Kendo end-of-year events, more interview answers

Lowell House on the Feast of St. Peter of Tarantaise

I returned to kendo this weekend, just in time for the last two practices. On Friday, we officially learned jodan, which is a particular stance/style where your shinai is lifted above the head, as opposed to chudan (the most common style) where it is pointed at the opponent's throat. I've seen people play jodan, and of course, it appears in the first kata, so I wasn't entirely unfamiliar with it, but we'd never really learned how to strike from jodan. It's awfully strange because you switch the orientation of your feet so that your right foot is in the back instead of in the front. Also, jodan leaves you completely open to almost any attack except men, which is why it requires you to be very aggressive. Anyway, we also learned how to defend against jodan, which was actually a lot of fun. I think I have a better sense of the timing required, and I now know that one has to initiate the tsuki before the opponent goes for men, which explains why I kept missing Zach last weekend when we were doing demos. Obvious in retrospect, but really, I had no idea before.

Anyway, John Jackson, who graduated last year, came back this weekend, and I played jigeiko against him on Friday. I didn't fall once! Hurrah! I used to fall flat on my back every time John Jackson did a serious tai-atari against me last year, but this year, I managed to avoid it, even though he pushed me around quite a bit. I was rather proud of that. I also managed to get a few tsuki against him when he went into jodan, although I didn't have the proper follow-through. I also played against Chit, who made me go into jodan for the entire round. Strangely enough, I managed to hit a few good men. I think that once again, timing is key--the hit has to be fast in order to stay in center and also to strike before the opponent hits one of your vulnerabilities. I had hoped for one last jigeiko with our taisho, who is graduating soon, but I didn't have a chance to play against her. ;_; Ah well, there will be opportunities in the future, I suppose.

The next practice was senior sendoff, which was pretty gruesome. I think the most amusing part was when one of the alumni, Jeff, tried to make MG do matawari-suburi, and after the third one, she got fed up and struck his men instead. I had another jigeiko with Daera, where I continually failed to hit men, and then with Bea and Joe, who both managed to beat me up pretty thoroughly. Heh. Bea is ferociously aggressive: I can now understand the terror on the faces of her opponents during the team competition at the Shoryuhai. Joe is also getting to be quite good, as well, and he hits pretty hard, which made playing against him difficult. I realized over the course of the two matches that my bad habit of using my right arm too much has returned with a vengeance. There were several times, for example, when Joe was clearly off-center and had his men open, but I couldn't strike men properly because my right arm veered me off-center too. It also slowed down the strike and stopped me from extending far enough, although I think my footwork is another cause for that too. Resolution for summer practices: do lots and lots of katate-men and practice large and small men until I can actually do it right in jigeiko.

Speaking of which, Daera and I are now the new co-captains for the HRKC. It was a bit of an inevitability, because we have no rising seniors in the club, making us the default choices. On the other hand, someone like me being the captain for anything is quite possibly the most ironic situation in the world. I told my parents when they came to visit today, and Father was quite tickled by the news. He kept jokingly referring to me as "O captain, my captain" and seemed rather proud. Mother on the other hand said, "Oh no, now you'll be more consumed by kendo than ever," and rolled her eyes at me. ::sighs:: She was rather taken aback by the sheer amount of kendo stuff in my room as well (the trophy box in addition to my bokuto, shinai and bogu). Nonetheless, it was quite nice having my parents here: we chatted about my upcoming trip to Korea over galbi, and Mother was delighted with the flowers and card I got her for Mother's Day. She says my Korean has improved considerably, which is quite the compliment coming from her, since she used to teach Korean grammar. ^_^ I also managed to extract a promise from her that she will come to see us practice next year during Junior Parents' Weekend.

I would make a party post, but ladydaera pretty much summed it all up here. All I have to add is that we got to draw on our junior captain, Jon, even though he was still sober. The freshmen were awesome as usual--they indeed managed to get photos of Izzy as a child from her mother and showed it to us on Powerpoint. They also engineered a toilet-paper attack on Jon, who ended up quite thoroughly mummified (I have photos, which I will post under friends-lock sometime in the future). At one point, Christina sprawled on the couch next to me and blubbered into my shoulder about the burden of her great responsibility to become the next HRKC lush. Priceless line: "It's not easy keeping up with Izzy, but Jeff and John say that I have to do my best. I'm only a freshman, you know!" Cleanup went pretty smoothly, but nonetheless, as Daera says, any thoughts of getting drunk next year to oblige the club pretty much went straight out of our heads by the end of the party.

Kendo parties are fun, I admit, and probably the only imitation of a social life I have in college, but they do tend to wear me out. Especially since the club has gotten bigger, and there's less of the small-group drunken conversation to listen to and more of the loud drunken antics instead. The antics are hilarious but rather tiring to keep up with. (Also, my ability to stay awake after midnight has deteriorated completely in the last year.) I feel rather exhausted even now, in a pleasantly limp sort of way. Actually, yesterday, I woke up and wondered why suddenly something felt incredibly right about the world, and I realized it was because my arms and legs were sore from practice. Hah. And you thought that there were limits to my masochism. ^_~

Anyway, I'm going to officially go into reading period mode, so aside from filling drabble requests, I should not be making any LJ posts. If you see an entry from me that's not fic, then tell me to get off the Internet and study. Because oh dear, I really, really need to do well on these finals if I don't want another horrible spring semester grade report. ;_;

( Answers to Kenbu's questions )

Yours &c.