Kendo part 四: エ〜ッ!

[gwalla]

Practice proceeds apace. I learned my first kata last Thursday, a dodge and counterattack against a strike to the wrist. And yesterday I was taught two of the other basic strikes besides men (a strike to the head): kote (to the wrist/gauntlet) and dō (to the torso/breastplate). This leaves, I think, the two sayū-men strikes (left/right men, to the temples) of the basic bread-and-butter attacks. I still get corrected frequently, but my men strikes seem to be getting better. I feel like I'm making serious progress. I'll probably be buying a keikogi and hakama soon.

Now if only I could get my kiai to sound more like a battle cry and less like an imitation of The Fonz...