I have my right foot steeped in a basin of water and ice as I'm typing this blog. I'll explain in a little bit..! It was a bad day in Tokyo today, rained all day and it was cold. Didn't really matter to me anyway as I was camped inside all day working at my research. It's coming along slowly but I do get tired from it at times... Constantly questioning myself... rewriting paragraphs and swapping and changing things around... making sure everything is coherent... The joys of completing a PhD thesis I guess!
I hit off for Sugamo about ten minutes earlier than usual today... My body was feeling a little tired so I wanted plenty of time to stretch and warm up and as well as that Kagawa Sensei would probably be at the dojo so plenty of opportunities to observe him! When I arrived at the dojo Matsue Sensei was there and he smiled and asked me straight away.. "Are you finished?".. referring to my thesis of course! So I explained that I had another week of work to do. Nagaki Sensei was teaching the kids class when I arrived... No sign of Kai Sensei tonight. There was a visitor to the dojo tonight... This time it wasn't an "ordinary" student but a student who is training at Teikyo University... A young guy... maybe about 18/19 years old. I only realised tonight that Riko-san (I think that is her name!) who is a young female about 15/16 who trains regularly at the dojo, is attending Teikyo High School... I'm not sure what the relationship is with Teikyo University but I'm sure they are tied together in some way. For those of you who aren't familiar with Teikyo University... Basically it is the top karate university in Japan, a breeding ground for members of the Japanese national karate team, notorious for its intensive training regime and the alma-mater of most of the Sensei's at the Hombu Dojo.
Nagaki Sensei and Kagawa Sensei shared the instruction in both the 6-7pm and 7-8pm sessions this evening. As usual we were drilled for the first half an hour of the 6-7pm class with kihon. Kagawa Sensei was taking particular interest in the Teikyo Univeristy student and was often correcting his posture and the lack of extension in his punches. Kagawa Sensei pointed corrected me on one particular point of my kihon. As I step forward say.. Oi zuki and when I plant my leading foot I tend to suddenly stop bending my front knee.. As a result it promotes a slight stamp and is not a natural finish to the technique.. So Kagawa Sensei pointed out that I should allow my knee to bend forward naturally as my foot lands... So I tried to do this in front of him... and I got the nod of approval and the words "so...so!" which kind of means "yes.. I agree". This is something that I need to make sure I concentrate on.
We did some jiyu ippon kumite and Kagawa Sensei paired the Teikyo student up with me straight away. I lean guy... a bit shorter than me... nice and relaxed but fast.. very fast! But hey.. I can be fast too! So we were attacking jodan slowly five times then fast five times... chudan.. mae-geri.. yoko-geri.. no real problems. We were both really getting stuck in to each other. When it came to mawashi-geri the Teikyo guy caught me a one time as I was attacking him and before I could release my kick... This woke me up and I said it wouldn't happen again.. so I increased the speed and power of my kick (thinking of Yamaguchi Sensei smacking the pad that I was holding)... Couple of times to his head and he blocked successfully and for the last one I thought I'd really let him have it by kicking him in the lower back. I smacked him but he tended to block awkwardly and elbowed the top of my instep almost at the bone of my ankle... Sore dose and he apologised straight away.. But with the rushing of blood I didn't feel any pain about 10 seconds later.. So it's not too bad now. Hopefully will be okay in the morning.
Nagaki Sensei took almost all of the 7-8pm class. Kagawa Sensei seemed to be taking it easy and just observing maybe with this weekends course in Nottingham in mind..! Again the Teikyo student was the focus of attention and both Nagaki Sensei and Kagawa Sensei were often correcting him. Nagaki Sensei appeared a little on edge.. always the case when Kagawa Sensei was around.. but I think more so tonight. We did a lot of gohon kumite in this session. Again Kagawa Sensei paired the Teikyo student and I together. We both really went at it again and to be honest it was very enjoyable! We then changed partners for a few rounds where we did gohon kumite with free techniques... High intensity atmosphere and everybody was feeling it! We finished the class with all Junro kata. Kagawa Sensei was shouting orders from the side with Nagaki Sensei still really on edge. Kagawa Sensei was stressing the importance of us doing the kata's smoothly and not so much like...1...2...3...4 but rather 1.2.3....4. More natural timing. I was feeling really tired for the last 10 minutes of the class as I'm sure everybody else was but it was great training with a highly charged atmosphere.
As I was leaving the dojo, Nagaki Sensei called me and basically said that I am after losing weight and the cheeks of my face are "slim"... I just nodded and I told him that I have lost about 6kg over the past few weeks. He was laughing! Not that I needed to lose weight..! I am trying to eat as much as I can. I have two dinners everyday and when I go to Jonathan's in particular I make sure that I get the dishes with the highest number of calories! I know my mother and all my aunts will be going mad when they hear that I have lost weight because they are always on my case saying that I am too thin! Maybe I'll have to up my dinners to three or even four a day for the last five weeks of my stay when I plan to train every session everyday..!
Monday, 7 March 2011
Sunday, 6 March 2011
Sunday March 6th
Yesterday Frank asked me to expand a little bit more on Ishimine Sensei... Ishimine Sensei only teaches at the dojo on Saturday mornings. As far as I know he manages the JKS head office and possibly maybe another business of the late Asai Sensei. At the moment I usually only train in the evening time on Saturdays so I haven't seen a whole pile of Ishimine Sensei. His karate looks a little different than the rest of the Sensei's in the dojo... There is this really nice fluidity and flexibility to his karate which seems to be unique to him.. In terms of teaching qualities, he comes across very impressively... He doesn't really drill through the techniques alongside the rest of the students. He tends to prefer to step back and observe and he will always have something that he wants to explain at the end of each set of techniques.. For example, yesterday he was speaking about blocks such as uchi uke, soto uke and shuto uke... So obviously everybody should have one fist distance between the elbow of their blocking hand and their ribs... But Ishimine Sensei was saying that a lot of people don't contract their lat muscles and keep their shoulders down... So he got an A4 laminated sheet of paper... Put it between his elbow and ribs.... Obviously it fell straight to the floor because of the one fist gap... He then put the sheet under his arm pit and asked one of the students to pull it... They couldn't pull it down because he obviously had the correct muscles tensioned etc.. Simple explanation but effective!
Even when we had a break in between the first and second session I was practicing yokogeri-kekomi slowly in front of the mirror... Ishimine Sensei just glanced at me and he came over to me... pointed out one simple little technical point.. I tried yokogeri kekomi again and it felt so much better for me! He smiled, nodded approvingly and walked away. So Ishimine Sensei is like all of the other Sensei's in the dojo... His technique and knowledge is excellent and he has some very nice teaching qualities and good English! It's a pity that people in Europe don't really get to train with him.
So... today is Sunday and no training at the dojo. I was at my research all day but I went out for an hour to Ueno Park. Some great entertainment there including musicians, jugglers etc.. No sign of the Sakura (cherry blossom) yet! Weather has warmed up a little. It was pretty cold in Tokyo over the last few days. Looking forward to getting back in the dojo again tomorrow. This time next week I will hopefully be wrapped up with my research thesis (hopefully!)
Even when we had a break in between the first and second session I was practicing yokogeri-kekomi slowly in front of the mirror... Ishimine Sensei just glanced at me and he came over to me... pointed out one simple little technical point.. I tried yokogeri kekomi again and it felt so much better for me! He smiled, nodded approvingly and walked away. So Ishimine Sensei is like all of the other Sensei's in the dojo... His technique and knowledge is excellent and he has some very nice teaching qualities and good English! It's a pity that people in Europe don't really get to train with him.
So... today is Sunday and no training at the dojo. I was at my research all day but I went out for an hour to Ueno Park. Some great entertainment there including musicians, jugglers etc.. No sign of the Sakura (cherry blossom) yet! Weather has warmed up a little. It was pretty cold in Tokyo over the last few days. Looking forward to getting back in the dojo again tomorrow. This time next week I will hopefully be wrapped up with my research thesis (hopefully!)
Saturday, 5 March 2011
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!
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!
Friday March 4th
I'm glad to say that I slept very well last night! My brother told me to try out some motor imagery exercises and whatever I did... I think it worked! I don't remember much after doing about five yokogeri kekomi's (broken down and really slow) on my right side! Research day again today and making progress... slowly but surely! It's really cool how the blogger can provide me with statistics on how many people are viewing my blog etc. Since I started blogging regularly in the beginning of February the blog has been viewed almost 3,000 times...! Ireland wins the majority and the U.K. is in close pursuit but I am amazed to see people viewing it from places like Ukraine, Germany, India, U.S.A., Morocco... just to name a few! This is pretty amazing for me that people are taking such an interest in it. I have seen on some websites such as James' blog on "Rhinoceros in the Dojo" and Bradford JKS website that people are linking to the blog and providing me with words of support.. Thank you to all of these people!
This evening I met with Scott Sensei's friend Nick in Shimbashi and we went to a Yakatori restaurant under the tracks of Shimbashi station... It's a really small famous place, literally on the side of the street, packed mostly with "salarymen". So we ate some chicken, pork and beef (I think) on the sticks and also some drinks! Some people were eating raw liver...! From there we went to an Izakaya which is basically an drinking and eating establishment and we had some more food which was this time deep fried and covered with breadcrumbs... It was all very nice and the tummy was full at this stage. We ended up going to Shibuya and had a couple of drinks in another establishment before heading to Nicks apartment where we had... TEA :) Nick showed me a very funny video of some karate dojo doing "KATA" to the Rocky movie theme... and we also looked at some cool photographs from a recent trip he and his girlfriend had to South Africa! Got the Yamanote train back to Nippori and it's just after midnight now... The train was absolutely packed all the way back... Friday night is a hectic night in Tokyo for drinking and eating! More research to be done again tomorrow moring and looking forward to training in the dojo tomorrow evening.. more than likely it will be with Nagaki Sensei and Makita Sensei
This evening I met with Scott Sensei's friend Nick in Shimbashi and we went to a Yakatori restaurant under the tracks of Shimbashi station... It's a really small famous place, literally on the side of the street, packed mostly with "salarymen". So we ate some chicken, pork and beef (I think) on the sticks and also some drinks! Some people were eating raw liver...! From there we went to an Izakaya which is basically an drinking and eating establishment and we had some more food which was this time deep fried and covered with breadcrumbs... It was all very nice and the tummy was full at this stage. We ended up going to Shibuya and had a couple of drinks in another establishment before heading to Nicks apartment where we had... TEA :) Nick showed me a very funny video of some karate dojo doing "KATA" to the Rocky movie theme... and we also looked at some cool photographs from a recent trip he and his girlfriend had to South Africa! Got the Yamanote train back to Nippori and it's just after midnight now... The train was absolutely packed all the way back... Friday night is a hectic night in Tokyo for drinking and eating! More research to be done again tomorrow moring and looking forward to training in the dojo tomorrow evening.. more than likely it will be with Nagaki Sensei and Makita Sensei
Thursday, 3 March 2011
Thursday March 3rd
Restless sleep again last night.. I could do without them! I really think that I need to zone out of the karate mindset for a couple of days.. Since I arrived in Japan nearly six weeks ago it has been karate full steam ahead for me. I'm powering ahead with finalising my PhD thesis over the last few days and I think I owe it another few days of dedicated attention. So I emailed Yamaguchi Sensei at the dojo this morning and told him that I really need to concentrate on my studies for a few days and that I will not be training in the dojo again until Saturday. Matsue Sensei replied to me and said that all the Sensei's understand my situation and that it is no problem.
For those of you who don't know what my research is about I will try to explain briefly without boring you..! After I graduated from university in 2008 I started a two year teaching position at the University of Limerick. While teaching in the university I enrolled as a PhD student. My area of research is in education... and basically it is concerned with developing peoples ability to freehand sketch (through a model of instruction that I have devised) and the subsequent scientific examination of this development. Over the past 3 years I have been very fortunate that my research has enabled me to travel to places like the U.S.A. and the U.K. to present my work and meet with leading academics in the same area. So before I came to Japan I completed a draft thesis of my research and at the moment I am finalising the final thesis which will be submitted for examination. I will be examined when I return home from Japan in May.
To take a break from my research for an hour today I travelled to Kasuga to see if I could buy a shinai (a bamboo sword/stick). I eventually found a budo shop that sold them and I bought a 39" one along with a cover sleeve. It cost about €30. I often see Kagawa Sensei using this in the dojo practicing his stretches and Inada Sensei gave me a couple of exercises on Tuesday night to help me with my yokogeri kekomi in which I can use the shinai. So when I got back to my apartment I spent a lot of time in between my research doing leg raises, kicks and stretches in front of the mirror and using the shinai as a balancing aid and as a vertical reference line to make sure that I am not breaking the centreline. I'm finding it a great help so far!
So research day planned again for tomorrow and I am supposed to be meeting Scott Sensei's friend Nick and maybe Hiroshi tomorrow night for a couple of hours. So for those of you who are waiting for dojo updates you will have to wait until Saturday I'm afraid!
For those of you who don't know what my research is about I will try to explain briefly without boring you..! After I graduated from university in 2008 I started a two year teaching position at the University of Limerick. While teaching in the university I enrolled as a PhD student. My area of research is in education... and basically it is concerned with developing peoples ability to freehand sketch (through a model of instruction that I have devised) and the subsequent scientific examination of this development. Over the past 3 years I have been very fortunate that my research has enabled me to travel to places like the U.S.A. and the U.K. to present my work and meet with leading academics in the same area. So before I came to Japan I completed a draft thesis of my research and at the moment I am finalising the final thesis which will be submitted for examination. I will be examined when I return home from Japan in May.
To take a break from my research for an hour today I travelled to Kasuga to see if I could buy a shinai (a bamboo sword/stick). I eventually found a budo shop that sold them and I bought a 39" one along with a cover sleeve. It cost about €30. I often see Kagawa Sensei using this in the dojo practicing his stretches and Inada Sensei gave me a couple of exercises on Tuesday night to help me with my yokogeri kekomi in which I can use the shinai. So when I got back to my apartment I spent a lot of time in between my research doing leg raises, kicks and stretches in front of the mirror and using the shinai as a balancing aid and as a vertical reference line to make sure that I am not breaking the centreline. I'm finding it a great help so far!
So research day planned again for tomorrow and I am supposed to be meeting Scott Sensei's friend Nick and maybe Hiroshi tomorrow night for a couple of hours. So for those of you who are waiting for dojo updates you will have to wait until Saturday I'm afraid!
Wednesday, 2 March 2011
Wednesday March 2nd
I think yesterday evenings training was both mentally and physically very hard for me. The physical "bashing" is easier to deal with than the mental "bashing"... Not that I didn't enjoy that 20 minutes with Inada Sensei because I actually did and I was so glad that he took me aside and ripped my technique apart!! The only problem for me is that I was doing yokogeri-kekomi in my sleep all night last night... very restless nights sleep! I'm not sure if I can afford to be having sleeps like that especially when my PhD thesis is due for final submission in 11 days time..!
I was up early this morning and I had a pretty good day at my research thankfully and at intervals in between I would find myself going to the mirror and practicing my kekomi making sure that I was keeping my back straight and my upper body relaxed... Went to the Swiss chalet restaurant for a nice lunch. I decided to give training a break tonight to concentrate on my research and so that I will be fit enough to be up bright and very early (7am!) tomorrow morning to continue with it. Have to prioritise at this stage I'm afraid! I did however go out for an hour and went to Ikebukuro to buy a shinai to help me with my kicking and stretching exercises but I was unable to find the martial arts store... I continued on the trains to Akabane and to a wholesale store which Angelo and Michiko introduced me to last month.. I had to stock up on cornflakes (very big bag!) and pasta. Had some Ramen with roast pork on the way home... Very nice!
So nothing much to report today... will plough on with my research tomorrow and looking forward to training with Kagawa Sensei and Yamaguchi Sensei tomorrow night
I was up early this morning and I had a pretty good day at my research thankfully and at intervals in between I would find myself going to the mirror and practicing my kekomi making sure that I was keeping my back straight and my upper body relaxed... Went to the Swiss chalet restaurant for a nice lunch. I decided to give training a break tonight to concentrate on my research and so that I will be fit enough to be up bright and very early (7am!) tomorrow morning to continue with it. Have to prioritise at this stage I'm afraid! I did however go out for an hour and went to Ikebukuro to buy a shinai to help me with my kicking and stretching exercises but I was unable to find the martial arts store... I continued on the trains to Akabane and to a wholesale store which Angelo and Michiko introduced me to last month.. I had to stock up on cornflakes (very big bag!) and pasta. Had some Ramen with roast pork on the way home... Very nice!
So nothing much to report today... will plough on with my research tomorrow and looking forward to training with Kagawa Sensei and Yamaguchi Sensei tomorrow night
Tuesday, 1 March 2011
Tuesday March 1st
There is no hiding in the Hombu Dojo... The instructors eye for details coupled with the small number of students in each class makes it enevitable that all your bad habits and mistakes will be weeded out... if you are training everyday in the dojo! There are always many things running through my mind in terms of technical details that I need to improve on... One of these is my ability to perform yoko-geri kekomi correctly... I know that I am not doing it 100% right and I'm trying to work on it....
Inada Sensei and Matsue Sensei were teaching at the dojo tonight... Ususally Tuesday evening classes are pretty quite... Actually as I was making my journey towards the dojo I was thinking to myself that it would be great if I could get Inada Sensei to help me iron out a few issues and critique my yoko-geri kekomi... Unfortunately there were five of us training in the 6-7pm class so the chances of him working on my kekomi with me on a one to one basis were slim. We started off the class with kihon from zenkutsu-dachi.. gyakuzuki... kizami gyakuzuki and then geri. As we were doing these Inada Sensei called me with a surpised expression and said that he forgot to do the "chairs dips"... So we finished off the kihon and I went to get the three chairs... The first night we did these particular dips we did 6 sets of 10 repititions... last week we did 6 sets of 15 repititions and tonight we did 6 sets of 20 repititions... There were just two kids training and Inada Sensei and myself gave them a helping hand in completing sets of 5 repitions. The other two people who were training found these extremely tough but it was great for me to be able to power ahead with Inada Sensei! I must admit that I did find the third set extremely hard but I rallied after that!
Shortly after the "chairs dips" we did some ido-kihon up and down the dojo and of course we did yoko geri kekomi from zenkutsu dachi and I could see Inada Sensei was eyeing me up and he didn't seem totally happy with my technique... He disappeared into the office for a minute and Matsue Sensei came out... Next I heard "DI-A-R-MADO" from the front entrance... Inada Sensei was calling me and gave me an elastic tube and joked about my name being so hard to pronounce... Low and behold, Matsue Sensei started to teach the other 4 students and Inada Sensei brought me down to the back of the dojo for one to one practice for my yokogeri kekomi. So the main problem for me is that I break my centreline when I extend my kick by leaning slightly forward.. This messes everything up and results in a loss of power and length in my kick... I guess if one took a photograph of the extended position of my "bad" kekomi one might think I was doing mawashi-geri.. So I practiced about 30 repititions of kekomi on each side with the tube wrapped around my foot. Sometimes Inada Sensei would shout "kekomi" (thrust) at me and he would smack me with the shinai (bamboo stick) if I didn't do it correctly... When I was getting "better" at it he asked me to take away the tube and practice freely using the shinai for balance... This breaking of the centreline is such an old habit that I had built into this kick.. I felt so "awful" at times in trying to change it! I then practiced in front of the mirror and it was nice to get an odd nod of approval from Inada Sensei... He then gave me a couple of stretching exercises to help me improve... For me this 20 minutes with Inada Sensei was very special and I really appreciated him giving me this tuition... Even though I felt awful at times and just wanted to walk away from it, I now feel much better about what I'm doing incorrectly and what I need to do to improve my execution of the technique... I really need to try and relax my shoulders and upper body and just let my hips do the work!
Matsue Sensei took the 7-8pm class. There were only three of us training. I had a feeling he might have done kata... well I was hoping that he might do kata because I was so wrecked after the previous class! But we started off with kihon... just gyakuzuki from zenkutsu-dachi and then Matsue Sensei went to the front entrance and gave us all a rubber mat, a weighted metal geta (Japanese style sandal weighing 5kg) and a belt. We first of all sat on the floor and dip mae-geri and yokogeri (sitting sideways) 40 times each side slowly... We proceeded to practice mae-geri, mawashi-geri and yokogeri-kekomi with the sandle tied to our kicking foot with the belt... 30 kicks on each side... very slowly. When we had sets for maegeri complete we removed the geta and performed the kick freely 10 times on each side.. We did the exact same for mawashigeri and yokogeri kekomi (front and side) from zenkustu dachi... This was all extremely difficult training... Matsue Sensei was giving out to Haga san about the way he was breaking his centreline when doing kekomi.. So I'm not the only one!
Tonights training was probably the most special for me so far.. Mixed emotions... Feeling totally "awful" in my technique at times and then sometimes feeling that little improvement which gives me a positive boost! I don't know.. it's very hard to explain the feeling! On a different note, I had some good progression in my thesis again today so was happy about that.. The days for submission to examiners are counting down fast!
Inada Sensei and Matsue Sensei were teaching at the dojo tonight... Ususally Tuesday evening classes are pretty quite... Actually as I was making my journey towards the dojo I was thinking to myself that it would be great if I could get Inada Sensei to help me iron out a few issues and critique my yoko-geri kekomi... Unfortunately there were five of us training in the 6-7pm class so the chances of him working on my kekomi with me on a one to one basis were slim. We started off the class with kihon from zenkutsu-dachi.. gyakuzuki... kizami gyakuzuki and then geri. As we were doing these Inada Sensei called me with a surpised expression and said that he forgot to do the "chairs dips"... So we finished off the kihon and I went to get the three chairs... The first night we did these particular dips we did 6 sets of 10 repititions... last week we did 6 sets of 15 repititions and tonight we did 6 sets of 20 repititions... There were just two kids training and Inada Sensei and myself gave them a helping hand in completing sets of 5 repitions. The other two people who were training found these extremely tough but it was great for me to be able to power ahead with Inada Sensei! I must admit that I did find the third set extremely hard but I rallied after that!
Shortly after the "chairs dips" we did some ido-kihon up and down the dojo and of course we did yoko geri kekomi from zenkutsu dachi and I could see Inada Sensei was eyeing me up and he didn't seem totally happy with my technique... He disappeared into the office for a minute and Matsue Sensei came out... Next I heard "DI-A-R-MADO" from the front entrance... Inada Sensei was calling me and gave me an elastic tube and joked about my name being so hard to pronounce... Low and behold, Matsue Sensei started to teach the other 4 students and Inada Sensei brought me down to the back of the dojo for one to one practice for my yokogeri kekomi. So the main problem for me is that I break my centreline when I extend my kick by leaning slightly forward.. This messes everything up and results in a loss of power and length in my kick... I guess if one took a photograph of the extended position of my "bad" kekomi one might think I was doing mawashi-geri.. So I practiced about 30 repititions of kekomi on each side with the tube wrapped around my foot. Sometimes Inada Sensei would shout "kekomi" (thrust) at me and he would smack me with the shinai (bamboo stick) if I didn't do it correctly... When I was getting "better" at it he asked me to take away the tube and practice freely using the shinai for balance... This breaking of the centreline is such an old habit that I had built into this kick.. I felt so "awful" at times in trying to change it! I then practiced in front of the mirror and it was nice to get an odd nod of approval from Inada Sensei... He then gave me a couple of stretching exercises to help me improve... For me this 20 minutes with Inada Sensei was very special and I really appreciated him giving me this tuition... Even though I felt awful at times and just wanted to walk away from it, I now feel much better about what I'm doing incorrectly and what I need to do to improve my execution of the technique... I really need to try and relax my shoulders and upper body and just let my hips do the work!
Matsue Sensei took the 7-8pm class. There were only three of us training. I had a feeling he might have done kata... well I was hoping that he might do kata because I was so wrecked after the previous class! But we started off with kihon... just gyakuzuki from zenkutsu-dachi and then Matsue Sensei went to the front entrance and gave us all a rubber mat, a weighted metal geta (Japanese style sandal weighing 5kg) and a belt. We first of all sat on the floor and dip mae-geri and yokogeri (sitting sideways) 40 times each side slowly... We proceeded to practice mae-geri, mawashi-geri and yokogeri-kekomi with the sandle tied to our kicking foot with the belt... 30 kicks on each side... very slowly. When we had sets for maegeri complete we removed the geta and performed the kick freely 10 times on each side.. We did the exact same for mawashigeri and yokogeri kekomi (front and side) from zenkustu dachi... This was all extremely difficult training... Matsue Sensei was giving out to Haga san about the way he was breaking his centreline when doing kekomi.. So I'm not the only one!
Tonights training was probably the most special for me so far.. Mixed emotions... Feeling totally "awful" in my technique at times and then sometimes feeling that little improvement which gives me a positive boost! I don't know.. it's very hard to explain the feeling! On a different note, I had some good progression in my thesis again today so was happy about that.. The days for submission to examiners are counting down fast!
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