Founders Cup Competition

Well, it was a super long day, with the HK Ward Gym opening at 9:30am and finishing at 5:50pm...
I was on my feet for most of the day taking photos, to the point where I took a lot of them, ahem, 1056 picture apparently....

Observations from the day:
Lots of mediocre kendo, some bad kendo, lots of good kendo.
There was a lot of scrappy play, and I mean, there was a lot of it to be seen. Pushing and the alike.
There was a lot of penalty points given (Hansoku) for a variety of reasons. These included: Leaving the shiai boundary box, excessive pushing, pushing the shinai on the neck, putting your kote against your opponents shinai blade instead of their kote.

There was a lot of kendo played, lots of points given here and there. Our own club did ok, we didn't make it to the finals in the Kyu or Dan teams but we did put on some very good shiais indeed. Um, I haven't really much to say at the moment really so I'll leave it at that. ^^

Leading and Setting Up

I got asked to take the Advanced Beginners during training today. A little earlier than I expected, and with grading on Sunday, it would have been nice to do some last minute practice, but I guess that is ok. I shouldn't fail my grading, if I do, then what on earth have I been doing these last five months since Picton?? LOL. I should be ashamed of myself for one... and train a lot harder for two.

In any case, I was asked to take them through seiza, sonkyo, footwork, cuts and kirikaeshi. I wasn't sure about the kirikaeshi because I thought they didn't need it for 6th and 5th kyu grading, and well, they don't. It was more for the fact that they will need it for our own club test before they can get into bogu.

The group itself was eight people so quite small and easy to look after as we had a major group of new beginners that were being looked after by someone else. I ran them through the basic things in seiza and sonkyo with emphasis on posture and foot positions. We then ran through the footwork and commands for footwork (Mae, Migi, Ato, Hidari), and then did their basic two step cuts for men, kote and do. Then that was followed up by a bit of kirikaeshi. Those who I know that are regulars did quite well, just a few corrections in their sayomen cuts to ensure the cuts go up the middle before the next cut, and not \ / style cuts. Kiai was strongly emphasised too.

I raised a sweat during warmup, but not during the leading which was a bit unfortunate, but I did get to yell a lot to be heard haha. Oh, I also took the footwork practice which I found my self pushing myself to be able to do, so that was good.

Post training as we were off for Dinner before coming back to set up for Founders tomorrow, I asked two of the beginners I knew how I did, with as honest answers as possible, since I am not going to learn unless they criticise me. One of them said "No offense to the other two, but you are easier to understand than [ ] and louder and easier to hear than [ ] " while the other said "Fundamentally is nothing bad about how you taught us today"........ Well, I guess that is good on both counts, but non-fundamentally there was something bad?? Haha. Oh well, see how it continues to go in the future.

Dinner was a salmon sushi box and a pistachio thickshake, then shopping for stuff we needed. We bought 45L of water in tanks and a 24x400mL bottle pack for the official people (you see, you can't expect them to use cups, they have to have bottled stuff). We also got serviettes, paper plates, garbage bags and teatowels for wiping the floor.

Back to uni, and the great cleaning and setting up. We had two hours, it wasn't enough time. We washed the floor and wiped it (old school style, people with clothes running up and down the hall in the very back-breaking position you see in Japanese films), set up two bleachers and very very dangerous/rickity banisters (seriously, if you lean on them, you'll fall off with them... but they have to be there for OH&S...) and then tables, chairs, banners and the taping up of the court. We still need to do banners and more chairs, putting out the trophies and prizes too, competition draws, signage and other stuff tomorrow.... A lot of work, but we were lucky we had a lot of people helping.

I was kind of disappointed in our 'sensei'. Fair enough, he doesn't get to train much, so he trained, except that everyone else besides the person he was training with was helping out. Two more pairs of hands would have been really useful, and also not for them to be playing on the floor space and us having to move them as we cleaned.... Sure, he is the person to respect and all that, so he should be able to train while we toil away, but I personally if I was in his position would have helped out too because it is my club that we are showing to the rest of the people out there coming, and we want to present the best possible face we can. ~shrug~ I guess that is just me.

Tomorrow I will be playing photographer for the competition. See how that goes. I wish I had the money to get some really good high speed lenses for the darker conditions though, it would really help I think in capturing much better and more awesome pictures.

Downtown Meetings + Shiai Practice

I did quite a bit of legwork today. Walked to uni with my kendo gear, then legged it from uni to Wynard in 40 minutes flat. We were down there to visit Lang Technologies, having never been to their offices before. When I got to the reception of the building, I looked in the directory (A touch-screen device) but nothing was listed. Asking the professional looking receptionist, she told me that they were listed under a different name, and directed me to their tenth floor suite. I got there and called the others who were coming, and we met up in the tenth floor lobby space before going into the office space.

Interestingly, they shared the suite space with a lot of other companies, quite a few really. I think it means they must have a rather small space, or that these companies share common staff or something since it was very quiet there.... We used the meeting room that was out the front and met their new CEO. He's a rather tall fellow, european accent present, seemed very keen and very laid back about it and had a bit of humour about him too. He did present himself as someone who was confident about taking charge of company direction. We had a chat about the work done, the work to be done by the other PhD student and how the company direction is moving too.

The point of discussion in regards to hiring me was also brought up, and the CEO guy seemed genuinely interested in having a discussion with Tim Lang about it, and my supervisor gave a prodding comment about shortages of engineers and how much demand there was, and the fact that I was currently working four casual contracts, and I said that the only reason why I was working four was because it wasn't enough pay LOL, and he said he got the hint haha.... Who knows when they'll have their chat, it seems that they will be in Japan in the next week or two for business purposes, damn them... I wish I could be going too haha. So that was pretty much it for the meeting.

The rest of the morning/afternoon was pretty uneventful. Walked back from their offices and sat around a bit.

Kendo training was back on in H.K.Gymnasium since exams had finished. It was actually quite a good turnout of people today. We had seven bogu players, and quite a few beginners. Since Founders Cup was coming, we started preparations for it today with some Shiai practice. We did warmup (I led because someone was late), then we did footwork and kiai practice. Then splitting off to bogu/non-bogu. In bogu, we did kirikaeshi, then big cuts and small cuts before the shiai instead of jigeiko.

One of the guys brought his digital camera to video the practice so it could be looked at later.... I think I'm going to look like crap on the camera like last time haha. I played three shiai matches, one a draw with no points, one a win with one men point, and one also a draw with no points. It was quite tiring actually even though they were only two minute matches, but the energy, concentration, intensity to play hard is incredible. I also did some shimpaning too, and I feel that for some of our players, more work has to be done on kiai and zanshin. Plenty of good hits, but weak ass kiai (one of our best players has this problem.... c'mon, get out of that shell and let your voice rip) while other players hit, but don't use proper zanshin when they could earn the point easily with it by body crashing into their opponent or other. It was really fun and good practice though, I think I am enjoying it a lot more than I used to (shiai/jigeiko that is) and it is providing more of a challenge/stimuli for me now that I feel I have some better skills. I used the kyoto eizen shinai because it is the only one that is competition legal, and would give me how it would feel in competition to be using a proper weight shinai... it did well I think, fast enough to get some ok cuts in. I still lack explosive power and speed, and I still lack reaction speed when there are openings, but at the moment, that is fine because I'm just taking things at my own speed.

Walked to the station with some of the guys and we just talked the usual crap and paying out one of our friends because he's such a soft target with some of the stuff he says without thinking LOL. I said to him, take a shot at me then, and well, he stopped after one attempt because that attempt at paying me out failed =P Ah, it's good to know I can still deflect stuff eh.

Got to the station, bought my ticket and legged it down the platform with my bogu flying because the train had just pulled in... Puffing while standing in my suit boiling inside this cramped vestibule space was not fun... I eventually got a seat about four stops later, and fell asleep..... I woke up thirty minutes later and though, oh crap... did I miss my stop? Thankfully it was two stops before mine and I got home fine LOL.... Would not have been fun to get off and have to wait for another train in the back direction if I had missed it cos I fell asleep..... ~tired~

That, my friends, was my day.

Man, another tiring Friday.

Well, Google Analytics came up with something interesting today LOL. Check it out.


Now, why would Microsoft Corp be checking out my blog? I tried to find a network location for it, and it is in the USA but it says that it is a unspecified network location..... Hmmm.

Anyway, today was a fun day I guess.

Got into uni and started writing a cover letter for a position as a Patent Engineer. I got someone in department to have a look at it, and he helped me fix it up so that it would be a better cover letter. Better use of key words and phrases. He also told me that my net value in terms of a salary is actually around the $80 000 AUD mark at this present moment in the employment market so I shouldn't sell myself short of that figure if possible.

Afterwards, I went to the EMU to figure out what happened to my swipe card access to the EMU. I tried to get in earlier but the card denied me access, and I discovered that they had set me to regular business hours by mistake because they had upgraded my account for the dental project I was working on. The phone call to security office fixed that so hopefully the next time I use it, it will be back to my category 3 setting of 24/7. While I was there, I also managed to pick up some more casual work which is fantastic for my current situation while I pursue employment elsewhere. I will be doing specimen preparation for some clay filtration samples, as well as helping out with the relocation of stuff in the labs while the labs are being renovated. Work and money is good. Very good.

Then there was Kendo.

I don't know where people were today, but everyone with the exception of like four people, were late. We did usual warmup, and the three hundred hayasuburi ~sigh~ well, I survived it, but I still don't like it. Our bogu leader today wanted to focus on men cuts some more, and probably for the next few weeks or so. I think that is an excellent idea really. We went through 1 step men cut, and then some exercises to keep our backs straight, and then adding fumikomi to the men cut, and then adding zanshin to the cut. We only had six people in bogu, so the rotations were short and allowed us to do more cuts and have more time with guidance. I really liked it and appreciated it, although he had not much training himself because he was providing feedback and teaching and correcting what we were doing wrong. At the end of the session, I was really tired, but I felt that I had learned a lot more today than previously. I need to lower my left hand more in chudan position, Need to place more pressure to my back which will assist in not kicking my feet up as much, and getting rid of chicken wing flapping of my cuts. All very important things. We then had two jigeiko's, and I didn't really do very well in them but that's fairly normal because I don't normally do well in jigeiko anyway.

Post training we had a long meeting about the preparation for Founders Cup weekend. A checklist by our events organiser was put through the pace and we had some discussion on it all. I think if we manage to keep on the ball with the things that need to be done, chasing up people and things efficiently, we will be fine. I think they will hold another meeting in a month, and then two weeks out from the competition. There is a lot of things to do, but if the organisation is kept clean, it won't be an issue at all.

Uni games was also discussed and we have a team manager now. Trials will be one month out from the games in September on a Saturday. Not sure what the eligibility criteria is on if I can play in uni games or not, or even if I'm still in the country/town LOL. Oh well.

Oh, apparently some shinais came in from the Sankei order, so hopefully my three are in that. ^^ Yay, new shinai!