and the correction. I like hiki-waza for a lot of reasons; the timing feels good, the physical contact with the opponent allows for more of a feeling of control than shinai alone do, and I tend to get hits with a more satisfying 'pop' from hiki-waza than any other waza.

I did a bit more dou practice with Koyama-san as well. He showed me how to snap effectively with my wrists, downward from just about chest height, so my dou now has a bit more of a snap to it, which is one of the many things I needed to fix about it. Mostly, I need to work on proper distance and footwork for dou though.

After practice, Fukao-san enlightened me as to why my kote keeps being tapped. He said that when I raise my arms for a men-uchi  I pull back my right elbow such that it leaves my wrist completely exposed. He demonstrated for me what it looks like from aitei's point of view and I could see exactly what he meant. He cautioned to try not to bend the right elbow so much, and so I'll work on that over the next two days of practices.

All in all, it was a good practice. I got some good, solid instruction that I feel good about, and some things to continue to work on. Satou Sensei signed my paperwork after practice for immigration, so that's one less thing I have to worry about. There's kendo for the next three days as well, so I'll be massively testing my stamina for the first week back at kendo.

明けましておめでとうございます！

Fuchou's first practice of 2013 was today, and I was squirming in mt seat for not having my bogu with me! Everyone was so energetic and excited to be at practice and the energy was just infectious. Greetings of "Happy New Year" and "Let's practice together this year" were abound! And while everyone seemed a little stiff today after the long break, the happiness and enjoyment of the first practice of the year was evident.

Though I think no one was as happy to be back as Itou Sensei. He was all smiles and laughs today, joking with us all and in general making the practice very jolly and light. Fortunately it wasn't so hard to explain today why I didn't have my bogu. Everyone was really sympathetic and fortunately, since work starts again on Friday, I'll be able to go to Friday practice!

I showed Ino-san my translation homework that I am so proud of. He'd forgotten at first that he gave it to me! But he reviewed it anyway, and declared it great. He helped me with a few of the words I didn't understand and then assigned me the next chunk of translation, which details how etiquette advances normal humans into god-like humans. The language and grammar are difficult, but I appreciate the practice, and the material is interesting too, so I'll do my best. I'm going to need to have my Japanese teacher review my translations though, because I'm sure they are rife with errors as they are now.

The practice was pretty standard for Fuchou. Once again, the focus was on seme and a snapping strike that ends with a nice pop on the intended target. Watching the suburi practice made me want to write an article on the mechanics of a proper swing, but I want to include photos, and people here are understandably very shy about having their pictures taken for the site. I know I would be too! Watching from behind though, you can really see where the nice suburi comes from. Those whose shoulders remain level and never rise have some of the nicest hits.

Mawari-geiko was longer today than usual, though it was nice to have a chance to see some of my favorite practitioners fighting one another.Having two high energy practitioners fighting makes for a very exciting match to watch!

At the end of practice (frustratingly!) Itou Sensei did the speed ai-men drill again! I should ask him to please do that drill one day when I'm actually in practice. It looks like so much fun! I caught a video of it this time for you all. Enjoy!

A Little Hiccup to 2013

Today was officially the first practice of the year for me! And wouldn't you know it, I had to go without bogu.

Unfortunately, my bogu was locked back at the office. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, since the spare key is hidden **********. When I went to pick up my bogu on Friday though, the key was missing. I'm sure the boss took it for safe keeping over the holidays but it effectively locked me out of the school, and my bogu out of reach! I don't go back to work again until the 11th, so tomorrow's practice as well will have to be without bogu.

The important thing though, is that I got myself out of bed at 7 in the morning and took myself down to Ren Shin Kai in Minami-ku to be a part of the action, bogu or no bogu.

I arrived about half way through the 9am children's practice which is always a treat. Kids doing kendo is adorable! They have limitless energy and tiny little shinai and the cutest kiai. I hope they continue to enjoy and advance through kendo as they get older, though I never had to do a sport continuously from childhood, so I don't know how fast it gets old to a young one.

The focus of the lesson was strong kiai and correct footwork, which is something even the adults are lectured on from time to time. Always, always, always it's back to basics, no matter how advanced, or how fancy you become.

The parents of the children were in the corner making a lovely pork soup, and frying mochi for shiruko. I got to exchange New Years aisatsu with all the adults, to many of which I had to explain my embarrassing lack of bogu. Everyone was in high spirits, however, and eager to start the New Year with great energy and enthusiasm.

Adult practice was only 30 minutes long today, to make time for everyone to relax and have some food. I was given some soup along with everyone else and asked to sit with the kids who were rough housing like boys will. It was amusing at once. They've seen me before, at the end of their practices, but we've never really spoken. So suddenly they were all looking at me like they wanted to talk to me, but were too shy, which was fine. I asked them questions about themselves, and they were happy to answer and soon I even had a minion! I commented how good the shiruko looked, and he jumped up and said "Sumimasen!" and ran off to get me a bowl. Soon he was fetching everything from mikani to snacks, and I wasn't even asking for it! Kids in Japan are so cute.

At 11am, the nihon-shu was being passed around. While this is usually too early for me to be drinking, in the spirit of the first keiko of the year, I had a few small cups, which turned out to be a big mistake later, but it was fun at the time.

I got to spend time with some of the other adults after a while, listening to the conversations all around, but understanding only small portions of them. One of my goals this year is to improve my Japanese conversation ability by squeezing time out of an already tight schedule. It's hard learning a language as an adult. I feel like I don't know where to begin sometimes!

After the party got all cleaned up and more nihon-shu than I'd been prepared to drink before the afternoon had even started) the sensei and a few of my friends went down to a local restaurant and had even more alcohol, along with some very yummy fish. The conversation was conducted in a level of Japanese that was still way over my head, so I mostly listened as attentively as I could, but understood little.

Ino-san tasked me with translating an essay from the handout that was given to everyone at the end of practice. It's a fairly lengthy essay, so I'll translate it slowly, but if I do it in small chunks I should be all right. It's on etiquette and how it separates us from animals and exalts us from normal humans. It's a lofty sounding piece.

I arrived home a few hours ago, and am experiencing the world's fastest hangover, so I think I might go lay down for a bit. Too much drinking over the holiday is possibly taking it's toll on me. I blame it on age.

One last thing, as part of my New Year's resolutions this year (a classic) I will lose 25kg! I'm getting too old to be packing around extra weight anyway, and if I hear one more person joke about how I'm pudgy, I might have to attempt a tsuki!