Full House

Monday practices are always full, in part because we have the entire large gym to our disposal on that day. Because we're still in January and everyone is still basking in the sense of newness and freshness of the year, Monday practices have bloated even more, to the point that we almost don't have enough room for everyone to keiko together.

Itou sensei is still recovering, though the news is that he will be at practice next week. He had a successful surgery to set the broken leg, and is expected to make a full recovery. It goes without saying that everyone breathed a very large sigh of relief at that.

Fukao sensei apparently really liked the maple sugar cookies that I brought back from Canada. He offered to give me some money to buy some more the next time I went, but it's hardly necessary. I get a tremendous amount of quality keiko and instruction from him. That's worth way more than a couple boxes of cookies in my mind. I don't mind giving them away.

Back still hurt today and I needed to take a bit of a breather to take some of the pressure off. Sitting two or three minutes in a squat position is sufficient, it seems to relax the muscles again. At least it's something that I can adjust in practice. Problems with my plantar or heaven forbid another torn groin keep me out of practice for weeks with no recourse but to let the injury heal in its own time.

I got to practice with Donna san today which was great fun, even if it was just at the end of practice for a quick ippon. Another Italian guy came too, and from what I watched of him, he's really strong.

Asahi san cracked me three times like a hammer on my men today during waza practice so hard that I actually checked my scalp after practice for blood. I'm not sure if it was a retaliation hit because I may have been hitting too solidly myself, or if he was a bit stiff as well, but my god, it's not often I see stars in practice, and three times in a row was enough to have me shaking the cobwebs out of my head before the next round. I hope I'm not going to incur permanent damage in my later years from all the head trauma I take in kendo.

I practiced a bit with Sato sensei again, but it was at the end of the line, so he was exhausted and our practice didn't last very long. I also did a bit of my own waza practice with some of the ladies during ju-geiko, mostly to correct that bent elbow thing Yamada sensei was on me about last week. Fists up and forward, elbows relaxed, wrists snap. Must keep that in mind. Especially the fists up part.