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.

Nana-hon-me is going to be one of those kata that keeps causing my problems. Part of the reason for this is that as soon as I figure I've got one set of motions down corrctly, one piece of the timing, or angle of the swing, someone points out another thing that I'm doing wrong. I know on an intellectual level that this is part of the process of learning, that mistakes are addressed by order of priority to slowly become better at the thing that is being studied, However, nana-hon-me is a complicated kata, both for its footwork, the timing of the strikes, the harmony with the opponent and the somewhat difficult motions of the body as a whole. When I'm corrected on a new thing, my focus naturally goes into correcting that portion of the kata. Unfortunately, this draws focus away from the previously memorized portions, which allows for mistakes, or worse yet, the formation of bad habits. This naturally prompts further corrections which can start to clog and confuse the mind. Language barriers don't help this. Fortunately kata can be demonstrated more easily than regular kendo, I feel, and with the good and patient teachers that I have, I feel myself improving, step by step.

Today was an interesting experiment in how much my body can take when my mind is switched off. This must be the 'no mindedness' that is so pervasive in kendo philosophy. Now, if only I could get there without putting my body in a calorie panic, life would be peachy.

Unfortunately, dieting has its drawbacks too. Aside from the pounding headache I've had all day, I've been forgetting things--little things-- that are usually routine for me. Like how many steps back to take in kata. I was counting the damn steps, but I just didn't stop at five. My head was somewhere else. Fortunately, after that I was able to pull my head back in and do a fairly successful kata sequence, nan-hon-me aside. Fukao sensei is trying to get my to finish the do strike at a 90 degree angle before turning to look at my opponent, but my muscles are having a hard time remembering the intricate details for the whole things, so its slow going.

Suburi was the hardest part of practice though. Trying to reintegrate the idea of throwing the shinai was a bit more difficult than I expected it to be, mostly because when you fix one thing your break three others. Itou sensei had to talk to me about my kiai. Oops.

Kihon was better today than it has been in a while. I was able to get through all the drills with speed and flexibility, mostly, I think, because my brain was completely shut off, and I could just do the thing I needed to do without thinking about it. It was nice, I admit.

I did a few mawari-geiko, too, keeping in mind Fukao sensei's advice of "Don't start something you can't finish." Since my body and mind were working on different worlds, maybe that's why today was a little easier, In any case, my right leg was one massive cramp today, from all the stress I've been putting it through. Hopefully a day of rest tomorrow will sort it out.

I had a mock shiai with Yuko today. It didn't feel as good as the mawari-geiko, but it was all right. I also had a bit of success fighting Sato sensei today.We always finished too close to each other, so I switched my tachi-ai, and was able to get him a few good times on men. That felt good. Even he said it was a good thing to realize and implement.

All in all, it was a good practice, even if it went 25 minutes over the usual time. I got home super late. No time to make a healthy dinner with all the super markets closed. Combini it is.

Self-Reflection

I've been having a bit of trouble focusing myself and orienting myself toward my goals. I think part of this is because I've lost sight of what my goals are. This is never a good thing. It can lead a person into a downward spiral emotionally, physically, mentally. I've tried to redefine and understand who I am and who I want to be so many times that I think I've lost who the core of me actually is.

Kendo is a lifestyle. I seem to have forgotten this in the need to consider other lifestyles that I am currently engaged in. Some of these lifestyles are necessary, healthy progressions of me as an individual. Others, not so much. In this losing of self, I've lost sight of a lot of the things that gave me true satisfaction in exchange for what gives only temporary pleasure. In trying to find a harmony between lifestyles to re-balance myself, I've left kendo at the wayside.

I thought for a while that I had lost my passion for kendo, as if it were something that could that easily disappear. In reflecting on this I see that this isn't the case. I have the same passion for kendo that I've always had, but I have erected barriers between myself and this passion so the way is now conflicted and uncertain. Before I can love kendo again, I must remove these barriers. Before I love kendo, I must love myself.

Sometimes it takes hard words to understand. Sometimes it takes pain and failure and misery to truly see. I hope I can lift myself above the challenges I face now and return to a place where I am truly happy. If I can keep putting one foot in front of the other, taking steps toward becoming the person I want to be, then I can embrace kendo into my life again, and more importantly, kendo can embrace me.