Missing Sensei

-- Not an emotional expression, but just that there weren't any sensei on Thursday. I think Eda-sensei went picking up some 8-Dan at the airport, so we were pretty much left on our own, since the Tanaka's had left and wetn back to Japan.

It's one of those occations when there's no sensei around, some senpai would take over the class in a kinda dominating way. I arrived 15 mins late (bad traffic!!) and the 3-dan senpai was there leading the rotation of kihon. In total there were 12 people in the rotation, so it's a relatively good show. Oda-san got robbed to lead the 8-10 or so non-bogu group. Everything went as usual, but just that the environment was a bit dead.

Sadly there wasn't any inspiring/impressive senpai around, be it in this dojo or in the whole of the squad. Plently of sensei with good techniques, but then when it comes to senpai with a closer level gap - there isn't anyone there I can count on. Yes, I am annoyed by the fact, and was bored for most of the class.

We followed the "suriashi x3 + fumikomi x2" pattern for the kihon. It's still a gender-divided rotation with me, Lo, Jane, Koji (local kid, actually), and Takumi-kun. I felt sorry for Takumi because no one is doing the translation for him this round, Mrs Tanaka isn't here any more, and he got stuck with us for the first half of the class. But I quite enjoy pairing up with him even tho he bloody smacked my knickles every time he cut kote in kihon (!?!). Well, but he's more energetic then the rest of the adults, and is fun to be with anyways.

Takumi's partner for the 2nd half of the class is Gareth, another 9-yr-old local boy who goes to international school (he's got an accent in his English). Gareth has an elder bro called Brian, and the 3 were like the dojo's musketeers... I remember Brian started probably the same time as I was a beginner (was in HK that summer for 2 months in this very dojo). He was like... 5 years old and so cute that you just want to spend the rest of the class hugging him. I chatted with their grandmother a bit and she said, "yeah, they went swimming classes after school, and then here!" Gosh, don't you wish you did more exercise when you were at that age?

My wrist didn't hurt that much when I did do-uchi on the kote-men-do an kote-men-do-men sequences. Maybe because I really use a lot of left hand and hit like using katate-waza. Surprisingly it smacked with a much louder noise than I turn my right wrist...

But my wrist still hurts in occations such as lifting my bogu bag up right hand only...

The last 25 mins or so was mawari-keiko. We managed a full rotation fighting everyone in bogu plus 2 more - so it's about 2 mins every keiko. Maybe it's the lack of excitement from the kihon session - I think nothing from the whole of September can compare with this 25 mins.

Mainly I worked on my kote-men or kote-do as renzoku-waza. I do notice if my left hand remains the correct amount of gripping force, my 2nd strike will be faster and more solid.

The other thing I worked on was Hiki-men. Somehow I felt everyone is having an opening for me to hit their men at tsuba-zeriai. I think I smacked 5 on everyone.

Ng, a kohai from the squad, turned up at our dojo with his 5/6-yr-old son and shot some keiko pics out of him. He was injured on the right knee so he wasn't practising. And then I went on saying I haven't been to the squad for 2 months already. I briefly talked about my concerns over whether I can still be selected into the team next year (be it the Asian tournament or the 13th WKC). Honestly I have no idea what the future brings. It does seems like I quite enjoy the bash this night, but I am not sure whether to commit to the squad training again.