It's raining men!

Well well well..like I said in the previous post, life goes back to normal after the Nationals. The dojo was quite packed out today, with good attendance from the yudansha group, including our visiting sensei Masaru and a visiting yondan, Takeshi (I think that's his name). Cath and our newest yondan, Yoshi, were there too, along with Isaac, Doug, Taek, Vivian, Michael and Sano sensei. Nothing inspires me more than to see these people all in the same place! Their presence made me want to do better kendo! I was able to train all out knowing that there is no NSW squad training afterwards (we get to go for a proper lunch instead). The attention shifted from shiai-kendo to focussing on self-improvements.

Today's focus was MEN. I want to "re-discover" men strikes by focussing on the hara and footwork. I practised striking men using the hara with a big push and a horizontal footwork action as much as possible. I tied my obi a little tigher so as to constantly remind myself. In the first few jigeiko, I confused myself by thinking too much about it. Isaac sorta guessed correctly what I'd been trying to do by observing my jigeiko, and gave me a few pointers, such as the importance of holding center even while doing a men cut, and again the emphasis on using the hara. Things started to get better when I practised against Cath. I concentrated on pushing with the hara and didn't really cared what my hand movements were - and they all began to come together. At one stage I was almost doing suri-ashi with the men cuts. Cath remarked that there were nothing wrong in regards to the speed and reach of my men cuts. Of course I'm still not as quick as Jayson. Fortunately, speed will come with experience, Isaac said.

I hope to do men cuts with a POW one day. Explosive kendo indeed.