On Being Told to Chill Out and Warm Up

Today's Fuchou practice was a little better than the last two. My body has grown a little lazy from the November of inactivity, so I resolved to recondition myself as fast as I could.

Fortunately, it was snowing this morning, so I had a little extra motivation to haul ass up the mountain to see the city scape under the snow. The snow fall didn't last long, but the air was crisp and clean and it was pretty going up, with the temple under a light white blanket. It was good to be moving again. I realize that since bicycles are so convenient in Japan, I don't walk nearly as much as I used to. I would like to walk to work, but carrying my bogu with me for the 40 minute walk would be too much, I think, especially considering the hour and a half walk from work to Fuchou, and the 2 hour walk from Fuchou back home. It would certainly be good exercise, but I don't know if my body could handle that. Instead, I'll incorporate an hour walk up and down the mountain and around the neighborhood in the morning to make up what I would be walking in Canada.

I was still feeling a little uninspired for kendo today, even after the walk, but really, there's nothing to help that feeling but to keep going, so I went, and I'm glad that I did.

I practiced kata with Koyama san and Ino san. Ippon-me to gohon-me felt a little smoother today than it did on Thursday, but I could still feel a few clunks in the works. I need to practice making myself more fluid. Mostly they worked me on roppon-me and nanahon-me which I know very little of.

The footwork of roppon-me was tripping me up a bit. I always get a little confused as to which foot goes where for the side stepping kata  like nihon-me, yonhon-me, roppon-me and nanahon-me. Since  roppon-me happens so fast, I had to keep asking  to stop and analyze what they were doing and what I was doing. It's such a tiny motion, the side step with the left foot, the forward step with the right foot and the suriage-kote that I needed to do it a bunch of times on my own before I felt confident enough to do it in the kata itself. Fortunately I have really patient teachers.

Eventually I was able to do it to my own satisfaction, but it'll take more work to make it perfect. Nanahon-me, however, I couldn't complete today. It took a long time to get the dou footwork correct (I'm still not comfortable with it) and during that time my poor left leg took the task of supporting my weight awkwardly as I tried to pivot in a crouch.

What it came down to was, I continue the pivot directly into a charlie horse or I fall on my ass. I fell on my ass. Everyone got a good chuckle out of it, but a chuckle is better than a scolding. In the end it came down to my leg being too weak to perform the motion, so I'll be doing more squats as well in the morning to make sure I'll be able to swing down into that kneeling position again.

By the end of kata practice I was wheezing, but practice was starting so there wasn't much time to clear myself out. The suburi drills went by as usual, though  I couldn't do choyaku-suburi today. I wasn't going to attempt it while already wheezing from just kata. 

We went through the usual men-uchi and kote-men-uchi drills as well as some kirikaeshi. I pushed myself through all of them, not at full strength, but at least thankful that I could do them better than last week. Itou Sensei caught me, however, and told me I should take a rest. So, I sat out and watched the rest of the drills and a round of mawari-geiko. I tried to jum in for the second round but Itou Sensei told me to sit out again. In the end, I managed to pop in for the third round and had a decent fight with Ino san. I was happy that some of the fight had come back to me. By that time, I actually did want to fight again, which was a welcomed relief. It's hard doing kendo when you don't feel like fighting.

After that one keiko,  however, I sat out for the rest of practice. I need to push myself, and force myself to go, and to try and to recondition my body, but I can't break myself. I've been out of practice too long now. I don't want to miss even more.

So watching from the side lines how people moved and hit, Itou Sensei tells me it's cold and I need to put on a jacket. I wasn't feeling cold at the time, but he reminded me how often I get sick, and so I relented and got my winter coat. Even at 27, I still need someone to tell me to put my coat on when it's cold outside.

I love kendo.

A Winter Freeze

Tonight's practice wasn't one of my better ones. I've been feeling uninspired and unenthusiastic about most things recently, and I'm hoping that it's just a product of the medicine I've been taking. I haven't really wanted to do anything, kendo included, but I forced myself to go. The longer I'm out, the harder it will be to get back in. It was really hard to muster a can do attitude today. Mostly all that came was a "why do I keep doing this to myself?" sort of feeling.

Everyone goes through these periods, and it's just a matter of continuing to make myself go to practice until things start to feel right again. I'm hoping once I can breathe easier again the feeling will pass and I'll be able to pick up where I left off.

On the whole, today's practice wasn't a bad one, just an uninspired one. I realized half way through that I just wasn't in the mood to fight anyone. Practice followed the usual routine; warm up, suburi, basic drills, mawari-keiko and ju-geiko. Fukao Sensei said my men was looking good. Some of them felt good, to be sure, but others felt crooked. I was leaning to the right again today and my right leg cramped up real bad again.

Since my run of medication has finished this week, I'm going to do my best to increase my daily exercise and get my body back into kendo working condition.

I'm taking every precaution at work to avoid getting sick again; vitamin C, masks and (even more) obsessive hand washing have become part of my daily routine. I really do love practicing kendo in Japan. It's been a great experience, and the level of kendo I'm challenged with has really forced me above and beyond what I thought I could be capable of in the past. Sometimes though, it seems that Japan is trying its best to keep me from practicing, with the heat in the summer and the barrage of illnesses in the winter.

Back to Business

I had a day off today! With my work schedule constantly changing I have to rearrange my kendo schedule as well, and I was a little disappointed to lose my Thursday evenings. Today though, my student was absent, so I jumped on the opportunity to go to Ren Shin Kai again.

As Majima-san said, it was incredibly cold. Only half the people even showed up. Even Sugaya Sensei was absent. Some of the women and I got into a discussion as to which is better to practice in, the heat of summer or the chill of winter. Only one person suggested that summer was better and we all kind of exchanged looks like she was crazy. Sure, it's freezing cold in the winter time, but at least you can warm your body up during practice. There's no escaping the heat of summer.

Majima-san was excited to practice kata and so was I, though I really need to ask Koyama-san to go over roppon-me and nanahon-me with me. I'll need them for san-dan and I want to be able to practice all the way through the kata forms in the near future when people ask. Unfortunately I was a bit rusty today. I could feel that I was a bit stiff and unbalanced. Majima-san complimented me as always, but it didn't feel as fluid as it usually does. More practice is needed. She suggested that (as shidachi) I take larger steps back to center in sanbon-me. I think that's what I'll work on next in kata training; being able to accurately place myself back to center, and to remain on a straight line.

Practice was tough today. I hadn't been to practice since the women's practice a week and a half ago, which put a lot of strain on my still recovering respiratory system. I've been taking it a little easy in the hope to heal quickly. Also the medicine the doctor gave me makes me a bit sleepy so I haven't been inspired to do much more than slug around the house.

But one can't hibernate the winter away as was demonstrated today. Stamina was low, in part because I still don't have full lung capacity yet and in part because I haven't been moving much recently. My muscles got stiff very quickly and my body wasn't working in sync with itself. I was reaching too much with my arms and not lunging far enough with my leg. More than once my left leg got left behind and my right arm extended too far. Amateur mistakes that I could absolutely feel I was making. I did my best to make up for it with ki and kiai, but there's only so far that can get you. I ended up with another nice bruise from a dou hit that went too high.

My last fight went a little bit better. Body had warmed up a bit and I was feeling a little more cleared out in the lungs. My opponent however, was shorter than me, so he kept creeping in closer than I would have liked. It forced me to either attack before I was ready or retreat. Retreat is rarely the better option, so all that remained was to make myself ready faster and try to catch my opponent off guard. It was a good fight, but I was exhausted by the end of it. I'll need to up my training some more and try to recover some lost stamina. I'll go to Fuchou tomorrow and see what I can do there.

Fighting New Sensei!

Yesterday was a national holiday in Japan (something like Thanksgiving, only with less turkey and more tourists crawling through our neighbourhood to see the momiji) so there was no kendo, even though my energy has come back and I really wanted to go.

Fortunately, there was women’s practice today! Yuko unfortunately is sick, and so were a bunch of people, because only half as many showed up this month as opposed to last month. I was feeling good, not weighed down at all by the germs that have been plaguing me all month. Finally, I can get back into kendo!

Practice was much the same as it was last time, though we only had one break this time in the middle. We did our warm up and suburi, put on our men and did some men-uchi waza and six rounds of kirikaeshi. My lower back and calves started to seize up half way into the first hour from disuse this month, but I pressed on until the end.

In the second half we did more men, kote and dou-uchi, as well as some hiki-waza. I was complimented on my debana and suriage-waza which was nice considering I’ve been struggling to teach them to myself these past few months.

Keiko was really welcomed, and since there were less people attending, I could fight with all three sensei present which was great! 

The first was really strong. Kuzuta Sensei has a strong seme and likes to press forward quickly so there was little chance to reset myself. It was a lot like fighting Sugaya Sensei, only with less playful teasing and a more serious feeling. I couldn’t get very far with him, because he pressed me so hard and so quickly that I was quickly exhausted, but it was a good exercise nonetheless.

My second fight was with Masuda Sensei. He was somewhat more relaxed in that he didn't constantly press the distance too short, but his seme was still strong. He tagged me twice on the same spot on my hip with a sensei power level strike. It hurt like hell both times and on the second time he stopped and asked if I was all right. Yuko says that I should have said “It hurts! It hurts it hurts it HUUUURTS!!” but I told him I was fine and wiggled in my dou a little to ease the discomfort and we kept going. I prefer to pretend that I’m fine, even if I’m not because if I give in to the thought that I’m in pain, I’m less likely to want to continue, and I NEED to continue.

My last fight was with Toyoda Sensei. He was really fun to fight, probably because his feeling was the most relaxed and it felt more like I was playing than in a life or death battle. I managed to score a hit or two and he seemed to be impressed which was uplifting.

At the end of practice I was pretty exhausted. My lungs were feeling sticky again and the cough was coming back, so I bowed out of the final rounds of kakari-geiko.

I was told that sometimes I cock my elbow out, which tilts me to the side a bit and that I should concentrate on being as straight as possible. I was also told that I had amazing energy, which is a great thing to hear on the first practice back after a month of being sick!

Observations

What a rough month this has been. Just as I was recovering from my cold, it morphed into bronchitis, and just when it seemed that the bronchitis might be clearing up, my cold made a come back. I was knocked flat for 3 days with a fever and the coughing became so bad that I ripped the back of my throat and started coughing up blood. The fever finally broke last Friday and I’ve been feeling better ever since, though it still feels like I’ve swallowed a knife, talking and laughing both hurt, so today I went to practice just to watch.

I like to watch people’s footwork on days when I can’t practice, and the mechanics of their swings. As expected, those who utilize the energy of all of the joints in their arms get the most out of their swings. They are faster and snap harder than those who use only one or two joints. 

Watching people who have mastered the basic mechanics of kendo, it makes it seem like it's easy. Every motion is fluid, timed and connects perfectly. It's always so much harder than it looks, of course, but when I can visualize the motions that I see, I find that I can reproduce them a little bit better. 

When I was just starting kendo, I used to visualize that there was a tennis ball hanging from a short string from the tip of my shinai and that my goal was to hit my opponent in the back of the head with that ball. That visualization helped train me to get my shinai to snap down with the motions of my joints, and not crash down like swinging an ax. 

In the end, there are so many small mechanics of the body that need to work in harmony for the motions of kendo to look as good as they do on some of the guys I watch. So many pieces to the puzzle of great kendo that I'm still looking for and trying to fit together, but watching a practice is as much training as actually participating.

Watching a Test

Today was Yuko’s yon-dan test. I told her after I got my ni-dan that I would come and watch her test and cheer her on. I was really excited when my Sunday class got transferred to another teacher, because it meant I could go from the very early morning to watch from the beginning.

Unfortunately, as luck would have it, the new Sunday teacher got the flu on Saturday and couldn’t make it for Sunday, so I had to take over her class. The test usually lasts from 8 in the morning until 4 in the afternoon, however, so I could watch from 12:30.

When I got there, Yuko had already finished, and she happily told me that she passed!! She only had to do the shiai portion, because she took a three day seminar to be exempt from the kata and the written. She has tried for 6 years to get yon-dan, so understandably, today was a very happy day for her. She said she spent the whole morning before the exam telling herself that she could do it, and visualizing herself moving and striking. There’s a lot to be said about the visualization process before an endeavor. Involving your mind before you involve your body is, perhaps, a more effective warm up than actual suburi or drills. The mind is a very powerful tool in kendo.

Yuko wanted to wait until the end of the test in order to thank all of the sensei who had helped her along the way, which was fine for me, because I wanted to snap some pictures and watch the test.

Apparently, about 500 people were testing today. The gym was packed with people, and even a few foreigners. Yuko explained that in Kyoto for shodan through yon-dan, the test happens four times a year. Go-dan and roku-dan, it’s twice a year, and for nana-dan and hachi-dan, it’s only once a year. Therefore, it’s not uncommon for people to travel to another city to take a test, to maximize the number of times they can take a test in a year. In fact, Satou Sensei took his test today in Nagoya, and a few weeks back, Koyama san took his roku-dan test in Okayama.

In the end, the judges were really strict today. Only 72% of shodan passed, 73% of ni-dan, 76% of san-dan, 32% of yon-dan and 36% of go-dan. The reason stated was there wasn't strong enough kiai and kihon was really lacking. It was obvious that kiai was lacking. Voices were really weak and didn’t project at all. It’s good to remember that basic techniques and a good, strong kiai are the foundation of kendo and ought to never be forgotten.

At the end of the test, I took Yuko out for a celebration slice of cake. We’re going to have a celebration nabe party too, which I’m really looking forward too! For now, we both need to focus on the next step up on our journey, san-dan and go-dan. We can do it!

Well isn’t this just great.

Bronchitis again. Back in Canada, I used to get bronchitis when I was in elementary school. I had a flair up again in senior year of high school, but since then, it hasn’t been an major issue.

Then I moved to Japan. For whatever reason, be it to incredibly dryness of the air in Kyoto winters, or my body still using all of its immune resources to fight colds, leaving none left for bacteria, or maybe over the years I’ve just become more susceptible. Whatever the case, every year since coming to Japan I’ve had to deal with this, sometimes twice a year, and as far as kendo goes, it makes it very very difficult.

I should have known that something was up after practice on Monday. I was absolutely exhausted. Way more than I should have been, even taking into account 6 rounds of mawari-geiko on a bum leg. It took a lot of effort just to ride my bike home afterward, and I all but called it a night as soon as I got home.

For the rest of the week I was just as tired, and progressively, my throat became dryer and itchier, something that no amount of water could fix. By Friday, I was hacking, and there was nothing that could be done. I can do kendo to an extend on a pulled groin, but a pulled groin and bronchitis at the same time is impossible.

Instead, I’ve been focusing on arm and core strength at home with suburi and push ups, and mostly keeping warm under the kotatsu with lots of water, tea and Benylin. After coughing up what can only be described as glue this morning, I think going to kendo would be a bad idea today, so I will stay home and try and get this under control as quickly as possible.