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.
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