On Tuesday my instructor had recently come back from his seminar in the USA with Toby Threadgill. There is a requirement in the ryu that the head of each study group/dojo travel to the States once a year for these seminars. So Robbie was back with renewed vigour and plenty to tell us. We spent the evening working on one of the Chuden level paired sword kata. I had only observed one of these kata before so I had plenty to see and learn. I have always used an old bokken that I bought for aikido. However the TSYR bokken are different. They are generally longer (especially the handle) and are more curved. So I am looking at getting one of these bokken as the frustration of essentially bringing a toothpick to a stick fight is starting to get to me.
I have been struggling with a knee injury for the last 6 weeks and Tuesday was the first time in that long that I could train in both aikido and TSYR without my knee giving out. The aikido club numbers have shrunk but maintains an average rank of shodan so the quality of training is good. Only two of the club members are kyu grades now. We had a great Tuesday night with good intensity and plenty of fun.
Only about a month to go before Toby Threadgill lands on our shores again and there is plenty to learn in that time. I can't seem to get enough training in at the moment. Either injury or family commitments tend to keep me away from the dojo. It might just be one of those years. I certainly haven't trained as much as I had at the same time last year. What is suffering most of all is my body conditioning due to the lack of internal strength training and in aikido, my sword work is becoming a confused mess as it seems to clash with the body habits of the TSYR sword movement. The only solution is to carefully nurse my knee back to health before the head of our school arrives and train on.
Yours on training.
Dean.
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