Yesterday I had one of the most positive affirmations so far in my kendo advancement: my teachers told me I did not need to practice kata anymore [for the san-dan test]. Aside from a few points to engrave into muscle memory for nana-hon-me, they said my kata is fine the way it is, and doesn't need any further tinkering at this stage. YAY!
Everything else, however, it is as Okusa-Sensei always says: back to basics. The basics of the swing, "throwing" the shinai in an arch; the basics of foot work, not to leave the left foot behind; the basics of straight posture; the basics of kamae and a stationary, centered left fist and kensen.
It was these points I worked on yesterday. Koyama sensei helped me visualize the correct posstion of the arms as cupping water in the hands... and then turning the wrists in. I'll try to visualize this, but in my do my arms feel cramped.
My back felt good today, as did my foot. I took a short break in between mari-geiko and juu-geiko before getting into it again with Fukao sensei and Ino sensei. Fukao sensei seems to believe my problem is confidence. He'll let me take hits instead of me figuring out how to do it on my own. Granted, when given the chance to figure it out on my own I often take too long to do so.
We had an interesting moment together before practice, where he was reminding me the reason why we fight for the center line with the kensen of the shinai. It is, naturally, to have the advantage for a centered hit on the opponent's men. We were not wearing men while he was explaining this, while he was demonstrating this. Fukao sensei has a very intense face when doing kendo; it's one of the reasons that I like to keiko with him so much, so when we were practicing this jostling shinai, I was receiving intense signals of aggression from him, in his face in his posture and in the pressure of his shinai. Seven and a half years of kendo has not left me bereft of instincts. More than a few times I was almost provoked into hitting him. He saw it too, and responded to my jerks forward, my feigns and hastily stopped advances with his own calculated retreats and increased seme.
It was fun, I admit, these are the moments in kendo that I adore the most, but it was also dangerous, and I asked if we could stop. In Canada once at a UBC practice we were doing men strike drills without our men on. I missed the raised shinai and jabbed my opponent in the eye with the kensen. It was a horrible feeling of regret, and one of the only times I have ever asked a teacher if we could quit a drill.
Unfortunately, I couldn't sustain that sort of seme during actual keiko today. Despite starting practice with energy and gusto, my strength waned by the end. Fortunately (if one is looking for the silver lining in a negative situation) it turns out that this sudden weakness wasn't due to an inability on my part, but rather the onset of a bad cold which I probably made worse with the 40 minute bike ride home in the snow.
Needless to say, I probably won't be going to Ren Shin Kai practice tomorrow morning, but I may still go to practice on Monday. Koyama sensei offered to teach me some techniques for basic striking before practice begins that would be worthwhile to do, even if keiko itself may be too difficult.
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