Saturday March 5th

Nippori is always buzzing on Saturdays... Lots of people around... some people selling vegetables, others handcrafted goods, there is usually a guy who works out of the back of his van with a grinding stone for sharpening knives etc and there are all these neat little stores and restaurants..  I'm sure my parents will enjoy seeing all of this when they arrive out...  They have no idea what the place is like here!  There are a good few cats around here as well and I am always laughing to myself when I see Japanese people chasing after them to get a photograph with their really expensive Nikkon cameras!  They just seem fascinated by cats.. I have no idea why!

Was at my research for most of the day today and headed off to the dojo for training from 4-6pm.  To my surprise Kanayama Sensei was at the dojo when I arrived...  He doesn't usually teach on Saturdays.  There were nine people training from 4-5pm.  I was the senior grade so I called all the commands and did the warm-up, dojo-kun etc.  There were two guys training this evening and I think they were just probably visiting from another JKS dojo.  One of the guys was in his thirties maybe... a black belt, and the other guy was maybe seventeen/eighteen and he was a brown belt.  Kanayama Sensei drilled us as usual... almost all kihon for the first 45 minutes.  I quickly realised that the two visitors were struggling somewhat to keep with the pace.  If I'm honest I couldn't stop myself from glancing at them in the mirror at different stages and looking at their technique... and you do get a certain lift from seeing that you are performing techniques that little bit better and faster and that training at the Hombu Dojo is making that difference.  Ishimine Sensei arrived at the dojo half way through this class and he was on the visitors backs straight away.. correcting their technique etc.  We finished off the class with Gohon kumite... no real problems there.. Kanayama Sensei was constantly reminding the visitors about the correct stepping movement and being long with techniques and deep in stance.

Ishimine Sensei took the 5-6pm class.  Again it was mostly kihon.  We did a lot of techniques from zenkutsu-dachi where we would do say... gyaku-zuki - gedan barai with the opposite hand... break down for 20 times on one side and then do both techniques to one count for 10 times.. Ishimine Sensei was on the case of the younger visitor for most of the class... The other guy had to give up after the first session.. He appeared wrecked!  The main teaching points that Ishimine Sensei stressed were using proper hamne/shomen and rotation of the body and punching through each gyaku-zuki with proper extension in the shoulder.  When doing maegeri, Ishimine Sensei was stressing the importance of keeping the upper body flexible and leading with the hips and not your head.  We did lots of ido-kihon up and down the dojo and finished with all Heian kata and their corresponding Junro kata.  Everybody seemed really tired at the end of the class and most of these only trained from 5-6pm!  It was great to be back in the dojo again after a couple of days rest.  Wrecked now and looking forward to getting some sleep!