This post is part of the First Year of Budo series

Jodo

We started off with Tandoku as usual today, my Kia’s are still changing. Today I was focusing on doing more prolonged kiai’s to bring them a little closer to sensei’s. Still need to develop much more power in them though.

After this we paired off to do Sotei (paired forms). We worked on Tai atari first up. Doing this in paired form after watching Sensei I really got a feel for how it is really a strong ‘flick’ up to above a persons head which throws them off balance. If you try to do it slow with the flick it doesn’t work all that well and it’s harder.

Next we worked on to Tai hazuchi uchi. The striking of the sword in this is where I learnt the most, or maybe better said remembered the most. In hikiotoshi I remember being told to imagine striking at your opponent but just follow through and this will strike the sword. So don’t think of hitting the sword. Applying this to Tai hazuchi uchi helped tremendously.

Iaido

After warmups we had a few minutes cutting practice where I listened in to what sensei was instructing one of the senior students. He was indicating more of a throwing out of the left hand first followed quickly by the right hand coming through over the top. This gets the cut happening up high. It works much better thinking about it like this I feel. But it’s hard to remember to always try to have that feeling. Just gotta retrain my body again.

The rest of the day was kata but apparently I have a tendency to crouch a lot more than I should. I enjoy the low position because it feels like I have a lot of strength to move out of that position. I’ll have to try being taller as suggested by sempai. Just another thing to try :D.