With vacations, alternate training, etc going on, today there was just Kai and myself. We reviewed the cuts and blocks from last week, then practiced with the Cutting Pattern 1 a bit. I then covered Kneeling Iai 1 through 4. His previous martial arts training is serving him well and he is picking up the new skills quickly. Once I feel he is comfortable with the cuts, blocks and first four kneeling iai, we’ll start on standing iai one through three.

Today’s students were Nate and Kai. It was Nate’s second class and Kai’s first, however Kai has had training in multiple martial arts. With just the two of them, we were able to cover all the basic cuts and blocks, then put it together with the adapted Cutting Pattern 1.

Today’s class was composed of Hiroko and Lynette. We did standing iai one, two and three to warm up, then practiced free fighting techniques one through six.

Standing iai and free fighting techniques 1 – 6.

(no details for this day)

We reviewed standing iai one, two and three today to warm up, then did some work with the cutting pattern. As we worked through the cutting pattern, I made some refinements to the footwork, using a cross-step advance for the wrist and waist attacks (advance in kneeling stance for the second waist cut). This makes the attacks more agressive and helps work on combat movement.
I also brought in some padded practice weapons today, though we did not use them this time. We will likely begin using them as a precursor to shanai sparring, allowing us to spar more heavily while we obtain more protective gear.

(no class last week due to holidays)

I have concluded that with less than an hour available to us, it is simply not enough time to do a full requirements warm up still address specific skills and techniques, so I have backed away from the requirements at the beginning of each class.
Today we did a quick warm up with students choice of cuts, block, and multi-block and counter combinations. We then reviewed kneeling iai 1 through 7b and standing iai 1 through 3. I would have liked to have gone over kneeling iai 8, too, but I need to first review it further myself, using my previous notes to refresh my memory.

Today I started class with a lap on each of the basic cuts to get us warmed up, then one lap each of alternating left and right temple cuts and alt. left and right waist cuts (advancing in kneeling). I then created some patterns to generate openings (intiated response to use WCoS terminology). The first was right temple, left temple, right temple, left waist; the second I have currently forgotten (I’ll come back and fill it in if I recall it) ; the third was right temple, right temple, left wrist, right waist. After practicing these back and forth several times, we paired off with shanai and practiced the first and third patterns against each other. I felt it was a good class and I seemed that it really fostered some ideas in the others.

Parry was the primary focus of today’s class. I started us with 1 attack, then 2 attack, and finally 3 attack. I spoke a bit on 3 attack, talking about setting up behavior patterns to create an opening (e.g. L temple, R temple, L waist). It was a good, high energy class.

Lynette, Daryl and I worked through the green belt requirements today. I recently spoke briefly with Tom, our local sensei, relaying that the more advanced students could really benifit from even just ten or fifteen minutes of time learning one new technique, such as leg cuts or blocks, or relearnign or affirming one of the more advanced techniques covered near the end of the previous class Tom was running.

Since March 9th I have been going once a week to an informal kendo class comprised of myself, a few other students from the original Kendo class, and a few new ones. The class met on Thursdays originally and switched to Fridays as of the 25th of August. Starting out, Hiroko and I took turns leading the class, however of late I lead class and we consult with each other on questions we are unsure of. Over the past few months, I have incorporated aspects of my Western Circle training, creating a cutting pattern #1 for the kendo class that is equivelent to the WCoS cutting pattern #1 and implementing WCoS training fundementals such as parry (one-attack sparring) and just recently the pairing off and demonstrating requirements as the warm up. I am pleased with the progress of the class and hope to start some light to medium sparring in the near future (with the kendo shanai, gloves, wrist protection, and helmets – throat protection and any other available protective gear will be recommended, though since it is shanai combat rather than boken, there is less worry of bodily damage).

We primarily reviewed all the material we would need to know for our Green Belt test the following class.