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.