Training when Tired

I didn't get much sleep last night with the rain again on my roof. I was pretty tired all day but I still made the effort to drive into uni and train. The training session today was quite small with only four people in bogu, so the rotations went pretty quickly. Kirikaeshi, kihon men, kote, doh, kihon kote men, small kote men, kote men men, debana kote and jigeiko. The usual in terms of actual waza being practiced. I don't know exactly why, probably because of the lack of sleep and the colder weather but my stamina today was really low and I was struggling to keep concentration during training. During the jigeiko also, I was very slow to move and react.

I used the ittosai shinai today instead of the kyoto eizan that I have been using lately, so that may have also attributed to it, but probably not by very much. The balance in the ittosai is much more towards the kensen, giving a heavier feeling even though the overall weight of the shinai is actually about ten grams lighter than the kyoto eizan shinai.

A few points that came out of todays training though from our leader was that my left arm is ending up too high on my men cuts in his opinion. It means that I get less power in the cut, so a lighter cut, slower cut in a way, and more softer sounding cut. Of course, with him being considerable taller, it is raised up to hit the men, but he said to try and keep it down more if possible. The second point was in relation to do cuts, to keep a much firmer grip with my left hand, which would improve the angle of the shinai, and give more accuracy, and thirdly, to be more aware of my distance. I have been working on looking at my opponents men, and not the rest of them to not give away my intentions, but I need to observe the shinai distance, as I was moving quite close, but yet not taking opportunities to attack when I was in the nyaku distance.

All good things to know, and keep in mind as I slowly work on everything at the same time.