Fukyōdai in London

The Japanese contingent from Fukuoka led by Honda Sensei landed in Britain on Monday. They were far too tired to visit us at UCL that night, so I had to pop over to Tora the following day to meet them.
I got to tell you, it's always great seeing friends from afar again. I dropped in late as usual, but just in time for jikeiko; which is all you want really from a session with these guys.
My first keiko I ran straight in for Taro, had a hearty hug and a good fight. The bugger is still shit-fast as always, but you wouldn't expect anything less. Managed a few nice kote, he kept the tsuki on most of my Men cuts so I guess I'll have to work on improving it ... just as I thought it was getting better as well. To be fair though, both Honga and Joe did say it was better, so there must be some truth in it.
Then I lined up for Tanaka, Kubota sempai ... and kept the best for last, Honda Sensei. Since the queue was so long though I only managed a minute in with him, I was a bit tense I guess as I really wanted to impress him and show improvement since I last practised with him, managed to create two opportunities, but missed hit just like that! Rubbish.

 
Taro gave me some fancy chopsticks, and the main tip for the day was to bring my hind leg in faster after a cut. Hmm ... same thing Nabeyama said back in Bangkok! Then Kubota topped it off with the whole 'relax more to go faster' speech. Great pointers! I'd consider that a pretty successful hour if you ask me.
The pub was good too. After socialising, only the Wakaba senseis were left and I got them discussing my kendo. Katsura sensei's advice was to free more of the 'I am a big motherfucker' spirit and be less afraid to get hit. Right. Back to the drawing board then!

*All photos in this entry were taken from Honga's facebook

The New Year

So the first practise of 2010 was out of the way. It was an unusually hot January Sunday in Bangkok, and it was rather difficult to breathe inside the dojo as there wasn't much ventilation. The practise still went well nonetheless. Some bloke from Mazda visited, reminded me how to hit sashi men the way I used to ... lately I've been focusing on proper big men cuts, it has somehow slipped off my mind.
After an evening of drinking with my old sensei in Pattaya, discussing kendo, I was constantly trying to maintain my centre in all the ji-keiko I did, with good results I must say. However as always, there's still much to work on. Which brings me to our next agenda ...
During the head of the dojo's new year's speech, he suggested we all make kendo resolutions. So I've been thinking about mine. It defnitely has to be something achievable, in terms of difficulty and time. I've come up with these 5:

Resolutions

1. Pass 2dan shinsa in February
2. Win all my matches at the Uni Taikai in March, this year in Edinburgh (hopefully the team will place gold)
3. Make better use of my size with my seme
4. Straighter kendo, minimise the flair
5. Improve speed & leg strength

We'll see how it goes ... wish me luck!

Happy 2010!! Best of luck and much success in the new year. True to form, I got plastered. Hope everyone has had an equally good farewell to '09

Nabeyama Sensei

This one happens to be one of the most useful practises I've ever attended. This was largely due to the fact that for an hour and a half, me and 3 other blokes had Nabeyama sensei all to ourselves, giving private instructions. It was rather embarassing as well ...

Starting off he's already corrected me on tying my Tare. It has to be loose at the top ... rather than tightly wrapped. Hard to explain, easier to show. Let's move on, loads more to cover.
Then apparently I've also been tying my Men incorrectly for the past 5-6 years. I've always wondered why it looked so much nicer when the Japanese wear them. I've been tying it too low, and need to tie it higher up on my head, about a quarter of the way down from the top. This gives the shoulder bit more room to sort of ... fan out and look big.
Next up is the warm up, my suburi; the next most basic thing after reigi. I wasn't doing that right either, actually it was more the case of laziness. Instead of going up and down by swinging down the tip, I bring it down first then go forward ... again, easier shown than explained. I was able to fix it pretty quickly though.

Then we did some kihon, little adjustments here and there, nothing major.
One of the highlight was the suriage waza. Kote suriage men, it is actually one of my favourite and the sensei was able to enhance it further for me. The fundamental is that it is supposed to be one forward movement, the blocking done in the middle of your Men-cutting flight. What he pointed out that was new, so simple, yet so effective was the block. It is meant to be in the centre, not off to one side (even though I normally move my left arm out and keep my right almost stationary anyways). Seems obvious enough after he said it, but I was never fully aware of it. Then from the block, where your shinai is still in the middle of the opponent's head, it is quite easy, and the distance becomes much smaller mind, to hit the Men. I can't wait to try it out.
The ji-keiko was much better, though I wouldn't call anything I landed ippon. Then Ikeda sensei, my regular, proceeded to run me to the ground and killed me off nicely. The pointer of the day was to keep my chin tucked in ... now honestly, I think this is due to the change in the tying of the Men. I've never ever had that problem before, so bloody annoying. Everytime I try to fix something in kendo, some other thing goes out of whack.
Anyways, for the time being, that's the last I saw of Nabeyama sensei ... I'm sure I'll run into him again at some point in time.

The first time I used the phrase 'sashin totemo iideska?' on a man

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!