I know it sounds silly, but I am finally getting the hang of being still and relaxed. It's not as easy as it sounds.
One of the things that gets repeated every training is tai-sabaki: Basic body movement for the purpose of evading a strike.
My sensei uses a boken for the strike, though the same can be done with a bo, knife, hanbo, or whatever.
In any case, the idea is that I stand in front of him, and he strikes at me. I have to evade in order not to get hit (he controls his strike of course). He also does not strike as soon as I stand there. He can do it immediately, after a couple of seconds, and sometimes after 20 seconds.
Ideally, I will just stand there at ease, right until he initiates the attack. This is harder than it sounds. In the beginning I had the tendency to stand on the balls of my feet, to favor the leg that I was supposed to move on, and to twitch whenever I thought 'now'.
I have been practising the tai-sabaki a lot, and as a result, I no longer feel twitchy when doing these exercises. It was strange though. I'd have thought that simply standing at ease was easy. But it was harder than I expected.
One of the things that gets repeated every training is tai-sabaki: Basic body movement for the purpose of evading a strike.
My sensei uses a boken for the strike, though the same can be done with a bo, knife, hanbo, or whatever.
In any case, the idea is that I stand in front of him, and he strikes at me. I have to evade in order not to get hit (he controls his strike of course). He also does not strike as soon as I stand there. He can do it immediately, after a couple of seconds, and sometimes after 20 seconds.
Ideally, I will just stand there at ease, right until he initiates the attack. This is harder than it sounds. In the beginning I had the tendency to stand on the balls of my feet, to favor the leg that I was supposed to move on, and to twitch whenever I thought 'now'.
I have been practising the tai-sabaki a lot, and as a result, I no longer feel twitchy when doing these exercises. It was strange though. I'd have thought that simply standing at ease was easy. But it was harder than I expected.
