From the lecture:
- Set goals, whether it is attaining a certain rank or further perfecting a particular attack, setting goals will help your kendo improve. Its when you have no goals that your kendo becomes stagnant because you are merely showing up to practice to maintain what you already know but not striving to improve on it.
- The Hakima and Keiko-gi are not Nike gear, know how to put it on properly and understand how to wear it with integrity.
From the kendo seminar:
- A technique suggested to help work with do strikes is kirikaeshi with do strikes in place of the 4 men strikes forward and the 5 men strikes back.
July 1st of the Kendo Seminar - Kata
Once again, the 1-dan to 3-dan range were divided from the others and instructed separately. For our group the stances were given a careful look. Due to the impending test, time was limited but there was enough time to carefully look at the various stances taken during kata. Perhaps I misunderstood or just overwhelmed from yesterday’s information, but many of the comments made seemed similar to what is already being taught in Maryland. However one major point did jump out at me:
Left jodan – Left hand should be just above the head with the right hand off to the right a little. The key point here is that the left wrist should not break while you are in this position.
Despite not finding quite as much as I did yesterday it was still worth attending today. I picked up at least one pointer, I got to practice kata with a number of people, and I had the opportunity to observe the range of kata I can expect to encounter when I test for nidan.
If there are any questions regarding the summer camp then feel free to drop me an email, or if you are familiar with the places I usually practice at then feel free to ask me in person.
Many thanks to the AUSKF for holding this summer camp as well as to Sensei Kobayashi and Sensei Ohta for traveling all the way from Japan to instruct us, it was more then worth the 9 hour drive.
(Thanks again to Brenda Desjardins for taking the pictures while I practiced)
