UCL Lost Boys

Part of Japanese New Year tradition is a big clean up to mark the coming year (literally translated as Big Cleaning too). Kobukan is no exception. So, for the public holiday yesterday (The Emperor’s Birthday no less. Where was my invite! I’ll be the imperial palace serves some fucking awesome jelly and ice cream) and having had a grand total of about 6 hours sleep and feeling a wee bit hungover from the dojo christmas booze up the note before, I trudged to Nakano for a 10am start.

And bloody hell does a dojo collect some filth over the course of a year.

In the upstairs, the main task is the armour cubby holes and the shinai racks, which all get filthy and bloody quickly too. Some keikogi that obviously hadn’t been moved in a year had collected visible dust, armour had gone mouldy, and shinai had gone rotten. It was filthy work.  This year Ozawa sensei had also decided that enough was enough so we binned a job load of the stuff as well. Not before, I might add, the assembled cleaners took their pick, which appears to be another tradition of the Big Clean up. I myself came away with the keikogi of a guy who hadn’t been in 3 years, 3 fat grip shinai and a battered old tsuba. Quite the haul!

Once the upstairs was done and all the binned hakama, keikogi and shiani were taken out, the real work started: cleaning the fans and high ledges. This was by far some of the most disgusting work I’ve ever done. Including cleaning a toilet I’ve just used. Thick, heavy layers of dust coated just about everything, and fell everywhere (including on my head) resulting in this taking a good 2 hours, despite been less in actual cleaning area than the upstairs.

4 hours from the start, and we were done. And dirty. And hungry. Nothing could be done about the dirty until I got home, but the hungry was admirably taken care of.

The Big O had booked us a small back room in the local chinese restaurant and proceeded to ply us with booze and food for the next 3 and a half hours while we all talked a lot of rubbish, got drunk and laughed our way through the afternoon. I left having spent precisely dick, and full to the brim too (of food, not dick).

I’ve said it before, but this day again illustrated one of the reasons why I’m convinced that I made the right choice in choosing Kobukan. I went home distinctly full of seasonal cheer (and fried rice), and generally pleased. The booze up afterwards was great, like a Waltons christmas special, and the people are just as awesome as ever. There was even a drunk Granny there too, complete with a good line in talking to herself every now and then. It was like having 3 generations of the Kendo Waltons all in one room, getting battered.

All good.

After America managed to finally do something to shake the moniker of “stupidest nation on earth” (by voting in Obama, and if you dispute that, even after the mess Bush made of their country the stupid idiots voted him in a second time over a Nobel prize winner) I found this on the internet:.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20081217/twl-baker-no-cake-for-little-hitler-3fd0ae9.html

While as a nation they may be getting a bit better, individually, well, this just speaks for itself. I’ll bet the kid will grow up to be a real little angel.

On Saturday, I drove for the first time in two months, and more importantly, for the first time since passing my test. Was it a quick trip down to the shops for an onigiri and a pocari sweat? I think not. It was a mammoth 5 hours each way journey to Hitachi, in the north of Ibaraki prefecture to see the outlaws (do I mean inlaws?). Had I bitten of more than I could chew? This is my story…

It didn’t start well. It took a few wrong turnings within the first twenty minutes to figure out that the GPS was slightly off, by about 10 metres, which lead to a couple of comic dead ens almost immediately. No harm done there. The first real harm was jumping a red light because I was taking the piss out of the missus. Ok, lesson learned (I thought) I’ll concentrate from now on.

Once we’re back on track, and just about to join the top of the Kanagawa Part of the TouMei express way that Joins Tokyo and Nagoya, and about to join the feedroad on. I see a line on the road, but I can’t see lights anyway. “Hmm” I think. And start to slow down and look around. I see a rozzer ahead, standing next to his police bike. By the book, I tell myself.

My wife notices the slow down, and already annoyed with my overly safe driving (I’d barely popped my beginner drivers cherry!) says “It’s fine, just go!”

So seeing police man watching me, I make sure to signal in good time, slow down, check the blind spots and go.

And then he’s in the rear mirror.

Then the siren is on.

“It’s ok, it’s not us, just go slowly and let him past”.

“PULL OVER!”

“Oooooooooh Shit.”

I look up and he’s gesturing at me (“It’s ok, it’s not us”????? My arse….)

I slow to a stop, wind the window down and ready my best “Good Morning Officer, how may I help you” Japanese.

He comes over, takes one look at my big white honky face and is actually speechless for at least 10 seconds. I thought for a moment I had an enormous bogey stuck to the middle of my face or something.

“Ur….ah…..ii…….ya…….Did you notice the traffic signal?”

“There was a traffic signal!?” I honesltly hadn’t seen it, but that would explain the phantom line in the middle of the road.

“Have you caused any accidents in the last two years?” to which my wife immediately responded:

“On no, he’s only just got his license.” DON’T BLOODY TELL HIM THAT! I thought I was going to start crying.

And then he proceeded to tell me that I jumped a red light for the feedroad, and how I should really lose 2 points on my license (beginner drivers in Japan get a grand total of 3…..) but he was going to let me off with a fine and a warning, and tell me to make sure I drive safe.

And loosen the sphincter. I was one lucky bunny. He could very easily have been a total arsehole about it and shredded my license.

After that, there was no way on earth that anything other than text book safety checks and the absolute cusp of the speed limit were going to happen.

Thankfully, on the way back, there was a distinct lack of Columbo, and a distinct presence of speed on the expressway (point of note: driving Tokyo’s inner city expressways, the ones that aren’t clogged, is awesome. Lots of banked curves (really!) and walled in roads make it ace!). I did almost get stuck in the middle of a motorbike gang on the way back but manged to get in to the fast lane and then floor the bastard to get past them. Only to be caught up again when we stopped for a pee break at the service station. Bugger. Other than that, and an amazing long traffic jam that took an hour and a half to get out of, it was all good until tokyo, when I got stuck in another Jam (there was an accident on 2 of the 4 inner express roads I was on) and ended up need to have a slash more than I have ever needed it before. Just before I was going to command the wife to empty all the plastic bottle out of the window and prepare for surgery, an exit came, and I had the most relieving, refreshing lag I’ve ever had in the (to me at the time) shining and pristeen facilities of Otemachi Station. Bliss.

10 hours, roughly 370 kilometres and a 9000yen fine later, I’m ready for the real action.

Just with out the police, thank you very much….

So apart from the mini rant below, kendo is going pretty well right now. The track is very much still the right one, and I’m still feeling general improvements too. My feet are getting better, and through having been able to finally watch some extremely sexy “big” kendo (Wako, who came second at the All Japan Taikai this year) I’ve got a fantastic mental image of what I want to look like. And it’s generally working now too. I can take the occasional ippon from people who would spank me hard before, am able to compete with people I was previously only chasing, and can control better the people I was already beating. Well pleased!

So, what, over the past year, has changed? Well, I’ve calmed down a hell of a lot and become slightly more calculating and observant of what dude in front of me does. Also the raft of good examples for me to watch is a massively positive influence too (aforementioned Wako for instance). And finally, I’ve got the chance to concentrate purely on what I want to. Kobukan and ToDen are environments where I’m not so restricted, even in a set kihon menu and can work on my individual pointers a lot more freely, such as foot position, rotation of my right hand, stretching of legs, use of my kensen and so forth. I’ve a lot of things that I’m going through at the moment, and every now and then each one gets a small improvement, only a little at a time, but it’s such that I generally feel a gradual change over time.

In short, with the New Year break upon me, I am (very) pleased with where my kendo is right now.

I’m aware that the blog has (like me…) seen no action in the past 3 weeks, but it’s been fairly quiet recently. Work has been as busy as hell, which is bizarre for the end of the year, it’s still fucking crammed here. Kendo has been good.

After the latest in an on going series of “you are lazy in ippon shobu” comments from people I only practise with once in a blue moon, I took a look at what I was doing, and decided they are wrong. Anyone who knows me even slightly knows that first and foremost (for now, at least) that I am a shiai man, and that I totally fucking hate losing, which just makes these comments stupid. Add to that the weight of my 3 most respected teachers (the Big O, who takes a usually personal interest in my kendo, The Tak, who is strong enough to have been in the All Japan Taikai, and Y sensei from Tokai Uni, who is 8th dan and roughly my size, and therefore worth listening to) have all told me over the course of the year that I attack too much and need to pressure and watch more than I am doing, and you get the picture.

I’ll pay lip service to these comments, of course, I’m not here to intentionally annoy everyone (it might not seem that way sometimes..) but these pieces of “advice” (of which I have recieved 4 over the past year) smack so much of “conventional wisdom” and so little of teaching me “my” kendo that I wonder what the actuall aim is? I’m fully aware of the whole idea of junior and senior relationship, but within it I also wholly believe that you are to do your own kendo in that and not resort to something that you don’t normally do, especially in ippon shobu.

Otherwise I might as well just do katate jodan.

Scorching. Check out this foxy bitch.

Yummy. I bet she’d let you stick your finger up her arse.

Maybe it’s the cold weather, but people getting trains have become stupid again.
This morning my train was yet again delayed, this time because about 40 minutes before I got on some fella was taken away from a different station on the line, and the thing was packed. Normally people just grin and bare it, but not today. This time, animals attacked. In the form of an aggressive old hag.

Even before the doors had closed she was shouting at someone who had been pushed themselves, and complaining loudly about it, despite actually having room around her (I saw this from my superior 190cm viewpoint!). And then she actually slapped the woman who had knocked her! Bitch Fight! Yeah! Normally I7ve got to pay for specialist channels in hotel rooms to watch that kind of goodness!

It got better though, as a stop further down the line when I had thought it had all calmed down again she kicked off again! Brilliant! This time though it was even better, instead of complaining about being stepped on and not having enough space (what the fuck did she want, room to do the fucking crossword?!) she actually attacked her victims dress sense. I shit you not! One of her “insults” actually was “What kind of material do you call that?!” Storming! If ever there was anything guaranteed to bite deep, it’s criticising the cut of a lapel! The girl she was attacking (a good twenty years her junior) had had enough by this point and proceeded to loudly announce that the “stupid noisy bitch should shut her mouth, fucking hag.” That’s a rough translation, but the meaning was all there.

I really wished I’d had some mud, because I could have flung it at them, the young one at least, and watched them wrestle!

Once a month I venture to sunny Chiba prefecture for a keiko with some of Hiro’s old mates (Hiro having since returned back to the UK ages ago now), and the practise is usually topper. This month was no exception!

I got up on saturday morning feeling like total shit, so I treated myself to a sausage and egg breakfast. Food of champions that. Then off I went at 9am. I should have still been in bed. Any keiko that begins before lunch time should be banned as far as I’m concerned, bloody sadists. Don’t these people sleep?!

Anyway, this keiko was great, and I always love it. Not only is the general level pretty good (having a mix of hard ass office peeps – inc TouDen where I’ve started going recently – Sougo Keibi, and the odd riot copper every now and then for good measure) but the people are ace and I usually come away with something good too.

After a recent “you’re diong it wrong!” with one of my sempai, who told me he thought I was taking it too easy in ippon shoubu, I decided to try a few things out. The first was to keep my focus in the same direction as when I’d been berrated, concentrating generally on tame, seme and creating opportunities that don’t rely on my speed, height or power to win. Then I tried the more active method (ie the not “taking it easy” method….apparently) and bingo! I get hit more. Well surprise of bloody surprises. I had one specific ippon shoubu where there was not a great deal of attacking but a lot of two and fro on the seme and testing of each others reactions that I won with my patented osae men. The guy I was facing was definately faster than me, and more canny on the immediate up take, so the game was to entice him to my men, not easy given he was quite shorter, and then as he begins his attack drop his kamae using my shinai then knock him on the noggin. I know if I’d tried to be more active than I was then I would have got whacked, so thank you very much for the previous advice from my sempai, but for me and my kendo, it’s just not right. The Big O is always waxing lyrically about tame, patience, worthless attacks and making proper opportunities, while being calm. This has paid frankly ludicrously good dividends for me recently so I’d rather adapt this thinking to each situation than have a one-size-hammered-in-to-all-holes apporach because that’s “that’s how it should be.” Yeah right.

Apart from that, I also confirmed (if I think I even needed it….I knew it anyway but now had it proved to me…) my worst weak point of the moment, which is a lack of forward movement in my debana waza. This essentially stems from my current kihon geiko and not being disciplined enough with myself, I feel. Basically in kihon I know that the guy has to come forward to hit my men, so I can allow them to come in to my range and pop the kote with minimal effort on the footwork side, a little seme, a quick stamp, then out of the way. In reality this is only one of a number of situations so I need to think a liitle more on this and change it accordingly. Or, get my ass moving when I do degote. It’s odd, it doesn’t happen in anything else, but happened twice in this one keiko, including to lose me an ippon shoubu against someone who I was mashing up until that point. Time for a change!