Sunday, July 10, 2005

Kendo banzai!

My motivation for kendo seems to be returning. Yay! A few pointers for myself from today's practice...

...flatter angle in men & kote; don't come too close for do in kote-do; don't straighten up until the very end in kata #1 as uchidachi...

...I really am too tired to do this right now, but I need to start writing things down from kendo as well.

Thursday, July 07, 2005

Lazy blogger

Yup, that would be me. Haven't been posting much lately, now have I... Well, it's not entirely out of lazyness. At first it was because of things like midsummer and visiting the parents and things like that. No training, in other words. Lately, though, I've just been lazy. And now that I noticed that Amersfoort-sensei commented on my blog I have to shape up. ;)

Anyway...there's been another training camp, this time here in Linköping with Mike Henry-sensei. Mike is coaching the Swedish national team this year, and as I am aspiring I of course hade to attend this camp. Not that I would have missed it if things were different. The camp was great, very basic (just what I need(ed) right now!), but it's already Thursday, and really a little late to try and remember everything.

Just some very basic things: I need to work a lot with my grip/kamae, should use the bony part of the hand more; need to work more with lower arms and less with wrists when cutting, and also think a little more forward and a little less down; must grip more from side in nukitsuki; work with lower part of arm in chiburi; generally use tanden more.

Apart from that I got some very basic points on how to do kesagiri and soetetsuki (pretty much things that René talked about as well, but that I had already forgotten >_< ). Must. Remember.

In other news, I trained kendo tonight for the first time in ages. There were only four of us (quite good as it's summer...), it was hot like crazy and my kendo is worse than ever due to severe neglect. But I had fun! :D My kamae still sucks (se above ;) ) and my brain still shuts down temporarily during keiko (all of it), but I had fun. I really must make sure to have time for kendo this coming semester.