A smaller kendo class

2011-03-28 07:45:00

This weekend's kendo class was a bit... weird, I guess. The group was very small, with only five people in bogu, with us four newbies in dogi or sweats and without our usual sensei. It was a productive and tiring class, but it seemed to lack coherence and rigour. We'll do better next time! ^_^

One big thing I took away from this lesson: posture.

Posture, posture, posture. Fukushou Hillen en Chris kept reminding me that I keep ducking, or bending backwards. Later on sempai Jeroen also noticed that I don't fully raise my shinai when striking, meaning that my left fist doesn't pass my face completely. Jeroen also immediately noticed something I'd been slightly aware of: when doing fumikomi I tend to keep my right foot very close to myself instead of really lunging forward. On the one hand this severly limits my range, on the other it ruins my fumikomi and my follow-through because I'm stomping my heel, instead of slapping my foot.

We were also informed that the 9th of april will be the next round of exams. I don't really know what sensei expects of us newbs who haven't even attained rokkyu yet, so I've fired off an email to him :)

Aside from the usual practice in the dojo I also try to get practice in at home. I run 2km twice or three times a week, train my lower arms with a Powerball I got years ago and I do suburi once of twice a week as well. Fun times! One very odd thing though: while I can run 1km without much trouble, the okuri-ashi warmups in the dojo really wear me out. Roughly 100m of sliding footwork at a rapid pace affects me more than 1km of jogging with intervals of running. Interesting ^_^;


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