Chanbara (softsword)

I saw this attendees of anime convention hitting each other with padded sticks before. The excercise was somewhat ritualized, but otherwise looked like something silly anime fans would do. Imagine my surprise when we did it today in the dojo.

Apparently, chanbara has its own international association, and is wildly popular in Japan (or at least used to be). Of course, there are rules and all the rest.

Curiously, "chanbara" is written with no kanji.

Saturday

Saturday class is the best. It's very nearly the individual class for the same money.

Also, made it to class 3 times this week.

Test is announced

Mr. A. announced today that we're having a test on Friday 3/28. Unfortunately, I am out of town on that date. It may be something I can do a little earlier, probably (actually, I talked to Mr. A about it).

I really need to get things together now.

Class 2008/01/23

Good warm-up and conditioning with 200 jumping jacks (although no push-ups). Then, it was iaido basics. I am not very interested in iaido, but it's a part of our curriculum, so I have to do my best.

The shaking off blood is a curious thing. Mr. Albrecht calls it "chiburi", e.g. 血振り. So, we have smaller chiburi, big chiburi, etc. But the dictionary calls the process "chiburui" (血振るい), the action is "chiburui suru", and the phrase is "katana no chiburui wo suru" (刀の知振るいをする). So, "chiburi" is basically a slang, like "memo" and "info" in English, although if Dr. Hatsumi says it that way, that's how it is.

Magical Water

My increased water intake, on the advice of Mr. Albracht, was a resounding success. I went to two classes without any resulting headache. This is just amazing, especially considering that I only upped my water intake by about 70%. I'm very optimistic.

It is possible that my condition slowly deteriorates, because the whole problem only appeared years after I started training, and gradually worsened. But at least at present it can be controlled.

Normal intake for the day is about 6 to 8 500ml bottles, of which 3 or 4 I finish before the class, one during the class, rest after the class. My weight is around 95kg.

Class 2008/01/09: The return!

I'm back to the class after the illness over the holidays. I had some kind of flu (not even a cold), and an opportunistic bacterial infection on top of it. It ended with Mr. Young calling me to remind not to slack too much.

Class was pretty physical, although I've only done 2 sets of 10 push-ups each. After the good warm-up, we've spent the class kicking and working on throwing when grabbed and pushed.

I talked to Mr. Albrecht about my horrible headaches. He suggested that it was dehydration after all, and that my efforts to stay hydrated did not go far enough. I aimed 2L per day. He said I need to drink enough "to go to the toilet every 20 minutes". I armed myself with 4 500ml bottles for the evening. It seems that my body's first reaction is to let all the water to go right through the intestines. Dear thick intestines, please intake the water, I need it -- Love, the head. We'll see how this goes in three hours or so. Usually I'm [nearly] dead by 2 a.m.

Class 2007/12/12 (Wed)

Rather energetic class, lots of kicking combos. The #1 is front, pop-up, front, pop-up, the #2 is rear round, slide round, the #3 is ... umm. I had to run intermittently on my way there and back, the outside temperature was about +5C. Thankfuly, wind was weak, below 2 m/s from East.

I got through the night with Advil. It still hurt, but in a dull way deep inside the skull. Seems ok today.