Back in there

Thursday afternoon I went to an interview for an overqualifying (not to mention, underpaying) job. It came like a joke to myself, but in the end I felt I did something meaningful. At least I found out I shouldn't be going to ANY place for a design job... Anyway, I went to kendo at my dojo in the evening.

I came in late and as was Eda-sensei. The first things she said in the changing room was about her upcoming weekend business trip to LONDON next month (!)... So I spent sometime explaining where she should go to. Unfortunately that's the same week as the Sumi-sensei's seminar (a.k.a. SSS), so she will miss out the high-grades. Oh well never mind...

When we got into the dojo, people were doing the 3-step men-ute (up, cut, back) exercise with Tanaka-sensei. After that we had a few rounds of kirikaeshi, katate-men, and "kirikaeshi + katate-men + do-kirikaeshi + kirikaeshi" kind of uchikomi without men ... ending with 20+20 hayasuburi. It really feels like nothing (apart from the heat) when Eda-sensei called for a 3-min break.

Putting on our Men on we were then asked to do "one side attack, the other side keep blocking" kind of thing. I thought it was kakari-keiko, but my performance was completely awful (like, messy distance, accuracy and ki-ken-tai-icchi). It has been aaaaages since I did (or see) kakari-keiko so maybe that's one of the problem. Also I got to blame part of my motodachi not really doing their job... uhm

Then Eda-sensei said something like, go for an Ippon. Everything you do should be an Ippon. If you get an Ippon, you don't need the rest, so just finish there.

So for the next 2 rounds I had (against Lo and Amy) I just finished mine with my tokui tobikomi-kote waza.

...That's a bit too boring so I thought I should change to something else. So the other 2 rounds I did Nuki-do and kote-do... Which worked equally well, as I just stood there and wait for the other pairs to finish...

That's not too enjoyable to be honest. Besides popping Ippon straight away on Shodachi, I did't really get enough kakari-keiko...

Over to some Ai-men rounds, I felt I was having some improvement too, after those Shuttle Run rounds the day before. One problem I had with Amy was that, she is faster - but she turned right after the cut without running through (like when people go for hiki-waza...)... Though I wasn't too sure if I am correct, I did tell her to go further.

That come 5 rounds of mawari-keiko. Were all good. Osae-men worked brilliantly.

After that I queued for Tanaka-sensei. It felt like I haven't had him for an enitre month (it probably is!!). He's an Ai-men-maniac, but recently I managed to land my men on him too (previously my shinai didn't even touch his men)... And I actually had him TWICE on kote-men - only that he touched his head in a swiping motion afterwards... My men cuts at kote-men is definitely not solid enough!! Uhmm, I need to work on my grip after the kote cut (quote T-sensei).

It was finally raining today so I can't go for a run. (Also I have a bit of sore throat...symtoms of having a flu... not again, please!) I stayed home and watch some kendo DVDs - actually these are the videos from Last month's UK competition. Only half-way through at the moment but some of the things are quite exciting. It's nice to see the familiar faces in the UK in action again.

:)