Read it and weep!

Is the world conspiring against me? Or simply against me playing kendo?

Work situation reduced my playing time down from 3 nights to 1 and now a recent visit to the physio has dropped me to ZERO!!!!! At least for the next few weeks....

It all began back at the Founders Cup. I never noticed it over that weekend but over the following few weeks my right shoulder was sore, especially after playing. Like most of these things (and being a male) I assumed that it would go away and almost convinced myself that it had and then one morning I was being a silly bugger on my skateboard, slammed hard on the concrete on my shoulder, and the pain was back again. I gave it yet another week to improve but no luck. Finally, I missed my one night of training on monday as the shoulder was feeling pretty bad and I saw a sports physio on wednesday (thanks Vivian). The result?

I have a 'shoulder impingement'. The assumption is that I did some tendon damage (probably from having to play keikari-geiko with Jackson for my grading!) and this lead to swelling in the joint. So when I raise my arm the swelling pushes the bone out of its socket. What now?

At least a couple of weeks of no kendo, exercises, anti-inflammatory drugs, more visits to the physio and about a 6 to 8 week recovery. Bugger huh?

The lesson here? Act on an injury early to avoid a worse case scenario later, and count yourself lucky every time you have an opportunity to train. Do your stretching properly and think of poor clowns like me who will be looking at their watch at training times and thinking about you all training while I'm stuck at work or staring at the idiot box day dreaming of pulling my men on and facing off for some jigeiko with my friends. I hope it will happen one day soon.

Make the most of it,

Rick

The Russian Style has made its mark!

Monday night I finally got to play the infamous Russians. Well, to be honest, I got to play the same one twice but both jigeiko were excellent experiences and I learnt a lot from them. At the same time though, I became aware that it was just a fraction of what we could potentially learn with a steady flow of visitors like this.

Over the past few days I have also been thinking about what their training routines might be and if there is something in particular that we could take from their training practices. If anyone gets the chance to ask I would be greatly interested to know.

They are so fast and yet 'delicate' in the way they cut and move. I see some similarities with the korean style but also similarities to people like Yoshi-san. They have such an interesting style of their own. Do we have a style of our own? An SKC style? I don't know...I don't think so but I might be wrong. What do you think?

Life, Kendo and Omnipotence...

I started writing this just after the Founders Cup, saved it as a draft, erased it, and am now writing something completely different! That's life....

So what's in a title? Well, first of all, I said 'omnipotence' not 'impotence'! Althoug I guess I could say that I'm feeling a little impotent that I'm not omnipotent. Why? Because my life has had a bit of a turn-around in the past few weeks and it would really help if I could be omnipotent - everywhere at once!

I've now missed two weeks of kendo for a string of reasons. The first week I missed monday night because of work (finishing up a one year contract), wednesday night because a friend got us free tickets to the Australia v. Kuwait soccer match, saturday morning because one of my closest friends called from the USA just as I was leaving home. I turned up at the end of training for the AGM and came home with Andrew Tan's flu (don't worry, I'm not blaming you Andrew!) that has kept me out of training this past week. I've now changed jobs and my current hours will be wednesday and friday nights followed by saturday and sunday days!

Hence, the title. Sometimes when life meets kendo the only solution is to be in two places at once. If only! Hopefully, I'll be able to change my work times to get at least one of the SKC training days in, but it might take a few weeks. This dilemma has really made me appreciate the simple joy in being able to train at all. We can get hung up on what's happening at training and our desire for the 'perfect' training session and forget to relish the fact that we can train with some great friends and sincere sensei who want to see us do our best.

I am so looking forward to my next opportunity to train with everyone and it will take more than a volley of 'men' cuts to wipe the smile off my face.

Enjoy your training,

Rick

Me in 3D?

I checked out the website - photo's are pretty average as far as photo's go but it might be fun although you need the 3D spec's and this style is a bit old fashioned nowadays. Having said that, if someone wants to do it I say go for it! We certainly need more photo's of SKC members to grace the website and this humble blog. Speaking of which, anyone out there with photo's send them in! Video's too and I'll try posting them.

SKC - Getting in the Spotlight (Can Kendo be art?)

Well just got this email today from a 'Artist', who wants to turn Kendo into 3D art.

Pretty cool? or are we above this?

Check out the email below...

To whom it may concern,

My name is Leo Carol. I am a designer/photographer/animator.
3D photography, or stereophotography, is one of my areas of interest.

I am writing to you to invite you to consider a proposal to capture Kendo action in 3D photos at your school. I am sure KENDO would be a great subject for a 3D photography project. I could organise a photoshoot (without interfering with your normal activities or plan) during a training session and/or a special event (such as a competition, etc), and of course there would be no fees involved for the photoshoot. I shoot 3D photography for pleasure, not for profit.

3D photos are quite unique and stunning. The resulting images could serve as a graphic record of your club's activities (they can be printed, published online, or screened, and the archival value of the images is sure to increase with time).

Recent samples of my 3D photographic work are available at:

http://www.wildmind.com.au/thepresence/photography/30-05-06/3d.html

http://www.thepresencemusic.com/barbroadway.html

You will need a pair of 3D glasses to view them (red-cyan lenses). If you don't have 3D glasses, please let me know and I'll post you a pair.


I hope you are not too busy to give my proposal some consideration.

I am looking forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards,Leo Carol