Didn’t sleep well last night… It was 11pm when I got to bed and it must have been 2:30am by the time I slept! This resulted in me deciding not to go to the morning training session. The internet has been down in the place where I’m staying all day which is a bit of a nuisance… therefore I’m writing this off line!
So I went to the dojo for 4pm training and I was expecting Nagaki Sensei and Maikita Sensei to be teaching but when I arrived I found out that it was Inada Sensei who was at the dojo. Saturday training is usually a very mixed ability class with a few kids and tends to be a little bit easier going… Not today! Inada Sensei drilled us hard… Kihon drills up and down the dojo for about 25 minutes… Inada Sensei had the shinai (wooden stick) out and he wasn’t afraid to hit people with it if they weren’t doing the techniques properly..! It seemed to me that Inada Sensei was on some sort of a mission or something this evening… We also did our “tokui kata” (choice kata) – four rounds… I did Gojushiho-sho today… Felt good… Long kata though!
After a quick water break we put on our kumite mitts and Inada Sensei said that we would have three minute long rounds of jiyu kumite (free sparring/fighting). I paired off with one of the senior brown belts first. I gradually warmed into it and was feeling pretty sharp and was trying out a few of the techniques that Kanayama Sensei taught last night… I particularly like pulling my front leg back to the center and releasing my other leg with mae-geri as an attack is coming in… Difficult to do but when you get the timing right it certainly feels good! After this three minute round, Inada Sensei invited me down beside him and told me to spar with the young blackbelt (Yu) that I spoke about in yesterdays blog… Yu is a excellent, sharp young lad but unfortunately for him he got me on a good day and I wasn’t going to hold back in front of Inada Sensei… I brought him to the floor on one occasion and Inada Sensei called “yame” (stop) after I timed a perfect one of those mae-geri techniques (described earlier)… Yu was pretty winded after it and I made sure that I asked him if he was okay…
After this round Inada Sensei invited one of the purple belts down to spar with me in front of him… Tako-san is his name… a young 4th year medical student but a pretty strong fighter… He was trying his best to come at me but I just sussed him out for about the first 30 seconds… After this I let fly into him and unfortunately for the guy he just wasn’t able for it… He would periodically try to defend with some wild punches but I was very much on top of him and I was conscious not to slack off as Inada Sensei was glued to the two of us… It got to the stage where this guy was struggling to block me and I was just hoping that Inada Sensei would call a halt to it… I looked at him and he signalled that I had to keep going… So I continued to literally “beat” him around the place… 20 seconds later I looked at Inada Sensei and again he signalled with his fist to the floor… So I swept the guy down to the floor and “finished” him with a couple of punches… That was the end of the fight… I felt sorry for this guy… I didn’t want it to finish like that… I then had one more three minute round with one of the purple belt kids… This was my recovery period…
After the kumite finished up Inada Sensei called me over with Tako-san… Basically Inada Sensei asked me if I would like to go to a championships tomorrow… It is the Kanto prefecture championships… I was shocked but immediately said “yes” (I’ll write about why I responded like this on another day)… Tako-san translated and explained that he would meet me at Sinjuku station tomorrow morning and from there we will travel to meet Inada Sensei and then we will drive to the championships… So I’m a little bit in the dark about more details… It all happened so quick… I now have an idea why Inada Sensei drilled us so hard…
So it was a bit of a rush to get back to Nippori for Angelo and Michiko’s party at 6pm. This was a very nice occasion which took place at a Swiss restaurant (about a 3 minute walk from where I’m staying). There were a lot of people there from the dojo – regular members in addition to Ishimine Sesnei, Yamaguchi Sensei, Inada Sensei and Kai Sensei. Lots of nice food and drinks and plenty of chats with everybody! Michiko was wearing a very nice “kimono” (traditional Japanese type of dress). There was a guy there playing traditional Swiss music which was pretty special! Overall it was a very enjoyable evening and great to be able to socialise with the karate people outside of the dojo!
I’m a bit anxious now about the competition tomorrow. Early start… Up at 4.45am! Hope I can sleep!
Good luck - sounds amazing. Ossu
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