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Kyudo - 2-Dan Practice Areas

So, everything is officially in order for my 2-Dan Video Shinsa. Our dojo will be taking the videos in a little over a month. Not a ton of time. Obviously, I would like to do everything as good as possible. But realistically, I need to focus on what I can fix or change in that time which will bring the most value.

I think my biggest issues (for shinsa) are probably around a lack of polish. My personal hit list is:

  1. Timing
  2. Fidgeting
  3. Daisan to Kai 

General Thoughts:

From the IKYF website directly, 2-Dan testing should show:

Both the shooting form (Shakei) and formal movement (Taihai) should have good arrangement with evidence of spiritual energy (Kiryoku) in the application of the shooting technique (Shajitsu). There should be less uncertainty in the placing of the arrows (Yadokoro).
Compared to 1-Dan:

The shooting form (Shakei) and the formal movement (Taihai) should be consistent with the standard form. There should not be disarray in the placing of the arrows (Yadokoro).
And from this, I think you can see why I chose 1&2 on my list. The difference centers around doing the same things as 1-Dan, but the emphasis is on things like arrangement, energy and eliminating uncertainty.

Timing is not just about keeping it under the time requirements, but also keeping a certain fluidity/energy to the movements. And fidgeting will come across as uncertainty. 

Timing: 

Honestly, I think that the timing is the hardest element of the video shinsa. We don't spend our time practicing video shinsa timing and we practice TAIHAI more often then TAIKAI or other faster paced approaches. 

Ideally, I want to take my success from Sho-Dan and expand upon it by not only staying within the 3 minutes, but also achieving a more natural and sustained rhythm. The best recording I saw from my grouping the last time was the one person testing for 2-Dan. And they didn't look like they were rushing. At all. And they even managed to put in, IIRC, the second fastest time.

I remember watching it, and at the end being concerned that they had gone over. It just didn't seem possible to deliver a performance with that degree of care and fluidity while also putting in a sub-3 minute time.

Figedting:

My fidgeting is massively obvious. After the timing, I think this is easily my second biggest concern. I've been working a lot on this lately, but I haven't seen any recording of me doing a full TAIHAI or anything since working on it. So I don't really know how much that has changed.

Daisan to Kai:

I don't know if this would have been a deal breaker or not. I'm working on it and getting better. But prior to this my draw really sucked. DAISAN was pulling my METE too far for a few reasons. And the extra distance affected everything from which muscles I was using, to introducing a lean with the torso and a wildly uneven draw. 

Honestly, I think this is the least likely factor to earn me a fail. I've gotten it to a much more manageable place. This one is the piece I want to work on for myself.  

Plan:

I can already practice #3 at home in my garage. But I think that if I clean the space up a bit, I might also be able to do the full video shinsa choreography (in a slightly contracted space) in the garage and record it. That should give me an opportunity to practice timing and watch for fidgeting.

Can also toss on my spare DOUGI to get a better impression how it looks. I find my form looks a lot different in my street clothes :/ 

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