Winter Break - Bangkok

My first practise back at the Japanese-association school in Bangkok for the Christmas break had quite a good turn out. All the familiar faces were present, and it was nice to see all the senseis again.

Little to my knowledge, the session had a special guest visitng. Lucky me! It was T. Nabeyama sensei (7dan) from Ibaraki, Japan. Everyone was understandably buzzing as he has competed many a times in the All Japans and Tozai-Taiko. Rumour has it he's even placed 2nd at the Zen Nippon before, al though I can't justify.

After watching him display incredible skills (which translates to whooping the the shit out of everybody) for an hour in the queue, it was finally my turn to have a go at embarassing myself. One ippon and I would consider the ji-keiko successful ... it didn't happen. The only achievement was making him move back with my seme in the beginning. It never happened before with any high ranking sensei, they normally just stand there, probably thinking this guy is absolutely harmless, there's no point ... when do I get my beer.
To be fair, I wasn't happy with my kendo on the day. After 2 weeks without practise, I was noticeably rusty. The Men cut didn't feel right, and the timing of everything was generally out of whack. So after the horrible display, the advice I got was to keep my kamae at all times, apparently I was waving the shinai about too much. Damn university kendo, too much blocking!

Naturally I was rather disappointed and frustrated, after all it's not often one gets such a opportunity. The upside is that ... the day after, I'll have another chance. Better shape up!