Trigger

So it's another Friday night without Kendo. It was actually the Royal Wedding today, so people are out and about celebrating all over the place I'd imagine. I had a 'patriotic' day with my girlfriend, watching the procession on the telly, eating some sandwiches and Victoria sponge cakes. It was interesting until they replayed it for about the hundredth times, lost the magic a bit methinks. Though it's always nice to be with my girlfriend so that bit I can't complain. Now I'm just waiting the evening out for some Wakaba action tomorrow. Which reminds me that I should put some thoughts into the points raised last week!

5 Nations - Mumeishi

Looking forward to doing some geiko with our continental brethrens, we drove to the venue of the 5 nations. I admit to being the guilty party for making us late, and when we arrived, it was over. Which was just stupid.
The plus side was that I was introduced to Swiss team, met Oscar Kimura the captain, very nice fellow, awesome kendo too from what I hear. Now that I've made contact with them hopefully I'll get a chance to practise with them soon.

We weren't going to waste our planned kendo day and instead came up with the idea of Mumeishi's practise. It was well worth it too. It was a very small practise, very cozy, but the advice we knew was going to be invaluable with the human resources available there. Geoff and Terry were there and so was Hiyama-san. After some sweaty keiko, this is their respective pointers for me:

• Terry Holt sensei: after Men cut, zanshin, pull shinai back with the body rather than arm ... in a spin around sort of action
• Geoff Salmon sensei: Be quicker to bring in back foot, more abdomen push
• Hiyama Yasuyuki-san: Recuring theme of big kendo v small kendo, cut down rather than tap up

All very good advice, and all worth taking on. I'll work hard on it!

Merry Christmas Mr. Nabeyama

Wow ... some weekend I've had. Probably one of the more memorable Christmases I've ever had actually, not in the true spirit of Christmas I wouldn't say, well actually I don't know. It might well be. It's just not very traditional I suppose. You can tell it's going to be a long blog when, even the writer isn't quite sure what he wants to write about. Actually that's not fair. I know what I want to write, I'm just not sure what to make of it. There we go. The love was certainly all around ... pure unadulterated love as kendokas spread the joy of kendo to one another. (Sounds dodge there!) Bliss, knowledge, and experience were our presents, something money can never buy. (well not directly anyways) So first of all, Happy Christmas.

Winter in the Kok

So I'm back in Thailand, and what have we learned? My first keiko was at Chula. Everyone said I had improved which got me chuffed to bits. Good morale boost and representation of UCL Kendo! To be fair most people there were either my level or lower. So yesterday when I went to the first usual Sunday keiko at the Japanese School, I was swiftly brought back down to Earth. The joys of getting creamed by 5-7 Dans.


It was Yamamoto sensei's last practise.

Jodan

Since we mentioned Junji in my last post, let's discuss this. Time and again, someone would come along and tell me I should do Jodan. The last time it was Shohei's uncle with an anecdote about how his friend used to be crap like me, but switched to Jodan and is now amazing. This time it was Junji. He argued my hands are faster than my feet (which apparently made my Do easier to hit as a counter to my Men), and of course I have the height. Hiroki then joined in the conversation and added that the only reason he's doing Jodan now is because he was shit at Chudan. What a reason. Well ... what if I become an amazing Jodan player but have never tried?