Very hot practice

I have completed yet another practice a few hours ago. The most notable thing about it was that it was VERY hot in there. One of my friends walked out of there drenched so you can only imagine how it was with everyone in bogu. I don't remember the last time I sweated so much! It wasn't very physically demanding this time around so it wasn't too bad.

We mainly practiced a lot of waza today. I did tsuki for the second time ever today as well. I am a bit apprehensive to put any strength behind it since I am not too sure of my accuracy. The flap on the men is supposed to protect the throat from injury, but it only protects so much. For the other strikes, I need to try to finish off less "lavishly" for lack of a better term. I tend to raise my shinai high up in the air after a hit which is something that I shouldn't be doing. I have been praised for my corrections so I have an idea on what I need to do.

The practice finished off with some one-point jigeiko. I got the point for hitting men. I have noticed that I am operating a bit quicker, which is just what I want to do. But I need to take my fighing to the next level. Given I have the opening, I know I can hit the targets, but when I am fighting, I need to use harai waza and such to create openings. I need to make sure that I am faster with my hits to get the scores in. I also need to shorten my reaction time to get in a few points. I feel that I am achieving some of this in some degree, but I wouldn't consider myself totally competent in fighting. Heck, I still need to work on the agression, which should come with better endurance.

I need to make use of that suburito of mine and do some swings every day. It's supposed to be used for strength training since the feel of it and a normal shinai are completely different. But the concepts of good tenouchi still carries through. I wonder how good I would be if I did 100 suburi per day? I'll have to do it kneeling or in a horse stance since I am one of the unlucky people to not have a high ceiling.

People have been giving me good comments on my Kendo, which I am happy about. This, along with the constructive critisism during practice, is giving me more confidence in my abilities which is probably what is helping me rise to a higher level of Kendo now. Basically, whatever I am doing in practice is what I should keep on doing forever (with the necessary tweaks of course).

I wonder how good I will be when I go back to Purdue, or the next tournament for that matter. I should be able to go in with more confidence (and hopefully more agression) and get closer to my goal of placing somewhere. I also want to get my ikkyu ASAP. I was totally nervous last time, but I should be okay this time since I know the basic format of the exams.

Well, it's kinda late now so I better be getting to bed. I have a LONG day of work ahead of me!