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Kyudo - Sept 10th to Oct 21st

The past month has had holidays and other days off Kyudo along with some other Kyudo centric activities. Nothing has really stopped, except that I haven't (as usual) been updating things here as regularly as I originally planned. And so I shall continue to plan to update here more often so that my consistency (hopefully) doesn't decline further.

The biggest casualty of the holidays, closure of the space and KINTEKI days has been TAIHAI. I suspect we will have a return to that this upcoming Saturday at practice. And then I can see how far I've fallen there. I do try to practice it a bit on Tuesday's. Either by practicing ZASSHA at the MAKIWARA or by joining in with people practicing NYUUJYOU.

KINTEKI practice was enlightening this month. Almost every shot sucked. But the last shot? It did not suck. It was actually awesome.

I pretty much always treat KINTEKI as an extension of my normal practice. Which is to say, I don't really aim or adjust just to hit the target. And this day was no different. And that shot was no different in that respect.

What was different was that I was in control the whole time and everything felt as I expected. A lot of times I'm either running on vibes or running purely on analysis. 

And I can't get over how EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. that things feel right, that I also hit the target. And I know that is kind of the whole deal with Kyudo. But it is still wild to see it in action. Only 2 arrows landed on Saturday. The first was a fluke. The second (that last arrow) was absolutely not. I knew at KAI that the arrow would hit. 

I was able to make practice last night as well. (Thanks to my wife ๐Ÿ˜Š). I decided to focus on my focus and head space. I want to start building up rituals/habits to get me into, and keep, myself in the right frame of mind to replicate the sensation of that last shot from Saturday. 

It actually went pretty well. But I also tend to have good days and bad days. So it could have just been a good day. Though, there definitely were moments where I was getting some levels of nervousness/anxiety that I was able to actively work through. The big difference was making it an active part of my routine from the moment I sit down to put my glove on and then keeping it in check at every step along the way.

By no means will I start middling all four arrows at a time. Being in the right frame of mind allows me to be more in control which allows me to focus on what I'm checking for at every stage. That doesn't guarantee that I'll do everything exactly the same or correctly. But, in contrast to the last arrow which I knew would hit, the other 19 that day I had no clue at all. Except when it was really bad, I could even tell you if my form was half decent for the rest of that day.

The last thing I've really been working on is trusting the glove. I've been really bad with this since getting my own bow. The added draw weight wrecked my confidence. I'm finally getting through that. The difference between the 10 and 14kg bows and how they draw just left me feeling that there was no way it was possible that the TSURU would stay in the groove on its own. So I was adjusting my wrist/grip to force it. Combined with a clear head last night I was able to get off a dozen or so shots where I actually let my wrist relax and bend properly with the pull of the bow.

Oh, and almost forgot about working on HINERI.  This isn't really new as much as a follow through. Recently we were told that we should start feeling HINERI after TORIKAKE and then not stop feeling it throughout. 

The past few practices I've been feeling that. It was leaving my arms strained in new ways which added a bit to my lack of confidence. Was worried that the bow was stressing my ligaments or tendons. After a bit of research though, based on the type of pain, location and how long it is lasting, I'm now much more confident that it is normal muscle pain and in the correct muscles affected by HINERI to boot. And so, it is actually a good sign.

This Saturday I will be looking forward to seeing if I can maintain the frame of mind I had last night and then the following Saturday we'll be practicing with kimono again. I did a bit of self-practice at home after the last time and I'm looking forward to seeing if the things I tried will work in the real world.

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