"You should go to World Cup next year!"

During these few days I have been thinking about my self-initiated question: what is the difference between training in the UK and over here? It is actually much of a task when I get to analyize it...

Thursday. Kihon day. Today we repeatedly did a lot of kirikaeshi... That "Men-uchi + tai atari" bit really helps my use of koshi for all my men cuts for the rest of the practice. Also Eda-sensei asked us to do that same kirikaeshi-> do kirikaeshi -> menmendodo... string of cuts again. At the end she dragged Leo out to demonstrate the speed she wanted to see... And I thought "I can't do that strong and fast"...

At the final 30 mins of jikeiko rounds among 10 people, I first got Lo the big girl. Recently I sort of "gave up" doing kote, my tokui waza. Now I am working back my Men-uchi, and secondly kote-men/ osae-men, and various rensoku waza. The reason behind this is that I realize how much I always want to win, and as a result have given up my form or the proper attitude of jikeiko (Yes - I re-read Honda-sensei's article this week...)

What I got back from today are 3 shodachi from Lo, Leo and Oda. All shomen-uchi, and then numerous men thereafter.

There was a break in between the adults which I fought Utsunomiya-kun (half my height, and few weeks ago he was still having 1-to-1 with Mrs Tanaka on Thursdays where no other kids turned up). There is a sudden lost of verbal skill for me as I don't know what language to use. But mainly I was trying to tell him to cut bigger and not onto my men-gane... and cut him back with super-big men...

The final person I fought was with Tanaka-sensei. It was ALL men. I observed him vs Kishigawa sensei last Sun and he loves ai-men... Anyway, despite losing out of the first 10 I was quite surprised to got him twice. That two time popped, but from my point of view I don't know if he got me first.

Comment afterwards was, A) not relax enough when I was tired. B) Raise shinai by pushing with left hand OUTWARDS, and not just lifting upwards. C) BOTH hands should come down in the center at the impact, also the wrists should bend further down.

Tanaka-sensei mumbled a bit more after that in Japanese. "You should go to World Cup next year! Jenny-san wa young desu... More kakari-keiko from me welcome. Same to you Leo-san.."

While jokingly saying "Dame da", I am quite happy about today lasting the complete 1 hr 30 mins without taking a break, and managed all those keiko. Instead of going negative thinking "I don't want to drop out in the middle", I got more positive and tell myself to "finish the practice". It worked.