More Kirikaeshi work...

We started last night with queuing kirikaeshi practice. I decided to take this opportunity to slow it down and deconstruct it a bit, trying to focus on each cut being a cut, rather than them bleeding together. It was pointed out that my head faces far too upward an angle during the exercise, which I hadn't noticed but was able to keep in control with a bit of attention. I also tried to use arm-work building on Tuesdays practice, though I still have a long way to go. Tonight felt better than other nights, but so far 'feeling better' isn't very indicative of real progress. It was also brought to my attention that (in my distinction between cuts) I had let my kiai become a series of separated shouts/breaths. Once that was sorted it became an interesting exercise with a continuous shout while trying to keep the different cuts from bleeding into each other. Practice practice practice.

The lion's share of the night was spent in jigeiko. The night again like the previous rounds felt middle of the road. Nothing too bad but nothing great. I'm finding the occasional tendency to try and 'force' a second cut into what isn't really an opportunity, but sort of resembles one. I'm finding I'm also doing this almost entirely by doing odd right hand things, so I'll have to pay attention to this and with attention this should dissipate with sufficient practice. I was told I wasn't attacking enough, and that oji waza should be saved for later years (when older). I was told 'not to wait' awhile ago so it appears to be an issue worth sorting out.

What's going on in my head when I'm not attacking is that I'm looking for opportunities and/or attempting to create them. Now people feeding back that I should be attacking more tells me 3 things:

- I'm not seeing/recognising opportunities that are there.

- I'm not creating them properly

- I need to act more on the fleeting ones that I do see.

The best way I can see through this is is to ignore everything and just attack more. Over time and practice after attacking more I should be able to develop a decent intuition about opportunities in front of me anyway by virtue of trial and error over time. It will take a bit of ego management not to worry about barreling in and getting hit, just remembering its trial and error for sussing out opportunities and not a match should be enough.

Kept an eye on that sliding right hand issue, and managed to keep it from happening, though it still did a few times, so will have to continue the attention to it. On top of that is going to have to be some revision of tenouchi, and building a better distinction (in a body conscious/muscle memory sense) between the snap of the right wrist and its evil cousin 'more right arm'.