As I started 2012 with a cold, it wasn’t exactly a great start, but I got it kicked off yesterday with the first workout of the year and tomorrow I’ll have the first practice of the year.

As for Crossfit, I’ve done the same as last year and upgraded my membership to enable me to go almost every day in January. Combined with kendo and snowboarding, that means getting some kind of exercise every day.

My long terms goals for Crossfit is just to get stronger and faster. Short term goals are improving the O-lifts (to a 70kg snatch & 90kg clean & jerk) and then finally nail down kipping pull-ups and double unders.

For kendo, the primary goal is just to practice regularly. No month+ breaks this year.
I will be working towards the godan examination in Nov/Dec and while it’s by no means the ‘end goal’, it’s what will be deciding my short & medium term goals, which are:

Short term:
- Regain my sense of distance.
- Loosen up footwork
- Continue progress on katate-kote. (Build hitting dummy!)
- Get rid of knee-bending ‘seme’. (it doesn’t work, stupid)
- Never back down
Medium term:
- Continue work on presence
- Continue work in degashira-men.
- Improve the quality of the attacks. (Be more picky, be more decisive)
- Maintain presence in shiai. Even if it means losing.
- Never back down.

Next taikai is about a month away with the Steveston Taikai, which will be the first real test of my ‘resolve’….

Yesterday was my last practice of 2011 and it wasn’t half bad. We also had a nanadan sensei from Japan visiting to add to the occasion, who was a former (current?) policeman.

Dean Ara-sensei also turned up and we had a pretty good turnout.

We had a quick and efficient kihon-section, which finished early in order to get as much chance to practice with Hasegawa-sensei as possible.
Having arrived late (as always), I still wasn’t warm and had a few ’rounds’ before lining up. I particularly enjoyed watching his kote, which was easily his best attack. Very compact movement and with a solid drive forward, he would force the reaction and pick off your kote, the moment you moved.
When it was my turn, I went into jodan straight away, but it was a bit of a mixed bag. Partly, I think, because he was being rather polite and tried to play at our level, but a the same time, he would not acknowledge anything less than perfect. My timing was ok, but I struggled with distance. (My feet slipping badly on the floor didn’t help) and on the few opportunities I got, I didn’t quite pull it off.
I then practiced with Ara-sensei, who was in a bit more feisty mood than usual and it was a bit hammer and tongs, before settling down into a more, say, productive mood. He easily brings out my best kendo and it’s a joy to practice with him, but I also know that it’s largely because he allows it. I’m a little worred that I’ll get lulled into a false sense of security, but as long as I use it as a ‘positive image’ training, then it should be all good. (Besides, there’s a dojo full of people to otherwise pull me back down).
I pulled out one of the best morote-kotes I’ve done for a long time, largely due to moving my body correctly. I also had a shout at a good degashira-men, but foot-slippage made it really awkward.
I still really struggle with distance. Slippery floor and lack of consistent training gives me not only little idea of how far I can reach, but also how far I actually move, given X amount of effort.

Anyways, that was it for 2011. It’s probably the least amount of kendo I’ve done in a year since I started and I very much hope to change that for 2012.

As predicted, it’s messed up again. It wasn’t the tennis table game that did it, it only highlighted that it never really got fixed properly, so it was back to the physio.
The good news is that nothing is torn, etc, but the muscles on the back of the shoulder are still not functioning is they should and the shoulder keeps slipping forward, impinging on the bicep tendon and causing it to be inflamed.
Anyways, it means that I just have to be even more careful during practice, but it’s not that simple…so this Friday, Shin had asked to me to take the practice as neither he or Takashi could make it. Normally I don’t mind, but my footwork is still very rusty and I’m really struggling with control of my right arm, so it’s hard to make convincing demonstrations. I do 45 mins of fairly basic kihon (kirikaeshi, men, kote, kote-men, do, kote-do, kakarigeiko) and then it’s usually free practice.
New guy is visiting from another dojo and he comes up to ask for a practice and I start of in chudan, as per my ‘own’ etiquette. When I change to jodan, it becomes reasonably easy to hit him, but it’s not really that convincing, to be honest, as I’m struggling with getting the distance right.
I practice with two more people and again, the men cut is not really there, but I’m having a surprising amount of success with the kote. It’s not as clean or as sharp as I would like, but the timing is good and I’m getting a decent fumikomi too.

My shoulder is now screaming at me, so I decide that it’s enough and sit down and take me men off….only to notice an older guy in dojo, who wasn’t there when we started and then realize that it’s Okusa-sensei! He must have arrived after we started the free practice…so back on with the men and line up.
In chudan, I can occasionally penetrate his defenses, but when I change to jodan, it’s very difficult. I get a weak morote-kote at the end and he calls it for ‘ippon’, but I think that’s more to end the practice than actually acknowledging that’s a decent cut.

Still got a lot of work to do to get back to my old level. Yeah, speed and strength might be there, but the footwork isn’t.

I’ve previously made a few T-shirts for myself through spreadshirt, and after having had a positive feedback, I’ve made these available for all through here:

http://kigurai.spreadshirt.com/

So, another 2 week gap between practice and another late arrival. We had a killer workout the night before at Crossfit and my body was screaming at me ‘don’t do this’, but I knew I needed to go in order to not complete lose momentum…and it was actually pretty good.
(Dean) Ara-sensei was there and it reminded me of the dialogue we’ve had earlier and that, combined with not much energy, made me practice a more calm style.
I tried to focus hard on the setting up the degashira-men and it paid off nicely a couple of times. I also lost several kotes on not being ready and while I would have previously claimed that ‘I didn’t mind getting hit’, I can now see that I did as yesterday, I really didn’t mind. (Aside from taking the lesson/timing onboard).
I also managed to get in a practice with Ara-sensei and he’s amazingly good at adjusting the difficulty level just right. I did pull off one perfectly timed degashira-men.
Despite the soreness, I’m also physically feeling better than I’ve done in a long time. I’ve taken a step up in intensity in the Crossfit sessions and it’s paying off. I also means that I can drop into a practice, virtually cold and not worry too much about my physical state.
Next ‘test’ is the Steveston Taikai.  The goal will be to take some of the good stuff from today and be able to use it there. It’ll be a tough competition, especially as the whole Team Canada will be there and probably also a lot of the Californians.

Friday evening my wrist actually felt fine, so I decided to go ahead.  For once, we wanted to A) make the opening ceremony and B) have time to warm-up, as the last couple of years, Takashi and I, both fighting in the 4th dan+ division, had to go pretty much straight from the car and on to the court. This mean that I had to leave home at 4:40am!.Luckily, I got a backseat and managed to sleep the whole way to Kent, WA.

I didn’t like my draw very much. First up was J. Scherer from Seattle, another jodan guy, who’s got a pretty good timing and should I get through him, it would be B. Imanishi, whom I’ve fought (and lost to) before..and then if I was really on fire, it would be S.Asaoka, who simply pulls me around on strings whenever I fight him…and that was to get to the quarter finals!. So plan A it was. Get through the first round and then make the rest a learning experience/experiment.

So, first fight it was. At least it wasn’t first fight of the day, which also helped. Scherer is a fair bit taller than me, so I had to be wary of getting picked off from the distance and as mentioned before, his debana-timing isn’t half-bad, so my recent approach of moving forward aggressively from the get go seemed like a good plan and it actually worked reasonably well. As usual with ai-jodan, there’s a lot of ai-uchi, but neither of us was really able to connect, until I was able to force a reaction when seme’ing in and then picked off his men. I thought it was a bit light, but all the flags went up.
Now, if it was me who had just lost a point like that, I would be sorely tempted to come back in with all guns blazing, so on ‘hajime’, I took my usual quick step forward and then as the anticipated men cut came, I stepped smartly back, avoided the cut and took the wide open men…I still had stiff shoulders and again thought that the cut was light and somewhat awkward, but again all 3 flags went up and I did feel a bit clever.
Next up was Imanishi and last time I fought him (2 years or so ago), he had recently passed his 4th dan and I think, was a little intimidated, but there was little sign of intimidation this time. Again, I started aggressively and it worked to some extent, but as he adapted, I didn’t. I just became more frantic. I created a few opportunities, even landed a weak men, but he didn’t picked me off on a hiki-men. I then had to push forward harder and then ended up losing a very solid kote when I pushed in too hard. Bah.
I didn’t mind losing (Or rather, didn’t mind too much), but still unhappy about the way I went about it. How can you expect to control the opponent when you can’t even control yourself? It’s an old problem and the lack of regular practice might not have helped, but it’s still a persistent problem that comes up with regular intervals.
Anyways, it was still only 10:30am and I had a day of refereeing in front of me. Since the 4D+ matches were still going on the court I was assigned to and all the senior shinpans appeared to be taking care of that, I just chilled out and watched the matches. As the final was about to start, Taguchi-sensei then came and said that I had to shinpan and pointed over to the court. I was slightly confused, but maybe they moved the final to another court?.  As it was clear that that wasn’t the case, I guessed he was just rounding up people to get ready, so I took a seat on the shinpan chairs, but Taguchi-sensei came over straight away, gave me some flags and told me to get on court now!.
So, there I was, as shinpan for people (Suguru Asaoka and Takashi) who are way better/faster than me and thought that they really deserved better!. Another part of me then also said “Don’t screw this up!”. As it was, there was only really one clear-cut attack (Kote from Asaoka), which both I and the shushin awarded, but the other fukushin waved it off??. I did have a small level of doubt about the strength of the impact, maybe he saw something I didn’t?
After the match, I talked to a few other people who ensured me that I got the right call, although I never asked Takashi about it…(I should really).
In any case, that match woke me up and I felt far sharper refereeing for the remainder of the day.
On to the teams, and the Vancouver team, after a shaky start, looked stronger and stronger as they progressed. It was probably also the strongest team in the tournament (On paper at least) and there was a bit of me wishing that I was there. (But with the current state of my kendo,I certainly did not deserve to be there).
They made it to the final vs Hawaii, which was tense and quite dramatic, for a variety of reasons. We had our strongest player as senpo, they had their strongest as chuken, so it was all tied when it came to the taisho. However, it was quite clear that their player had little interest in taking any risk against our (jodan) taisho and while he did get a hansoku for stalling the game in tsubazeria, it was far too late (2:30 in a 3 minute match) to have any real influence on the match and with it all tied 1-1, it came down to daihyoshasen.

Now, here is one of my (rare) gripes about refereeing here. There’s a tendency in ‘important’ matches (like a daihyoshasen for the final) to make the quality requirements for ippon extremely high and also to ignore minor infractions like accidental jogai’s.
With Takashi coming close several times, with attacks that in quality was no less than he had scored with earlier, it is really confusing and I think also inconsistent.
Sure, you should, to some extent, adjust the level of requirement differently depending on the level, but the matches in the same round, against the same level of opponent should not change. As it was, Takashi kept his cool and maintained a methodical approach, when the lack of calls must have been frustatring and after at least 15 minutes of fighting, pulled off a very nice kote, winning the team trophy for Vancouver Kendo Club.

Really struggled to get away from work (BIG deadline next week), rushed home to grab a bite, bogu (and the car) and just missed the first kihon part. My body was still stiff and sore from yesterdays workout and I struggled somewhat doing what I wanted to do.
Onwards to ji-geiko and I first practiced with Shin. I know the key with him especially is to be very aggressive early on to establish myself and it worked to some extent. After awhile, with a couple of close calls, he stopped me and pointed out that maybe I needed to extend my wrist more in order to get the last bit of sharpness. I see his point, but at the same time I’ve also been working on not ‘tapping’ in the cut by overextending the wrist and have tried creating a more solid cut by keeping the hand lower. There may be a middle ground that I should try to achieve?
Next up was Kato, who normally runs circles around me, but I manage to get the first men cut, after which he promptly adjusts and proceeds to take me apart.
I do at one point realize that I really need to focus harder on the debana, proceed to set it up and pull it off to near perfection. Probably the highlight of my evening.
However, shortly after that, I manage to completely over-extend my wrist and I can feel my tendons complaining straight away and straight away I can feel that a lot of strength is gone. I don’t want to stop practicing (It was hard work getting away from work, taikai in 2 days, etc), so I ignore it.
I have one more practice with Yamada-san, most of it in chudan and in general try to avoid putting too much strain on the wrist, but I know as we line up, that it’s not a happy wrist. In fact, my whole left forearm is screaming at me, with yesterdays workout being a contributing factor.
I get home, put an ice pack on straight away, along with some tylenols. There’s no direct pain, it doesn’t appear swollen, but it feels ‘weird’ and I got a bit of pins and needles in the area. I’ve taped it up with some kinesio-tape and hope for a dramatic improvement for tomorrow. If it’s still ‘weird’ tomorrow, I’m probably not going to the PNKF. I’ve done taikais before with a bad wrist and it’s just an exercise in frustration and not worth 3+ hour drive each way….

Still struggling to find my current level. Kihon was a bit meh, with the postive bit being consistently landing tsuki’s.

Free practice was a mixed bag. With Takashi, it’s always tricky. I really want to work on applying pressure from far to medium distance, but with Takashi’s aggressiveness,  it’s nearly impossible and it all becomes a bit frantic. I did manage to create a few opportunities, so it’s not all bad. Ippon-shobu took quite awhile and I lost to a smart kote.

Final practice was with Hasegawa-san, a nito-guy from a different dojo, who’s incredibly hard to crack and is very good at picking his opportunities. I get close a few times, but aside from a cheeky gyaku-do, I don’t think I land anything decent. (And got pummeled several times)

I really need a couple of decent kihon sessions to start sorting things out..maybe practice will settle down a bit after the PNKF taikai..