To illustrate another reason why golf (accurately described as “Cross Country Snooker” by my old man) is a dumb game, this excellent quote from Samuel L Jackson:
The golf course is the only place he can “go dressed as a pimp and fit in perfectly”.
Can’t say fairer than that.
On Friday I went to keiko when I knew I shouldn’t have done. I felt ill,, was generally a mess, and everything just felt really poor. I felt like my technique wasn’t sharp, and it took me a long time to get past the defenses of people I don’t normally take my time on. Not exactly inspiring or great prep for the upcoming WKC. Though that having been said the team still isn’t picked so maybe I’m counting my chickens a little?
Anyway, I felt much better yesterday morning (after nearly vomming on sunday night after getting home from the death race) and thought I’d toddle down to the bingo hall. The Yamanote line had other ideas.
Apparently, close to Ikebukuro, the doors on a rush hour Yamanote train just opened automatically while it was in motion. There were no details of any casualties, not even a snippet on the news, which I found odd. Apparently, this happens a few times a year…..I hope that was not supposed to comfort me…..
So there I was at Shibuya station cursing my shitty luck. Finally feeling on the mend and now stuck with nothing to do but go home (no Yamanote means doubled journey time, which means very late for keiko, and usually very late home too. And I’m a pussy) but as I was waiting to get out the thing started moving again….maybe the Gods were smiling on me…..
So off I went. And dam glad I did too. I had an awesome practise. I did kihon with a guy from the Saitama Riot Police who is on the short list for the Japanese Team at this years World Champs, and a guy from the Aussie team who is almost as tall as me. And it was great. All 3 of us roughly knew what we were doing, though obviously Gori (that’s the in-dojo nickname between the foreigners for the Riot Copper, who is a visitor from time to time) was a cut above. But Gori being a cut above actually helped lift my keiko. I got a chance to see for my self the little nuances that make his kendo sharp, the little bits and bobs here and there that I wanted to make mine, and it was good.
Later on jigeiko and I also felt great. Keiko with the same two guys (the only 2 I actually did jigeiko with in the end) and I still felt brilliant. My seme was working well (in fitting with my current improvement theme too, for a change!) and I enhanced my calm pretty well too. Finished off the ipon shoubu with Mr Australia with a decent enough tsuki men, and waited for Gori.
Now Gori normally hands me my arse. Let’s face it, he’ s been in the All Japans a number of times, he’s done pretty dam well at the police taikai for himself, especially last year, and he’s on the expanded Japanese team, so of course he hands me my arse. But yesterday, for some reason, was different. Normally where I get hit, or expect to get hit, I was able to control it, or at the worst block it, so that I didn’t get the paneling. And after about a minute or so I could see Gori visibly ratchet things up in a way that he hasn’t done with me before, and that just egged me on harder. I’m not going to say I was a star, or even that I got a great this-or-that on him, but I did come very close, and still, for some reason, wasn’t getting a slapping. And not only this, but I was able to continue using the opportunity to see how he does particular things that I like of his (like his suriage or kaeshi kote waza) and got to have a proper view of why I think he is sharp, which also proved major useful for my own kendo too. Of course!
In the end, I lost ippon shoubu, but it wasn’t fast, it was a good three mintutes or so, and I did come very fucking close to his men (I could have seen flags going up for it if it had been shiai, but it was scuffed a bit and a little too shallow) but lost kote, through dropping my wieght for a split second too long and allowing him to close in, forcing a (wrong) reaction from me. Fair enough. The point is, though, that I was still happy afterwards. Sure I lost, but I actually gave a little back to the community in this one. I have “made progress”.
Quietly pleased. Just goes to show that even when it looks like it might be a total pain in the arse and a chore to go to keiko, it might also just be worth it.
For today at least.
I passed my Japanese nikkyu! Well done me! I can now officially “speak Japanese.”
For my next trick I will learn quantum mechanics. If I remember rightly it needs a spanner. I should fit right in….
In the post under this one I wrote about my boy’s feet being big. Here is a picture:
Can you see the foot? If you can, doesn’t it looks like a clown shoe……? I’m going to end up buying size 30 shoes for him when he’s 5 years old!
So, I drove up to the wife’s parent’s place this weekend, to see her and the little “angels” that terrorise us both when we are there. 2 weeks and counting…..she’s pretty well though, and apparently baby is “big”. 6cm feet, which apparently means he’s going to be a big baby. And you know what they say about fella’s with big feet. Ahem.
Anyway, I drove up there again, in another fine example of Nissan Rental Car Goodness ™ and found that driving long distances on your own is the height of tedium. Really. With only American Forces Radio to keep me company (I shit you not) I floored it and got there in roughly 3 hours, with only one wee-wee break and a quick Starbucks to puncuate the boredom. Quite uneventful but I arrived arrived safe and sound and free of the 9000yen fine I paid last time.
The way back was also mostly plain sailing, until arriving in Kanagawa. I was crossing a bridge that I didn’t recognise…..wank. Yup, I had put the wrong address in the navi and was quite quickly on my way to some fucking place I didn’t know, taking a route that I obviously had no clue about. Shite. I put the CORRECT address in this time, and took the new route home underneath an overhead expressway (Japan has MANY of these in built up areas, and they are a joy to drive when they are empty!) and had the navi guide me home. That was until the fancy U-turn under the bridge that had two exits and no clear instructions from the navi apart from “Take the exit”. Thank you. Panicing, I took the first exit. Which weas the access road on to the expressway back in to Tokyo. I’d been in Kanagawa for about 10 minutes and was on my way back in to traffic jams and emergency wee breaks. As I got up to the toll booth (You have to pay for the privelage to use anything not designed for mopeds here…) I rolled the window down.
“700 yen please”
“I don’t want to be here”
“HUH?!” (maybe at this point he thought I was going to kill myself)
“I came up this road by accident, where is the next exit?”
“Well, there is nothing behind you, you could just go back”
I look in the mirror. The lights are obviously still red.
“Thanks!” I think…..and off I go. In reverse. Towards the intersection. That has SEVEN lanes of traffic feeding in to it. Half way in and the lights obviously turned green….
It was all I could do not to scream “SSSSHHHHHHHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTTT!” at the top of my voice and hammer the accelerator by accident. Sweating bullets, I parked up while all the traffic went by, honking at me to boot, then when they were all done reversed right back in to the middle of the intersection and, with an amount of sweat that felt like someone had thrown a pint of water at my back and arse all over me, caned it the fuck out of there.
Maybe the next one will be incident free, but at least this time round was free!
I had one of the older guys from the Bingo Hall come up to me last night and begin the following witty conversation:
“Isn’t Autralia in a bad shape! Are your family effected?”
“I’m English, but my family are fine, Thank you”
“You’re not Australian?!”
“No, but Britain is having a nightmare with the snow instead”
“Oh” at which point he walks off. Maybe if London was ablaze he might care! But then he is one of the wierder dudes their. This guy does the most serious warmup you’ve ever seen. When we do the head-side-to-side-stretchy-necky-thingy, his jowls actually wobble. He puts tenouchi into his neck stretching. hardcore.
4 Weeks, 2 days and counting.
Apparently he is currently 2400g, and healthy. Just the waiting game now!
No, not a collection of what I am planning to eat until June (that’s easy, and one word: MEAT) but how keiko is going to be for a little while.
So, the bingo hall is going nicely and all, but recently I’ve been wanting for a little more younger, faster action (if I was a factory worker from the Midlands on a plane to Thailand, that would mean only one thing…) I’ve also started going to Tokyo Power, which you know if you take any interest in this blog at all.
I’ve heard there is something of a large taikai happening in August that I’d like to do well in, so from This month onwards (I’ve given myself a month to ease back in after the break) I’m getting stricter on myself. It kind of started already, with throwing myself into my kakarigeiko a little more and harder than usual, but other stuff too. From the start of the year me and Toothy (my nickname for my favourite sempai from the Bingo Hall) do a 10-menuchi-kakarigeiko-special at the end of keiko with each other. Does exactly what it says on the tin, and also serves as that extra bit of menuchi kihon I’ve been wanting for a while. One or two of those at the end of keiko is putting (more) hair on my chest.
Tokyo Power have stepped up the schedule in the new year too, after dissapointing results in the All Japan Comapny Shiai for the last couple of years. The young members are now required to do sets of kihon after the main practise, which I’m joining from this week. 2-3 Kirikaeshi, a trimmed kihon uchi set (men, kote, and kote men) closed by 3-4 kakrigeiko. And then jigeiko with the same partner. All good. That maybe 2 or 3 times per keiko (twice a week) is also going to be good for me.
And then what ever I can fit in at the weekend.
As a starting point this is as good as I need right now, and I can use it as the base to check the improvements that I’m trying to make, at least the ones that aren’t jigeiko based.
Let’s see….