#65: The importance of Keeping Center

We had two visiting Sensei at training today, one was a 6th Dan and the other a 7th Dan, both from Japan.

They had visited Sydney Kendo Club prior to our training and thus only came in the second half, where we did a considerable amount of jigeiko since they requested it (or so I was told). During the jigeiko, I was opportune enough to play both of them.

The first Sensei I played was the 6th Dan, and he let me make a few cuts to gauge my level. I had noticed that one of the beginners had been also assessed in this manner, and the Sensei did uchigomigeiko with him instead of jigeiko. For me, he didn't really attack, but only counter my attacks, and kept his center with Chudan no Kamae.

At one point, I thought I had broken his center and moved in for the men cut, but when I had moved in, I realised too late that his kensen was still in center. At the time, I didn't think about it, I just made a kihon cut as I self-tsuki'd myself onto his kensen. Boy did it hurt. I sort of took two steps back, went back to Chudan, and continued. What I was pleased about at least was that my kihon cut did land properly, even though my zanshin was stopped dead in my tracks. I sort of envisage that my body was kind of like in a C shape at that point, with my arms out forward on the cut, and my legs also trying to go forwards but my chest not letting me. So with the Sensei's shinai, it'd be like C-- haha.

In any case, I have never been impaled that strongly before. I tend to have an alright center keeping ability and thus have not really been into that experience of getting the shinai onto my own attack and movement. It doesn't deter me, if anything, it shows me the importance of having a strong and well maintained center. In addition, I felt no fear when playing the Sensei, even though I was getting countered on almost every cut I attempted. I fumbled some cuts and did block, and I didn't really back away either except to gain my distance.

I did get also two good cuts in, where I thought they were worth ippons. Of course the Sensei probably let me have it since he probably could have stopped it or dodged if he wanted to, but he gave me a "Good" response on the cuts.

The 7th Dan Sensei was not as good to play against since I wasn't really sure of his attempts at communication since I don't think he really spoke English. In any case, I managed some cuts to land, but they were not very good cuts at all. It was still a little bit of exercise I guess.

Well, it was a different training session at least.

Oh, and here is a picture of my chest post tsuki.