A rather unimpressive performance

2012-02-18 15:23:00

some sketches for kata 3 and 4

First off, I'm rather disappointed with my own performance in class today. After only a few rounds of kihon practice my head was spinning and I lost all sense of power in my arms. Like I was completely empty. Fifteen minutes later I was mostly fine again, which to me suggests that I need to do two things: properly dose my power output and build more and more endurance. 

Today's class revolved around shiai practice, that is to say: preparing for tournaments. Tomorrow a team from Renshinjuku Almere will be attending the dutch national championships. Nick, Jeroen, Houdaifa, Tiamat, Martijn and myself will travel to Zwolle to compete in two competitions. Each of us will participate in the individual competition for kyu-grade kendoka and the six of us will also form a team for the NK teams competition. The latter will be quite a challenge as we'll be going up against both kyu and dan-graded kendoka!

As usual, class was started with kata training, which I did with Nick. A great experience, as both Nick and Ton-sensei showed me a few eye openers. Two of these are sketched above; left is correct, right is wrong.

  1. In kata #3, after the opening thrust by uchidachi, shidachi thrusts back. When doing so I used to move my arms in such a way that the bokken would become level, to stab the torso of uchidachi. I was now taught that the bokken should actually remain diagonal in a straight forward movement. The theory behind it being that it would not stab, but cut the torso.
  2. In kata #4, after stepping forward both kendoka strike men, to cross bokken at eye level. Uchidachi move in hasso-kamae, while shidachi moves in waki-gamae. When making the strike from waki-gamae I used to make a circular arc, while the bokken should actually be lifted straight upwards, after which an arc is made.

When it comes to footwork I stuck to my training goal for 2012 and focused on fumikomi. Part of this was achieved by also focusing on my pelvis. My natural stance (which really is bad posture) gives me a hollowed back and my tush tilts backwards. Today I really focused on keeping my pelvis tilted forwards, which worked miracles for my stance.

I'm really curious about tomorrow! It'll be a long, long day... I'll be away from home from 0830 until 1830. Ouchie.


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