Defeated..!!

The first comment I entered the dojo today is, "gee... this is hot."

I was not in the mood today for some reason. I *knew* before hand these few weeks are going to be a lot of shiai keiko, as there is "Sports Festival" coming next month. But I wasn't prepared for today's kendo. The first few warm-up kirikaeshi I did was absolutely shite!!!!!

We jumped straight into shiai keiko. With 10 people or so in bogu. First up, me vs Lo (the big girl). Hikiwake. Eda-sensei comment: Loads of cuts but Lo can time and block, even though she is passive. Try other methods... What I feel is that, like last squad practice, as Kishigawa-sensei said, I got no seme, "So predictable! Of course opponent can see you coming!!" Argh.

Tanaka-sensei asked for a Ippon-shobu match again.... So goes the "rematch" of me and Lo. K-0 with me scoring on my tokui-waza.

Nagakawa-san (adult shodan) was unbelievably fast today. MM-0 he got me within 1min of the match on the next round (switching back to 3-pon shobu). YIKES... I can't even time that tobikomi-men... Twice!! While his posture is quite HS-kendo, nevertheless he got his Ippon(s).

Tanaka-sensei's advice: against someone tall, expect a Men right after sonkyo.

T-sensei's advice to the junior grades on having more determination and zanshin: "Opponent wa kiiiru yo!!" ... You gotta love his English.

Speaking of English. I haven't had a period of using oral English until today, when Johan (a irregular "gaijin"-looking man) showed up and I was asked to be his interpretor. I quite enjoy the job, being able to listen carefully to what T-sensei is saying in Japanese which I only get 50%, combining with David's Cantonese translation, and then saying the same thing back to Johan..

My revenge moment was at the last round of mawari-keiko, where I got to face Nagakawa-san again.

Just before that, T-sensei was demonstrating what he described as his tokui waza at his "Shiai Jidai no doki"... Feint men-> Kote, Feint men-> Men, Feint men -> Do. I was too busy imitating him during all the mawari-keiko.

So that was me getting a couple of Kaeshi-do. The most brilliant part was our fight finishes with my favourite GYAKU-DO..!

Lesson of the day: You are only as good as what you are now...!!

After class Eda-sensei comment: Jenny, you are so INTO the game. Which makes you progress better than the rest of the people. But sometimes you get too into it... Using too much effort to fake a half-good Ippon... (Ooops!!)

My next keiko will be on Sunday - Squad shiai practice again.