And so we continue on the yearlong slope down towards the grading. I have in the last week or so conversed with many people about the European Iaido Championships especially concerning the grading. Those of you in the know will know that it was something of a massacre with only one 6th dan candidate passing out of all the 5th, 6th and 7th dans. I certainly thought there were at least a few who were worth their salt in this grading including my good friend Henry Schubert whose mental image I use for how people do Jikiden (this isn't to say that there aren't other people more experience than Henry, only that I have worked more with him than any other Jikiden person in koryu).
The results of this examination have crystalisd my drive though, I now realise that I cannot at any rate, take my foot off the accelerator in training myself for my 6th dan. Too much training may not be enough.
Anyway, on this particular Wednesday 17th, no sensei and so we all had a party. Not really, but we did all work on koryu. Even given the drive I am feeling to train more, my right arm was then and is still feeling the effects of last week's overenthused ochiburi's and I wasn't in the mood for lots of training. I spend some time with Raj and now have him up to Tsukikage! He's doing very well and is very enthusiastic to learn and train new forms.
I spent a bit of time "testing" my balance at end of cuts and think I will work on this next week with a bit of sayu ashi giri training. George filmed me doing an embu but can't download it yet to evaluate it. I am wondering if there is a budo training app for the iTouch.