I was unable to attend Thursday night’s practice at the Nampa club due to another appointment, but was able to attend Friday night keiko. Unfortunately Stroud sensei was unable to attend Friday night, but we had the same turnout as we did on Tuesday sans the beginner. Hopefully the beginner will be back.
We started out with kata and spent the first 45 minutes or so of class working on the first 7 forms. Mr. Kim made a few observations while we were working on the various forms. One of the things he mentioned was the position of our left hand during left jodan for kata number 1 and 5. He stated that the left hand should be above the left eye about one fist between the tsuka and forehead.
Mr. Kim’s next point came mostly for kata number 3 and 6. He noticed that when were executing the tsuki’s in these particular forms that we tended to do the motion with our arms rather than our body. He said the whole tsuki needs to move from the core of the body during the tsuki and it needs to be especially quick in number 6 when the motodachi retreats into jodan.
The final note came about zanshin. He asked what zanshin was, and I replied that it was the when you are suppressing the spirit of your opponent after you have cut them. Holding them there in case your strike didn’t completely disable them. Mr. Kim mentioned that our zanshin needed to be stronger and that we needed to look like we were ready to cut again.
After kata we did a quick warm-up that ended with 140 or so hayasuburi. I had to stop part way though because my knee started to protest. It has been bothering me for a couple months now and I have a MRI on Monday to hopefully find the issue with it. Never really hurts, but gets tired and feels weak at times. While we were doing hayasuburi Mr. Kim said that we needed to have bigger swings when were are doing it so we did a few sets where it was similar to jogeburi. We would swing all the way back so the shinai would hit our backs and then strike men as normal. He said that the feeling that you get when swinging like that should be the same as when you are doing hayasuburi normally.
After some quick ashi-sabaki practice we practiced some hiki-men with the reverse fumikomi. This proved to be quite difficult for me as it looks a lot easier than it is to pull off. After a short demonstartion we practiced it a few times before putting on our bogu and trying out then. Once we had our bogu on we did some basics; kirikaishi, men, kote-men, and then the dreaded hiki-men. I think I did ok with the hiki-men, but I know I’m a little gun shy with it because of my left ankle that I sprained last year. Sometimes if I still put too much weight on it at the wrong angle then it will protest quite strongly. This tyupically happens when I suddenly change directions from back to forward or quickly come to a stop.
Finally on the list was some jigeiko. We rotated through everyone so I had a chance to keiko with everyone, but Dr. Roosevelt. He stepped out and took some photos and video of us. After practice he said he had some footage of some good things we were doing and a lot of footage of bad things. For now I know my number one issue is getting myself moving forward. When I fumikomi I tend to left my leg really high before I step and move and I’m probably putting a lot more force downward rather than using it to pull myself forward and through. I’ve known it as a problem for a while and keep trying to work on it, but its one of those things that seem to get mixed up with the various other things that need to be worked as well.
Here’s to another great practice!