I have been training fairly consistently since I have been back from New York, only missing one session so far because I was having lunch with my brother who was returning to the U.S. with his family on a permanent basis.
From two sessions, one the other day, and today's session, there were two comments on "speed" that came up.
The first comment came from someone who is my kouhai, and he said (paraphrasing) that I had got faster since he last played me in jigeiko, but I moved less. The second comment came from a sempai of mine who I respect greatly and he told me today that I am fast, I have very fast hands, but I need to work on my legs. You can not go faster than your legs, so if I increased my leg speed I would be even faster.
These two comments are a bit surprising to me in the sense that I have never really considered myself to be fast. By comparison to others, I always feel that I am quite slow, and it is only recently that I have improved my "vision" that I can see movements/cuts/attacks coming but I am not always actually able to do anything about them. For people to say I am getting faster, or that I actually am faster is unusual.
I have always known that I am slow on my legs. So, how do I increase leg speed? I know one is of course muscle mass. More muscles, more power, more speed. The second is tone. Better tone, better response, faster reaction. Thirdly, one that is a much harder aspect for me, is being relaxed and tense all at the same time.
Muscle mass and tone, I can do. Weights and so forth, running or cycling or squats and leg work. Easy. I don't think I need to actually do a lot of it because I already have a heck of a lot of muscle. Tone, yeah ok, I could work on.
The hard one for me is the relaxation and being tense. When I am moving into seme and ittomai distance, I can stay relaxed. But if I am relaxed, I do not have the ability (yet) to have what is commonly referred to as "explosive" speed come from my legs. When I am tense in the same situation, I do get that speed and power, but what then happens is I find I lack distance because my muscle tension keeps my muscle stretch shorter. Being able to find that happy medium is what I need, where I can get the burst of power, but being relaxed so I can get distance also. I'm not exactly sure how I can achieve this.
***
The other thing that I have been doing lately is changing how I hold the shinai. I have got a replacement Shinki Silver for the one that broke a while back, and I have started to use it again. Since the grip is quite small, it is a challenge to maintain a strong grip on it at all times. What I did come to realise is that, as we are taught and recommended, is that we should not have a tense and tight grip with the right hand except for applying tenouchi at the end of the cut. It should be relaxed and act as a guide for your cuts with the left hand bringing the power.
So, I have been doing this. I have been gripping my left hand very strongly, to the point where when we get to jigeiko at the end of the session, I find myself unable to grip tightly anymore. So much so on Friday last week I was disarmed accidentally when my opponent mune-tsuki'd themselves onto my kamae and the shinai left my hand completely. I hope that over time I will get a stronger left grip so these events happen less, especially at crucial situations.
What has come forth from it so far for me in my observations, is that my shinai control has not worsened. It has become a little loose when someone is attempting to break my center, but I can guide it back fairly easily and quickly like before, but it provides me with a much more relaxed sensation when I make my movements and try to pick openings. I will continue with this and see where it leads me.
Perhaps this is also where the "speed" comes from for my hands, in that if you are relaxed, you can "snap" speed into your movements, which is what I mentioned before in relation to what I wish to achieve with my legs.
From two sessions, one the other day, and today's session, there were two comments on "speed" that came up.
The first comment came from someone who is my kouhai, and he said (paraphrasing) that I had got faster since he last played me in jigeiko, but I moved less. The second comment came from a sempai of mine who I respect greatly and he told me today that I am fast, I have very fast hands, but I need to work on my legs. You can not go faster than your legs, so if I increased my leg speed I would be even faster.
These two comments are a bit surprising to me in the sense that I have never really considered myself to be fast. By comparison to others, I always feel that I am quite slow, and it is only recently that I have improved my "vision" that I can see movements/cuts/attacks coming but I am not always actually able to do anything about them. For people to say I am getting faster, or that I actually am faster is unusual.
I have always known that I am slow on my legs. So, how do I increase leg speed? I know one is of course muscle mass. More muscles, more power, more speed. The second is tone. Better tone, better response, faster reaction. Thirdly, one that is a much harder aspect for me, is being relaxed and tense all at the same time.
Muscle mass and tone, I can do. Weights and so forth, running or cycling or squats and leg work. Easy. I don't think I need to actually do a lot of it because I already have a heck of a lot of muscle. Tone, yeah ok, I could work on.
The hard one for me is the relaxation and being tense. When I am moving into seme and ittomai distance, I can stay relaxed. But if I am relaxed, I do not have the ability (yet) to have what is commonly referred to as "explosive" speed come from my legs. When I am tense in the same situation, I do get that speed and power, but what then happens is I find I lack distance because my muscle tension keeps my muscle stretch shorter. Being able to find that happy medium is what I need, where I can get the burst of power, but being relaxed so I can get distance also. I'm not exactly sure how I can achieve this.
***
The other thing that I have been doing lately is changing how I hold the shinai. I have got a replacement Shinki Silver for the one that broke a while back, and I have started to use it again. Since the grip is quite small, it is a challenge to maintain a strong grip on it at all times. What I did come to realise is that, as we are taught and recommended, is that we should not have a tense and tight grip with the right hand except for applying tenouchi at the end of the cut. It should be relaxed and act as a guide for your cuts with the left hand bringing the power.
So, I have been doing this. I have been gripping my left hand very strongly, to the point where when we get to jigeiko at the end of the session, I find myself unable to grip tightly anymore. So much so on Friday last week I was disarmed accidentally when my opponent mune-tsuki'd themselves onto my kamae and the shinai left my hand completely. I hope that over time I will get a stronger left grip so these events happen less, especially at crucial situations.
What has come forth from it so far for me in my observations, is that my shinai control has not worsened. It has become a little loose when someone is attempting to break my center, but I can guide it back fairly easily and quickly like before, but it provides me with a much more relaxed sensation when I make my movements and try to pick openings. I will continue with this and see where it leads me.
Perhaps this is also where the "speed" comes from for my hands, in that if you are relaxed, you can "snap" speed into your movements, which is what I mentioned before in relation to what I wish to achieve with my legs.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment