My Mommy's Coming

Today in kendo I sucked, to put it crudely. It was embarassing. At the end of class, when all of the higher ranks gave advice to the lower ranks, I got the same advice from just about everyone, and that I've recently been getting a lot.

The first piece of advice I've been getting from day one, though I feel it's something I've improved significantly with. I'm the gripping the shinai all wrong. I'm using my right hand too much and my left hand not enough. I've been told this so many times I have no trouble understanding the Japanese for "too tense" anymore. Likewise, my whole kendo club knows the word "relax" in English because of me. So whenever I get this advice, I focus really hard on not gripping the shinai too hard with my right hand. I feel like my hand is so loose that the shinai is just dangling in my hand. But, they still tell me I'm tensing too much. Maybe the problem is I that I'm changing the wrong thing, because they're still correcting me. Tomorrow, I will ask where exactly I'm too tense and what to do to fix it.

The second piece of advice is that I'm not using my center enough. Sensei tells met this is why I'm not scoring points in the shiais. My hits are worth nothing because my body isn't behind them. He's also been telling me this for a while, but this also I've been having trouble fixing. I remember when it was a problem in my karate, and occasionally it still is, but I feel like I shoulud be able to do this. Sensei sat down with me (actually stood up with me?) and physically showed me exactly where my hands need to be in order to use my center. The problem I'm having is that the shinai is supposed to be an extension of the body, and thus should be used (as far as I understand) to cover distance. Keeping this in mind, I always extend as far as I can with the shinai and sometimes, they tell me to make it even bigger. But to use my center, Sensei tells me that my kamai should be pulled in really tight. I'm thinking that means that, in the process of men uchi, the hands start pulled in at kamai, lift up with the elbows bent (forming a triangle, my friend told me), and with the left hand, the shinai comes down, the right wrist sort of snapping, adding the whip to the technique, and the elbows extended so that a lot of distance is convered. After the men is executed, you return to a tight (though relaxed?) kamai, keeping the center and not worrying about covering distance yet. What I'm confused about is when exactly the arms extend to reach the opponent. I'm thinking it must be at the moment after your shoulders have reached the position for striking and before the wrists snap into place (if that's in fact what the wrists are doing). Man it's confusing!

The third and maybe most frustrating piece of advice I've been repeatedly recieving is to have a little more confidence. I don't know what that means. That's not advice I can study, or something I can memorize by repetition. I don't know how to fix that. I don't feel unconfident. I know they must be right, of course because they're higher ranks than me, but also because I've seen so many people at White Eagle that would be so much better if they just had more confidence. I can read how to do a men uchi, or ask my friends to show me, or ask my Sensei to show me, or simply watch other people and imitate what they're doing. How do I learn confidence and when did I ever unlearn it? How did I learn it the first time?