UCL Lost Boys

I went to a competition again a couple of days ago, the Nakano kumin Taikai. It’s a 5 man team competition that Kobukan won last year, so we had the defending champ pressure to live up to!

Oops….

We went out in the second round. The first round was a 5-0 cruiser, with everyone working well. And then the second round, and what was basically the final. We were facing what is probably recognised as the strongest dojo in the ward, Tokyo Shudokan. Senpo draw, Jiho 2-1, Chuken 0-2, Fukusho 2-1…….and then I lost 2-1. A draw would have done it but lookig back I don’t think a draw was ever on the cards. So out we went.

It wasn’t all bad though. Obviously the result fucking sucks, but I did actually get a couple of things out of it. First, I lost ippon from what I currently see as my big weakness. Why is this good? Because I needed this to firmly hammer it in that this is wrong (my long term reader – note singular – will remember that I learn best from having done it in shiai), so this will help. I’ve no doubt that I’ll get slapped a couple more times like that too, but it will only serve to cement it. It is definitely one of those things that is on it’s way out.

The other good thing is that the ippon I scored in the second match (from being 0-1 down) came about by doing what I have been working on none stop for the past year, since Brazil. Pressured seme, a hard chushin, and not moving when they come in. So when he came in for kote, I simply stepped back while keeping my chudan, he inevitably missed because there was nothing there, and I took hikimen. I was very happy with that, I don’t mind telling you. Then I lost kote, which still sucks balls.

But the important thing, at least for now, is that

1) I got something good and useful, in terms of feedback on what I am doing now and confirmation of my biggest weakness

and

2) I got to write my name on a posh decorative ribbon that remains a permanent part of the winners flag, in big black marker pen.

Snoogins.

And the hansoku that the title speaks of? One team had a HACHIDAN as their taisho. No joke. Fucking cheats! I hope they lost.

To B-day users everywhere: Have you ever tried to fart whilst having your asshole cleaned out by the spray? Due to reasons that my pride will not allow to be divulged, I would not recommend it….

As I’m sure many of my 3 readers have figured out, I practise with a guy who passed his hachidan in Kyoto last month. All hail the mighty O!

Obviously, this is a good thing, but I’ve been giving it a little thought as to why, exactly, it’s a good thing, for me at least.

Well firstly, I practise with him at least once every week, twice where I can. Why is this important? Well, it means that, in my own little way, I know him, him and his kendo. There is no mystery, there is no super special quality that I can’t see. I’ve hit him, he’s hit me, and it’s been round and round like that for 3 years. But what it also means is that I recognise what he’s done. I watched a DVD of his second round, and basically saw in there everything that we normally see in keiko with him, all his habits (you can easily recognise the way he walks and “draws” his shinai! heh), the techniques he uses, even, to some extent, the set ups, having been on the recieving end enough times.

So what does that all mean? Well, that he’s a normal guy doing normal guy’s kendo. This is important because he’s not a “pro” in any sense of the word. He’s not a copper, or a Phys Ed teacher, he just practises a bunch in all his regular haunts, and to me, this is the real inspiration of having a “shin-hachidan” where you practise. Nothing changes, obviously, but thats the thing, you’ve been practising with the guy already, and the next day is no different, he was already hachidan, just needed the bit of paper to show it. And by way of the keiko that he does with you, and the way that he has a chin wag and a cup of tea after keiko (and some times some fancy chocolate cake if he’s been over seas recently! Can’t get enough chocolate cake!) you see that, hachidan or not, he’s the same guy he was last week, last month, last year, also looking for the same things as me, to improve his kendo and to enjoy what he does. Just to illustrate this point, I sat down with him after keiko a few weeks before he passed, and we watched a video of his keiko just gone, and he was pointing out to me where he thought he went wrong…..I don’t think I’ve met someone of that grade, who is quite that down to earth, maybe, ever.

It’s important that this is the case, and that he isn’t some far away rozzer who teaches kidoutai teams as a job 3 times a day, because it means that as lofty a pinnacle as hachidan is, that we can all get there, if we simply take a leaf out of the books of guys like the O (that doesn’t mean ripping pages out of The Definitive Guide, by the way…).

And most of all? I still get to pound on him and have him try to push me into the kancho-shitsu whenever he can, and keiko is still as much fun with him as it ever was. All in all, he may have passed his Hachidan, but I think I’ve taken away just as much!

Keiko has been very much up and down recently, and I haven’t been getting what I want out of it.

A couple of weeks ago I had a truly, really fucking horrible practise at Shinjuku. My posture had died and gone to hell (heaven does not generally feature) and my feet were crooked, the fighting distance was all wrong, and I couldn’t even think about kote-uchi. Not good.

Things started to look up a little…..when I injured myself. I’ve done something to my shoulder and it’s killing me! At one point even the weight of my head was causing pain! It’s on the mend now, maybe another week or so, but I’m bored shitless already.

On the plus side, I was kind of on eht way to figuring out the next step, which mostly consisted of consolidating the last one and remember seme.

To add to that, Kendo Nippon has some pretty interesting articles about what to do with the right hand side of your kendo. We have left drilled in to us from day one (left hand leads, left foot drives, think the left hip forwards when attacking) and this also fits nicely into my own personal questions about kamae that I am currently going through, with some decent suggestions building up from what I’m reading. I don’t always take much from Kendo Nippon (or Jedi, for that matter) but this was some good food for thought this time round.

And I’m trying to sort out my seme too. Apart from that huge blip at the Shinjuku keiko, I generally like the shape of my keiko, and I’m getting a hell of a lot better at not moving my kensen and being patient for the opportunity, so in true “back to the drawing board fashion” I’m going back to seme to work out again how to use the new shape ie forward and aggressive kendo, using my seme to open people up, and making them do what I want them to.  This might actually be interesting again. That’s the thing about this kendo game, it’s got to be interesting!

Just got to wait for the shoulder to sort itself out to put it all into practise. Boring!

Have you ever noticed how John Howell, ex-president of the BKA, looks like Murray Walker, motor racing commentating legend:

Murray Walker

and

John Howell

Uncanny, isn’t it!

Hang on…..you never see them both in the same place either……just maybe……

No surprise there then.

So, I bought a couple of thinner shinai, and decided to try them out. Or not, as it turned out. I just couldn’t relax to even swing the things properly, where as using the good ol’ fat boys is second nature. So I’ve decided to stick with the fatties for the foreseeable (how the fuck do you spell that?!) future. Mostly because it’s easy, but also because I was almost immediately reminded of the reason why I took girth in the first place. I felt like I was fighting the thin ones every time I swung it.

And this was at a shiai as well.

So I went back to the old friends and had two pretty good matches (team taikai, we won one and lost one, so didn’t go up) (also worth mentioning is the men kaeshi men I scored with the first swing of wood in the first match!)

So, I’m now stuck with two fucking logs that I don’t need. Anyone wanna buy some shinai? 4000yen for the pair!

The weeman is still on the way up. Having crested 10kgs and 80cm now, he’s also started walking, cleaning and feeding himself.

Yes, cleaning. He likes the sticky roller thingy (you know what I’m talking about), the hard floor sweeper, and bizarrely, the vacuum cleaner. It’s his favourite.

Anyhow, new fangled iPhone thingy (GAMES!) means a few new pics of the sprog, so here he is:

Mucky little bugger.

This was the wee fella’s first outing to the park. It was scary when I took my hand away and he grabbed the handles himself and started trying to rock it on his own. It looked like he was trying to tear the handles clean off…

I stole his lunch money especially for this picture.

Told you, born to clean. Just like Trigger. Nice broom….

And filling his face just before a trip to the zoo. He likes Gorrilas and Lions.But Giraffes and Hippos can screw themselves, apparently.

And finally, his new shoes. Which are VERY yellow.

No, I’m not planning on losing weight (and a big hearty Fuck You to everyone who thought I was referring to my waistline with that title), but instead a reference to the change in shinai that I am making.

I’ve sworn by fatties (Still talking about shinai here! Stop grinning.) for a long time, bat have only reaslied now that I am not holding my shinai in a way that is best for me (it might be in a previous post)so in order to make the change a good one, I need to use thinner shinai.

Purchased the first two at the weekend, but seeing as I need another 10 to replace everything I have, and that is a huge fat chunk of cash, I think it’s going to be a while before I can see or make earnest changes. Balls.

As always, the big events are a massive learning experience, and this year was no exception.

So what have I picked up?

1) More changes to kamae. My posture is generally straighter, but my hands are too far away from my body, making my kamae narrow, so I need to bring it in a little and make it rounder. This has been told to me before but as ever with these things you need to have it in a way and time that makes sense, and this time it did! I’ve seen a couple of guys who have this kind of kamae down very nicely, namely Sato and Yoneya (who’s kendo is my current favourite), so I’m going to be watching as much of both of their’s as I can.

2) Stop sinking down. Something I have habitually done. This just really needs more shiai to get it out of my system.

3) Up and down seme. ie seme from under my opponenets hands. Hearing and using this was a turning point for me and literally transofrmed my kendo on the day. I’m sure it’s not something I usually have too much issue with, but I’ll be taking more care to use it from now on.

4) Sort my stupid bloody head out. I need to figure out a proper way of firing on all cylinders and not having my traditional bad first match, like I did in the indies.

5) And finally, I’m going to dedicate this year to my friend, kaeshi waza. No matter how hard I try, I still block, so I should bloody well use it. Instead of acting like I’m standing in a puddle of piss I’ve decided that I’m going to work on being able to return everything that comes to me. Everything. So I’m going to work on my kaeshi waza of all sorts until I can use them at will.

Not a bad haul as far as stuff learned and to work on is concerned. And that’s altogether more than plenty for a year….

edit! One last thing, I’ve decided to keep a kendo diary again. I’m going to record absoluetly everything in it. The home suburi I do, what I eat, even what I’m just thinking about if it’s for kendo, and then use it to get myself back to where I want to be. Let’s see if it works!