Heraclius, I took the liberty of fixing those dates for you. If that isn't ok, let me know and I can switch it back. But I assumed you would want them fixed. Please double check that I fixed them correctly. You can ALWAYS ask a mod to fix things like that in your logs. My understanding is that we will do more edits like that to keep a log the way you want it. Just let any mod know what you need fixed and we will do it. Conrgats on your successful test and grading! I am very happy for you! :happy:
! Thank you very much, that's great. It's not a big enough issue for me to want to bother anyone with it, but I appreciate you doing it Thank you!
Tuesday, 2 August 31 mins battō. 30 mins bagwork. 26 mins battō - practice swinging with the longsword. Yes, I have finally decided that some parts of my dabbling with European sword systems will make its way into my training log. I'm confident that, taken together with my other training, I can say that I'm not just playing around anymore. Wednesday, 3 August 23 mins battō. Thursday, 4 August 28 mins battō. Saturday, 6 August 25 mins battō. End of week 133. Total time: (122:41 + 2:28) + 140:07 + 0:30 = (125:09) + 140:37 Tuesday, 9 August 25 mins battō. 22 mins spear. Wednesday, 10 August 33 mins spear. Thursday, 11 August 23 mins battō. A bit of a mid-week update. On Tuesday night I did my grading for 4th kyu in Goshin Jutsu. There are, of course, some issues here and there, but I passed. The main problem was with the sparring - which, as you may recall, we don't do in classes. There's not much more to say. Some bits I don't know how to do, the rest I just can't do. And my level of conditioning is not nearly high enough. I'm just hoping that the display was enough to persuade my sensei that we really need to start working on this. Additionally, I have picked up another medieval European fencing treatise - Achille Marozzo's 1536 Opera Nova. Compared to Fiore, which I have looked at before, it has less pictures, but much more useful text. Overall I find it easier to grasp what is being described - or at least there are far fewer gaps that I have to fill in with my rather limited knowledge of the subject. Also it has much more interesting weapons - specifically, sword and shield and spear and shield sections.
Congratulations! I had the same problem with conditioning when I started kung fu...particularly in sparring. Might I suggest jumping rope? Doesn't take much time and it'll do wonders for your footwork and endurance.
It's been way to long That feeling when you realize you haven't updated your log in nearly 5 months. Anyway, Friday 12 August 16 mins batto. If you can believe it, this is all I did for the rest of August. End of week 134. Total time: (125:09 + 1:59) + 140:37 = (127:08) + 140:37
September '16 (Weeks 137-141) (127:08 + 3:00) + 140:37 + 1:35 = (130.08) + 142:12 October '16 (Weeks 142-145) (130.08 + 2:44) + 142:12 + 0:30 = (132:52) + 142:42 November '16 (Weeks 146-149 approx.) (132:52 + 0:43) + 142:42 + 0:16 = (133:35) + 142:58 December '16 (Weeks 150-153) (133:35 + 6:10) + 142:58 = (139:45) + 142:58
Sunday, 1 January 24 mins batto to welcome in the new year. In December I started counting time I spent practicing Marozzo's Opera Nova, which is what this is. Specifically, I am focusing on single sword, partizan (a sort of cutting spear) and partizan and rotella (shield). Tuesday, 3 January 25 mins Nakamura ryu. 28 mins Marozzo. Wednesday, 4 January 30 mins shadowboxing and kihon. Summer rain always makes me want to train, so I took advantage of it. I started working on my spin hook kick, which needs to be faster. I am mostly trying to refine the preparatory movements for the kick right now. I think I'm on the right track, it's just a matter of building the neural pathways. After this I focused recruiting my whole body (though mainly my core) into my punches. I started this after watching some Tai Chi videos describing power generation. I can do it a bit, but I quickly tire and lose my coordination. 30 mins Marozzo.
And finally, a general update. At the end of August I started working, although I only really work weekends at the moment. I am happy to have a job, but it does take time (and energy) from my training. Or it did while I was still studying - In November I finished my final subjects, so I am now waiting to graduate with my second bachelor's degree. This means that I will have more time, and less excuses, for training for the time being, as I work out what I want to do now. I also mean to make use of the time and money I now have by taking up kendo and getting to a gym this year. Finally, at the end of November I broke my foot while running. This is the reason why I did so little training in November, and no unarmed training in December (to recap, the (bracketed) time in my total time is weapon training and the unbrackedted time is unarmed training). I have now recovered to the point I am confident returning to all my training, so I should be getting back into it now. Before I broke my foot we had a returnee to the unarmed class at my dojo, which I'm hoping means we will start getting some regular sparring in. But we'll see - classes start again on the 16th, so I'll look forward to... well, the 17th, because work will make me miss the first class.
Saturday, 7 January 18 mins batto, 30 mins Marozzo. End of week 154. Total time: (139:45 + 2:35) + 142:58 + 0:30 = (142:20) + 143:28 Tuesday, 10 January 16 mins batto. End of week 155. Total time: (142:20 + 0:16) + 143:28 = (142:38) + 143:28 This last week traning started up again. I missed Monday because I was working. I got in for goshin justu on Tuesday, and I was wrecked. As my brother said, drinking coke, eating chocolate and not exercising for over a month will do that. So I'm hoping to get back into shape quickly, although as I still can't run I need to think of a way to do that. Anyway, it was a pretty basic class - started off with some kihon, then did some bagwork and finished with kata. I made it to Nakamura ryu class on Wednesday, where I was pleasantly surprised to find one of the seniors who has been chronically absent turned up. The two of us ran through some basics and then all of the kata in order. Once again, this was far more tiring than it should have been. Tonight I got the the second goshin justu class, where it was just me and one other senior(ish) student who recently came back after a long break. We took it pretty easy - starting off with some kihon, then doing some simple application and finishing with 10 mins of light sparring. I seem to be better at spotting and stopping incoming punches, although I'm not to great with kicks - I usually either step straight back, or sort of spazz out and try and block it with all my limbs. Neither is the most constructive strategy. I'm hoping we'll get in a lot more sparring in the future though. I have also arranged to try out a kendo lesson tomorrow night. It's something I've been keen to do for a while, and now I finally have the time and money to do it, so I'm pretty excited about that. I will let you, my nonspecific reader, know how that goes.
Friday, 20 January 23 mins batto. I went to the kendo class, as I had planned, and I quite enjoyed myself. The pace is really different to batto, and it's always nice having new stuff to learn. I also feel that it will complement my batto training nicely, making me a more well-rounded swordsman. Whatever that's worth. There were a lot of beginners besides myself, so we covered a lot of basic stuff. We started with footwork, then men, kote and dou strikes. These started just in the air, then we practiced them with a partner. Later we added in zanshin - the funny running bit kendoka do after getting a hit. We finished with an exercise, whose name I don't remember, whereby one person will present a target (for those of us without bogu, we positioned our shinai to represent the target) and the other performed the corresponding cut, with zanshin. While the basics are not too unfamiliar to me, the training was quite different to what I'm used to. It's all very forceful - both the footwork and sword-work. My arms are now quite sore, and I have new blisters on my left hand. My biggest problem was with the dou strike however, as both the trajectory and the footwork are completely different to what I'm used to. I was usually paralyzed for a couple seconds when I had to make my first strike, while my brain freaked out. Certainly, I have a lot to work on. Nonetheless, I enjoyed it a lot and will definitely keep with it.
Damn, I am bad at this. Saturday, 21 January 21 mins Marozzo. End of week 156. Total time: (142:38 + 0:44) + 143:28 = (143:22) + 143:28 Just a quick note that this represents three years of logging for me. Sunday, 22 January 19 mins Marozzo, plus a little bit of kendo practice. Thursday, 26 January 37 mins Marozzo. On top of the bits I usually do, spear, spear and shield, and sword, I have added the first sections of sword and shield. I will gradually put more in, but it's definitely easier to introduce it a bit at a time. Friday, 27 January 27 mins Marozzo. End of week 157. Total time: (143:22 + 1:23) + 143:28 = (144:45) + 143:28 And there we go, I've now done more weapons training than unarmed.
Tuesday, 31 January 18 mins batto. Thursday, 2 February 14 mins bo and Marozzo. 27 mins shadowboxing, working footwork and kicks. Friday, 3 February 28 mins Marozzo. 15 mins batto. End of week 158. Total time: (144:45 + 1:15) + 143:28 + 0:27 = (146:00) + 143:55 Monday, 6 February 9 mins Marozzo. Tuesday, 7 February 23 mins batto. Wednesday, 8 February 32 mins kihon, working a variety of punches and kicks. 24 mins batto. Thursday, 9 February 16 mins batto. Friday, 10 February 20 mins kicking kihon. End of week 159. Total time: (146:00 + 1:12) + 143:55 + 0:52 = (147:12) + 144:47 And now for a general update. I have gone to kendo classes 3 times now and intend to continue. There are, of course, things that clash with my batto training, but overall I think it will be beneficial if I can properly contextualise it, and of course it is good fun. I didn't go last week, to give my hands a chance to recover from adapting to the shinai, so I took the opportunity to go the the Friday night sparring sessions which run at the dojo I train at. Although our group train separately from the main group there, the instructor still treats us as members, and is happy to let us do things like this without charging extra. We are very lucky to be there, really. Anyhow, that was a bit of fun. I'm slowly getting better at the sparring thing, and I was able to get some useful advice from the more experienced guys. I would like to be able to go more regularly, but it does clash with the kendo. At the moment I think I will try to go the first week of each month. It's not much, but better than nothing. Regular classes are also proceeding apace. I have made some small technical breakthroughs in both battojutsu and goshin jutsu. For batto, I am continuing to improve the trajectory of my cuts - the kendo actually helps a lot with this. In goshin jutsu I got some advice which has made my spinning hook kicks a lot faster - essentially, this is to use my elbows to spin my upper body around faster. It seemed a bit strange, but it works. Now all I have to do is drill until this all becomes second nature. There was a bit of drama in the goshin justu class last night. While practicing kicks on the shield I caught my partner with a high roundhouse kick, which he had not properly braced the shield for. He went down, and we decided to call it in. I'm not really happy about that, but I don't feel that there's much I could have done. I guess accidents are bound to happen, especially when practicing martial arts. And I must guiltily admit that part of me is quite pleased, as this shows that my kicks have enough power to hurt people. Since I'm not someone who gets into fights, wondering about my stopping power has always been a source of doubt for me, MA-wise. But anyway, I'll try and find ways to avoid this sort of thing happening in the future.
Thanks! My foot is mostly healed, it just needs a bit of support now and then while I build up strength again. I'm also happy to be logging again (if you could really call it that). Even though I always meticulously record my training, it's much more helpful to be able to see it laid out like this.
