Now that the eyes are fully working, I can get down to the serious business of sorting my shit out.*
*this does not involve categorising my poop. That would be very quick, and there would only be one category: Jet black and filled with peanuts.
I may or may not have mentioned before (I don’t read this garbage) that, despite winning my team matches in Brazil, I was generally not happy with the overall shape of my kendo. Utte hansei, uatarete kansha and all that, so it’s time for some BIG hansei (it means, in a nutshell, hit and reflect, get hit and be thankful).
The general feeling is that I have 3 big problems:
Big problem 1) My posture is horrible. My head is too far forward and my back is not straight
Big Problem 2) My feet look like they are bolted to the floor, resulting in my kendo having a very “Heavy” appearance
Big Problem 3) My kamae is just guff. Fullstop.
Having just come off a month break due to having my laser eyes fitted (wouldn’t it be cool if my eyes were firearms. I mean like guns, not actual fire_arms. Having flaming limbs sticking out of my face would be daft.) I have had a lot of time to reflect, and also, in my last keiko before I stopped, I had some very good advise directed right at these problems from a couple of the 8th dans at the Uni I go to. And now that I am back, I’ve had enough time to “forget” (?) some of my crappier habits. And saturday was the first keiko where I could properly think about it and do stuff with it all during kihon geiko.
So, do what exactly? Well, straighten the back up is a big one, and this helps fix the kamae too by naturally bringing my elbows closer in, back in to my body, and relaxing my arms a bit more. This removal of tension also helps a generally more relaxed state overall, so we is liking it. I’ve decided to try and keep my chin tucked in a little more too. If I can concetrate on this then the head doesn’t stick out, which will also help me in generally keeping up and striaght.
See how that all nicely fits in together? Geniuses, them hachidans!!
Finally the feet. Up until I saw the vids I was quite happy with my foot work, but oh, how wrong I was…..urgh. So, bring the left leg in, and try to resist the temptation to “load” it. This over active readying of the leg is another give away to opponents that I am ready to move, so getting read of it will hopefully help me keep my intentions to myself for a little longer. This pointer has also helped me realise that I’ve lost my “men from zero”, in that I’ve been using step in and cut in a variety of forms so much, that I can’t actually cut forwards with out the step to prime the movement both in my head and in terms of forward momentum. So, having now corrected what I percieve as my biggest fault…..I’ve lost my biggest weapon, my men uchi. Oops!
On the plus side, I’ve suddenly become able to do a load of other stuff I had always had trouble with, debana kote, a couple of frankly brilliant osae-zuki, and some good dou uchi as well. Heh, now we are going more in a correct direction I can do more techniques…..funny that!
So, the new direction, a new shape for my kendo, and a new menu of broader and more flexible techniques….let’s see if it lasts….