Kobudokan

I think it's been well over a year since my last visit to Kobudokan when our 'French friend' had his final practice. I still got lost even with the sat-nav but it was a simple mistake missing my exit to stay on the M56 and the re-route wasn't too painful. Anyway, onto the practice...

Overall the best thing about last night was the ability to just get on with my practice. There's no expectation of me to help with another clubs beginner's. Sure I can give advice and offer instruction but as a guest I'll reserve judgement until I have attended enough to feel it's appropriate to do so. Which allowed me to concentrate on my own efforts and not worry about anyone else. On the postive side the kihon practice was useful and some little techniques utilising the same waza from the fourth kata were explored. Not sure how successful this would be within your average jigeiko, probably a similar success/fail rate as katsugi or katate waza. The last thing I need at the moment is anything else that may deviate my cut from being straight and I know that some were landing without tenouchi and too much right hand but I love the fourth kata and being able to explore a practical application beyond an oji-waza was really interesting. Hopefully it will appear within my kendo at the right moment.

One failing I did have was that this technique and some of the useful hiki-waza practice failed to materialise during jigeiko. Whether this was due to the confined space, with quite a lot of matches taking place and limited amount of room to really get into it I felt I retreated to my usual kendo but very linear and without any strength in my posture that I may have had from last Wednesday.

Other points of note were my utter hatred of their extended kiri-kaeshi. Last time was bad and this time was much the same. After the third set of kiri-kaeshi I was spent and then we had to do another a couple. Totally punishing and it exposes just how badly in shape I am. I also forgot their lovely wooden floor shows no respect to my feet, which are used to the grippy vinyl at the Egg. So a spare tenugui soaked in water had to be quickly set up so I could keep damping my feet for a bit of grip. The adverse effect of this is that my feet really suffered afterwards and my left calf was under a lot of strain. Still I didn't end up on my arse which would have been significantly more painful/embarrassing.

I think I'll need to get out more to get the benefits of that 'selfish training', though sadly I will miss Mano Sensei being there next week as I think dojo loyalty must come first for kata night. Giri 義理 is a concept I'll probably cover at some point. I've mentioned it in my clubs blog and I think its something that is important and is another aspect of kendo that raises it above just stick fighting. It was impressed upon me at my first club and I believe it still holds true now

The day after tomorrow

Last nights practice was obviously an interesting experience. As I mentioned in my first post when I faced the possibility of giving up kendo previously, a certain fatalistic acceptance - that one good cut was sufficient and just the act of taking part was reward in itself improved my mental outlook. I referred to it as "fighting without preconception or ego". Well, on the positive side I felt a similar feeling last night. I was also particularly motivated and had a strong fighting spirit, well I may as well make the most of every last minute if there's only a finite amount left and with the grading to aim for I can't expect to achieve it with my one shot if I just sit back and think it'll all just happen.

Saying all this though, I've always maintained that only practicing once a week there was always a lot of pressure to get it right on the night because it'd be another seven days before I could redress the problems. When things went wrong it was frustrating and that had a negative impact on my perception of what I had done. Yet here I am with only a dozen [minimum] more practices and that's not pressure? We can only see.

But practice was good. One-to-one with Sensei was also rewarding, but why is it that I can achieve exactly what I aim to do with him and yet try the same thing with one of the other guys without success? Is it because he brings out my best kendo or is it because we still strive to block or defend at all costs?

I achieved some good cuts but noticed an increasing trend for folk to be overly frustrated when things do not go according to plan. In the past I've been more guilty than most for this but I realise the futility of it now [for now?]. Why waste time berating oneself for an error when one could be turning with zanshin and completing what you should have done first time! Equally when things go right do we jump around the dojo whooping and hollering about our success? No we do not, so why should we think it acceptable to mope around for our failures? Please, if you wish to sulk and moan at how bad you are with only a few months in armour under your belt, do it in your own time. This is my time with you, helping you to improve, this can not be done if you are bemoaining what could/should have been!

Of course there were times when I also failed and was frustrated and there will be moments where I curse and look skywards but thankfully I was quick to recompose myself and will continue to carry on regardless. The behaviour of others helping me to set an example and not be weighed down by my shortcomings. This is a process of continuous improvement, striving for perfection but we're not expected to achieve it, and I'm certainly not going to achieve it over the next three months anyway...

Throughout I was mindful of my neck, for the most part it was not a problem and I mentally logged cuts received and how the impact felt. Clear precise cuts were registered but there was no sensation of 'impact' and I'm sure most with experience can understand what I mean there. Obviously we have some beginners who are cutting predominantly with their right hand and there was 'axial force' but nothing that I felt was painful or uncomfortable.

I'm sure I had more to say on the events but I forget now, maybe it'll come to me later...

Kata - Unconsciously competent - Consciously incompetent

Kata on Monday and overall I was quite pleased and from it I was left thinking about 'the four stages of competence':

In psychology, the four stages of competence, or the "conscious competence" learning model, relates to the psychological states involved in the process of progressing from incompetence to competence in a skill.

Initially I was able to perform all 10 kata without too much conscious thought, 'unconsciously competent' and to a standard I was happy with. Of course at the point where I began to 'think' about what I had to do, to refine the technique and improve my execution of the kata everything went a bit pear shaped, 'consciously incompetent'. In particular the second kodachi kata was all over the place and no amount of instruction was going to fix that because the unconscious aspect of getting it right at the beginning meant that I actually didn't have the conscious 'blueprint' in my head of what was correct. Whatever examples were then being shown to me just ended up a visual blur that I could not replicate.

Still, I think the attached graphic may be very useful for those doing kata, kendo or any other skill, just replace the word kata, to help identify where they are in their training. Although this isn't a cycle as such, there are clearly moments, as evidenced already, that mastery of such a skill doesn't always result in an eventual conclusion. Often the process begins again or goes back a few steps. Which brings us to my other news which isn't too great...

It seems the problems that I have with pins and needles in my arms isn't getting better, having seen the consultant yesterday he advises me that I really shouldn't be doing an activity that puts "axial force on my neck from being repeatedly bashed on the head". As he said I could carry on for the rest of my life and put up with the discomfort without ever having any further issues or something could happen, though what he didn't elaborate. 

Not particularly pleasant to contemplate, especially as it's my second post of my new fledgling blog. I've another scan scheduled to confirm the Consultants diagnosis, but I doubt his advice will change. I still want to continue, but I will only do so until April, hopefully achieve my 3rd Dan in the March and help organise the Kyusha Taikai and Seminar and then take the remainder of the year off to see if there are any improvements, the symptoms in my right hand have pretty much gone afterall and maybe review it in 2013. Here's hoping... 

Another kendo blog

As if I need another drain on my time I decided to start a blog on my current kendo exploits. I've kept a diary before and had mixed feelings about it. Yes, it's useful to have a record of one's progress but I have been surprised on numerous occasions to finish a practice dismayed only to have Sensei say I did very well. Equally I have practiced and felt unstoppable only to have Sensei point out my many deficiencies during the night. What happens within the confines of your men is often very different to what others see.

So why start a blog? Well I certainly resisted for a long while because I don't really want to say "I scored a good cut on so and so" or "so and so and beat me whenever they choose" and I know that I'm likely to do that. Aside from creating nicknames for those involved I'm really going to struggle in describing that part of my practice. However, I have planned to attempt my Sandan shinsa in March in Glasgow and I think I need to be getting my head in the right place as currently I've no idea how it's going to be. I could have graded in Stoke earlier this year, or Mumeishi but I have postponed it beacause I still don't feel ready. With hindsight I'm not sure if this was the right decision, I could have had two cracks at it and taken whatever advice, if I failed, or glowed with self importance if I passed!

I'm also hoping there will be something useful for other kendoka in here. Sure this isn't a high grade blog where you can trust every observation that I make but perhaps by sharing some of my nine years experience then it may be dismissed and I can reassess how I think about my knowledge or it may be thought as useful for some and I can build on how I share that knowledge with beginners or whoever.

Since my return to kendo I've been beset by a number of injuries and issues, one of which has been been numbness and tinling in my right hand. This has been diagnosed as some disc pressure on my nerves. I took time out a few years back but as the symptoms didn't improve I thought I may as well carry on doing kendo if I'm still suffering the same discomfort.

The unexpected bonus to this condition was that when I started practicing again I did so without preconception and ego. If I scored a single cut I was happy and whether I was able to win a match was purely irrelevant, just continuing to practice was reward in itself. Unfortunately I am now in a position where my ability to score a point is slightly more important. My recent matches at the Sir Frank Bowden Taikai did not go as well as I'd wish. Despite having observed my opponents and fought with confidence and spirit I did not win a match or in fact score a point. This means I have still not scored a point in competitive kendo. Ordinarily this would not bother me but with a shinsa not 16 weeks away this feels worrying but I need to find a way to both confront the issue and dismiss it so I will be able to enter my grading without too many worries.

Hence the blog. Don't expect too much though. As much as I have found it useful to record past efforts I hate doing it and by the time I do write down my thoughts of a practice often my perception has changed. We'll see how things go anyway.