June 23rd kendo

went to SFU. my left foot padding broke out very badly, i will need to use tapes for kendo for a while.

sensei was training me to push back during tsuba suriaki, he was giving me a hard lesson, and it turned out that both of us were laughing afterwards. first time seeing sensei laugh during practice. I think he was trying to make me push back, or stand my ground hard enough and don't give a inch, but i still did, just started to manuver side ways to redirect his push.

i still need to watch my distance problem, i attack when it's too close, and i need to listen to opportunities appear, and not do nothing when opportunities appear.

sensei was saying that i have too much extra uncessary motion during basics, i should train to be straight and direct.

I really want to continue my training, but it looks like it's more beneficial to stop and let my foot heal for a while. I'm now just afraid of the after extreme kendo effect, where you practiced so much that you don't know how painful your body really feels because you were loaded with endorphins, but when the exercise is gone after a few days, every part of your body start coming back and screaming with pain. also i could miss my social life really badly. kendo is the only social life i have these days... if you consider that a kind of social life, no talking, no smiling, just screaming at each other and hit each other in the head.

kendo has changed me, now i am more comfortable meeting people pointing a stick at their throat than to smile and talk about random things.

Kendo June 19th

it's probably the most fun kendo day I had today. I was wearing my bloodbath "suck my gut" t-shirt, and Gi-won was accusing me wearing a bad shirt saying "suck my clit". it was such a hilarious phrase, that he kept on laughing the entire practice. and the boys (Len, the noobs) started questioning why am i wearing such bad phrase t shirt, and we started talking about death metal and blood bath, and somehow the topic just kept on changing at random with absolutely no predictable direction.

after practice, Len started telling me to not wearing underwear under hakama, and joking about that all the good guys don't wear underwear underneath (I know Zack does), and that "once you go pantless you'll never go back"

Kendo June 17th

Harding sensei mentioned quite a few points:

1. "cki" needs to push by the waist, not the arms, the shinai is a weapon, after "cki" you can do additional attacks, and don't focus on the retreat part

2. "kitikaish" still needs to have bigger motion after wearing bogu, thus kitikaish needs to focus a lot more on stomach

3. no matter how slow or fast you do, must keep the foot and hands together in motion, and not doing one and not the other, the timing of the two are important to raise attack speed in the future.

probably gona be encouraged to take 1 kyu test this november

Kendo June 16th

went to SFU for kendo today. my focus was mainly based on foot work, whenever i strike i should tap. but i realized that I need to work more on efficient backward techniques. try to score more points using hiki waza. gona focus on hiki waza for the next month.

Practice on June 10th, 12th and 14th 2008

current reason for kendo: conquering the subconsciousness of self, modifying it to become sharper, resillient, and less prone to behavioral response.

since thursday last week, my feet's muscle has not been doing well. somehow if i jump, my nerve will start sending pain signals, making my entire feet feel painful and cannot stand my weight and momentum. I don't really know if it's the muscle's problem or the nervous system's problem, but I know I have been working pretty hard last week. Zack has been pushing me harder, especially in after finishing a hit, I should rush through with full speed and keep the zenshin. it could have been because of that, or it could be that i tapped my right foot too hard during practice. walking was a bit painful until wednesday.

unfortunately, i can't push myself hard enough on tuesday or thursday. tuesday was because of the pain, and after thursday, my left foot's meat padding starts to bleed inside, and I just can't stand the pain. yeah, i know. one of the thing i must be working on is to ignore the pain more effectively, fight on even i feel painful in any part of my body. somehow i cannot get away from that primitive habbit... one of the thing i must be working on.

thursday was better. it was also Giwan (sp)'s Bday, had fun with Bday beat. during geiko, I started to become more defensive when sparring with Zack. I was just able to get away from those defensive habbits last thursday, unfortunately, they came back again.

saturday i practiced in Zosokan (sp). Okusa sensei is still doing his best reminding me to do something after my initial strike, and don't just stand there being hit. bad habbit never change.. eh. I think it's completely the foot problem. if my foot feels painful during practice, i have a tendency not to keep them in stance, and lost my readiness to strike right after attack.

so there are three things i need to work on for my footwork: 1. every strike, i must tap with my foot 2. after strike, get back to kamai (sp) right away 3. after body check, either extend my foot forward to obsorb my opponenet's momentum and my foot stance, or use the energy to fall back and do hiki waza. never leave my foot flat on the floor, it's a terrible habbit.

my back has also been hurting. David is saying that I shouldn't lean back that much during strike, otherwise i lose my momentum. though, it does feel nice to strike with my back, if i swing big enough, my right foot doesn't even have to move forward for body to get the forwarding effect.

Subsitude for the written journal

I don't exactly know if starting a blog regarding my learning of kendo was ironic or not, considering that the spirit of kendo promotes duty and work, yet I am lazy to a point that writing onto papers are becoming a bit of a difficult thing to do. since most of my time are spent on my computer, it makes me feel more compelled to write here than on my private journal books.

so here goes nothing.