the Way of the Turtle

Iaido and the Continuing Fight Against the Creeping Crud
Friday, February 9, 2007

The past few days have been a bit of a drain, not helped by the fact that I'm definitely fighting off a bug (and not that successfully.) I've been tripling up on the Vitamin C and taking it a little bit easier on the workout front... but this weekend is not likely to help. Iaido Friday night, followed by an overnight at the Utica Motel 6, an AMAI instructors' staff meeting much of Saturday afternoon, an early Valentine's Day dinner with Ann at Steamboat Landing, a restaurant on the shores of Canandaigua Lake, and then whatever we choose to do outdoors Sunday (either both of us XC skiing or Ann skiing and me running with my Dion's.) Maybe I'll try some cold medicine tonight and tomorrow night, just to knock me out and let me get some solid rest.

After a rush to get everything packed for the extended weekend, I booked out to Utica and kept my fingers crossed that I'd be close to on time. Iaido started late (no great surprise, that) but was moderately productive. After the usual opening actvities - stretching, donning swords, and cleansing the room - we spent a while moving back and forth in both natural posture (shizen-tai) and defensive posture (jigo-tai). After that the men and women split up and practiced separately - we worked on u-ken and sa-ken katas. While I felt fairly proficient practicing them last fall, my recent lack of practice has clearly had an effect; neither was flowing particularly naturally tonight. I'll have to work on katas more before the next class (in March.)

JMH