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Kyudo - Tuesday Practice Notes

Just a bit of reflection and some insight into what I'm doing at the moment and what is working. 

I started practice by taking a look at some notes I had made from a video posted over the weekend and I started to understand some of the feedback I was getting from watching it.

My sempai, who was giving me advice was at a bad angle to see it, but noted that I didn't have the space left in my draw to open properly into kai. At his angle though, he wouldn't have been able to clearly see my mete elbow being pulled with the bow. This meant my mete ended up further left and leaving me with more space to cover during the draw. 

So, I wanted to fix that, along with a few other things today:

  • Keeping my arms relaxed while maintain the ensou shape.
  • Breathing. I have a tendency to not breathe enough. I clearly don't know how to live.
  • During my first shots my yunde wasn't pushing "along" the arrow.
I went and took 2 more arrows. Observed that correcting the mete required a lot less mental effort than remembering to push the yunde along the arrow. Makes sense, I've been practicing that particular thing for longer, so I just need a slight mental note to not make that mistake each time.

I also noticed that I was still making some small adjustments as I settled into kai. 

These 2 arrows though, felt better. And after some practice with my gomuyumi, where I had far less issues with the adjustment, I decided I also need to practice ignoring the stimulus I'm getting from my senses with the bow and arrow. 

Next 2 arrows: I made the mistake of thinking too much about my tenouchi and not enough about it at the same time. Over thinking lead to a correction in my grip, but underthinking lead me to not notice something and I ended up dropping the bow. 

The second shot, I over compensated and got no yugaeri. 

Next 2 arrows: Kai felt a lot better and breathing was a bit more "regular". My otoya however, felt like it was a nice clean release, but ended up in the target in the jankiest orientation. Which, if I've learned anything, means it didn't actually release well at all.

For my last 2 shots I committed to NOT screwing with my grip and trusting the glove to release on its own. Both shots ended up looking fantastic (from the PoV of me looking at the mato). Both arrows were roughly at the height of my lip, perfectly straight into the mato and spaced apart about the exact distance I was between both shots (I take haya to the right side of the mato and otoya to the left to avoid hitting the severely worn out middle).

Also, my otoya definitely felt the best and even got about 75% yugaeri. Typically, when I do get yugaeri it is on a bad shot and only about 25%. My best shots normally only net me 0%. So, it was pretty cool to see things come together and get the land the most rotation on what actually felt like good shots. 

Felt good to end the day on that. At the same time, it IS a bit of a shame. While you want to end on a good note, you also want to end feeling confident you can repeat it. No practice on Saturday and even some Tuesday sessions are being cancelled in the coming month. So I think I may actually setup my garage for a bit of practice shortly.

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