Stuff

Yeah, I know. It's just one of those days and I can't think of a title. Part of the problem is that I'm completely exhausted from yesterday's Jodo practice. It's clear that I need to exercise more regularly; doing nothing all week, and then trying to practice hard is getting me nowhere fast.

Yesterday was pretty tough. It's getting hot and so I was sweating more than usual. Morii Sensei was trying to fix a whole bunch of my bad habits at once, and I was just getting tired without getting any better, so he kept saying, "Do it again! No, that's not it... again. Okay, you almost got it. Nope, now you're doing the bad way again." And I wasn't moving fast enough, either. He said something that stuck with me: "Doing everything with the same timing - that's not budo." That's pretty succinct...

Tonight is Iaido practice and I really feel like staying home, but I have to go because it's been one week since that weird guy got completely drunk and spent 3 hours insulting me at the bar. I have to show everyone that I'm not offended, so I have to show up at practice or they'll think I've decided to pack it in or something. Also, Mr. Yoshimura (the ex-English teacher) is going to tell me whether or not I can do my grading. (He's been researching it, apparently.) So no staying home for me.

One of the funny things that drunk guy was saying was about my sword. He asked me if I have a shinken, I said yes, he asked me why I don't use it, and I said that I liked my iaito just fine, and also that the shinken was pretty heavy. He laughed and said that his sword was heavier than my sword; I declined to speculate that perhaps this is why his iaido is so terrible and why he can't control his cuts. After that, he went on to state that, because my noto was completely wrong, that I would "definitely, definitely" cut my hand if I used a shinken. So anyway, I have decided to bring my shinken tonight and see how it goes. If I can still type tomorrow, I'll let you know.