UCL Lost Boys

Having done some major hansei after my idiocy over the new year, and gotten back into keiko and work (fucking work!) I polished off January with a small competition last sunday, the Jousai Goku (roughly translated as 5 wards west of the castle).

Involving (as the name suggests) 5 wards, Nakano, Shinjuku, Suginami, Setagaya and Shibuya, with the hosting area allowed 2 teams. Sounds small? Think again, because it is 17 people per team, and each match lasts for closing in on an hour.

So how did it go? Well, another mixed bag. It helped cement the conclusion that much of my shiai issue is mental, and that with that sorted I can do well. I had a very average first shiai, where nerves made me stiff and unwilling to attack, then the polar opposite in the second shiai where I scored men from something that felt like slightly outside of to-ma and ended up on the other side of the shiaijo when I was done.  Basically, without the nerves I can keep the variety, focus and concentration of my normal keiko right at the front.

I was happy with how my kendo was technically (following on from the improvements I’ve been trying to make for a while now) so this is for me the last big hurdle before the Euros. If I am in the state of mind and condition that I was in the second shiai, and can maintain it.

Time to start researching this stuff again I guess….meh.  Anyone got any ideas?

I don’t normally apologise for anything, but I wrote something on here that I really shouldn’t have, and regardless of the reasoning that I used to justify it to myself, I want to apologise to the people that I’ve pissed off, offended or otherwise effected, in particularly the totally ruined relationship with a previous best friend that I now have.

I’m truly sorry.

And I’m not even sure that I spelled that right either. But who cares? You? Fucking spelling nazi.

So why am I a hypocrite? Weeeeeell (large in take of breath) I’ve started doing suburi at home. I’m not going through the done-to-death 1000 a day for 1000 days, mostly because I haven’t got the spare hour it would take, and I don’t want to do 1000 suburi, ever.

So why am I doing it? Well first of all, if you’ve read the last post (you might have done, if your are at least not as lazy as me) you will see I’ve given myself quite a few objectives that need working on, in my opinion (hands still, more and better seme, keeping on with the sliding foot and seme “over” my opponent etc), but over the last couple of keiko I’ve also noticed more stuff that I think needs work, of a slightly more fundamental nature. Because not everywhere I go to does kihongeiko, I’m running out of options, apart from one: The dreaded “suburi at home” route.

So I started. Nothing serious, like I said, just 150 swings of the stick then done. 50 men, 50 kote, then 50 more men. OK, but why, I hear you enquire politely. Well, mostly, I want to improve my kote uchi, and the sharpness of my cuts in general, and I’ve forever been an advocate of “fix it in kihon first”, so without the kihon, we have suburi.

It’s also presenting a challenge in terms of quality, that I hadn’t realised until I started either, in that often in the dojo, at least with suburi, I just go through the motions, and use it more as a warm up. This has gotten better over time, but when I do the suburi independant of any other keiko, it stands out as not enough, so this is also going to be an exercise in improving my concentration as well, which can only be beneficial, right? The first session was ok, and went past the intended 150 because I wasn’t happy with the suburi I was doing so continued past 200 until I was happy. Yesterday was a vast improvement over other days in terms of both relaxation and concentration, particularly the latter half of the last 50, which were just nice. Problem? Getting the other 125 of the fucking things up to the same standard.

But it’s a start.

Oh and why bother at all? Well, I’ve figured that I am comfortable enough, after 10 years, with kendo in general, my own kendo, and my own ability to honestly analyze (heh, ANALyze) what I am doing to get something of substance out of it.

Shall we see.

I didn’t want some mundain title like “Happy New Year” or “2010″ or some other bollocks, but I also couldn’t think of anything cool.

Normally a responsible blogger (you stupid blogger!) would put some kind of yearly round up here. I’ve done so in the past, but that’s balls. You’ll get a sentence or too and have at it:

• I still work with the same useless prick who keeps me busy by being incapable.
• I went to Brazil and got a fighting spirit award
• I became a Dad. Which now gives me license to start using Old Spice and take up to 45 minutes when having a shit.

That’s your lot as far as points of interest go. Dull I know, but that’s your fault for expecting more than that garbage on New Year’s Eve.

I’ve had my last keiko now too, a couple of days ago, on the same day as the close down for week, with the Swede at the  only dojo in the world smaller than the bingo hall. It was like doing kendo in my pants ie too full to move. Yeah.

On the plus side, apart from actually really liking that club (the name translates into Street Child!) video sensei also paid us a visit, so while having a cheeky beer and eating some random assorted snacks, I had a very good chance to see my kihon and my keiko. Bear in mind that after Brazil and the Nakano indies and seeing said videos I was less than happy, I am now much more satisfied with the general shape of things. So it’s time for the kendo resolutions.

The posture and footwork in general is now much, MUCH, better, more up right, no protruding head, very little heavyness, and generally it looks more dynamic, as opposed to the kendo equivalent of sock full of pounds coins. So new focus time. One thing I noticed from the video that I’ve forgotten about is the sliding foot and kensaki advice I had from the shihan of the power station, so that is going to be one of the main points. The next is, after a practise with Yanai sensei for the first time in more than two years and some of his typically straight to the point advice, I need more attacking seme and a little less oji waza seme, ie stop seperating the two (back to my old thoughts about flexible kendo, and not kendo that is one thing more than another).

Two decent enough starting points for next year….so let’s see!

Edit: Forgot one! I want to stop moving my hands when I’m not attacking, or when I’m under pressure. It’s very simple, if you are attacking with decent “spirit” you won’t need to move your hands until the technique. Easy peasy (in theory…)

What a big pile of shit. Bloody Japanese. Where is the christmas spirit!

Anyway, I watched the pope have a close call on the BBC website with some crazy nut job woman.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/8430406.stm

The best thing about the clip is Pope Palpatine falling over, its the reaction of the collected masses. As the bird get’s taken down by the CIA, the entire congreation turns and start madly snapping with their cameras!

“I can sell it to the Sun for millions! I’m going to be rich!” and “Who’s that fella in the white that fell over?”

A couple of pics of the wee man:

Though he’s not exactly wee anymore. The heavy fella would probably be a better name…10kgs and counting….

How else could you describe someone like this:

I’m open to suggestions.

Just for shits and giggles, here are the biggies I’m on*:

#That doesn’t mean I’m shagging multiple Adrians

1) Stand up straight. The Kyoto copper I mentioned in the last post told me about what he does to relax by using his kamae, so putting this in to action is the order of the day (just bringing his left hand closer and pushing his belly towards it, I can actually feel when I am tense, which in turn forces me to relax)

2) Sliding foot work. One of the nuggets I had a while ago that I am still working on. W sensei from the power station gave me a great piece of advice about sliding the front foot forwards and pressuring down towards the tsuba as a precursor to an attacking movement (oji waza or shikake waza). This also feeds in to:

3) No retreat, no surrender. Or, not moving backwards, and keeping my forward momentum “constant”. This stems from the fact that it is well known that if you are moving first you are more likely to win*

*obviously it’s not quite so easy, but that is the general principal. Stop being picky, twat.

There you go, Gibbo’s menu of pain and misery, for probably the next 3 months.

Why? Because I’ve been in the office no later than 7 fucking 30am everyday this week, and I’m about ready to keel over and die.

Apart from death by work, stuff has been going well recently. Tsoi came over, and we went to Osaka for a gasshuku and shiai. A mixed bag, I came 2nd in the indies (thank you very much!) then lost twice in a the second round of the teams (my match and a daihyosen…..oops!) to send our team out one step before a medal….balls.

I got some good advice from a Kyoto policeman while I was there though, which is roughly in line with a lot of everything else that I’ve had over the past 3 months. So I know that I’m a) still on the right thought line, and b) still not actually doing it. Fucking kendo.

That having been said, I CAN feel differences in my kendo now that I’m trying to conciously change things. My kaeshi dou has improved again, as has my distance and my maintaining the centre line. And I’ve become able to hit kote uchi again after something like  a one year hiatus.  Which was nice.

I’m also listening to a lot of Guns N’ Roses.

And I can’t wait until the end of the year. I need this break badly…..it’ll also give me a chance to save up some fat cash and buy some more shinai. All good.

I realise that it has been almost a month since I posted anything, but November has been a month of sheer hell and exhaustion, and whilst I really do have plenty that I want to write about (and you know you care) I just haven’t been up to it, so fuck you. You can have some more soon, I just need a proper rest!

Anyway, the wonderful Neil sent me this little morsel of a website which has kept me going this week, because, frankly, it’s far funnier than I am:

www.27bslash6.com

Read it.

And then thank me for putting you on to it (and Neil) because this is the best website on teh interwebz.