Asageiko at Kyoto Prefecture

This morning I had the wake up at 4:45. Then, I walked to the Kyoto Prefecture where I met both Donatella sensei and Alessia Caporaso, one of the ladies of the Italian team, which is in Kyoto to study Japanese language.
The practice at Prefecture last only one hour but it is very intense. We started with a brief warm up and then we had suburi practice:

• 2 men moving ahead and 2 moving back, then 5 big men passing, this was repeated 6 times. 
• 10 haya suburi followed by 5 big men. This was repeated 6 times and the last repetition we did 10 passing big men.

During this practice I got some suggestions how to improve my movements.
The sensei running the practice, Ito sensei, at a point stopped the suburi and asked me to do the haya suburi. I was a bit stressed but then my suburi partner, Jack Champion, told me that Ito sensei used me as example of how haya suburi should be done 😏. For few seconds I was very proud of me, then we wear men and we made few rows in which we practice aiuchi men (three times), kote and aiuchi kote-men (three times). After three rounds of kirikaeshi, we had mawarigeiko for 15 minutes, then three 7th dan did a test for the 8th dan exam. After there was free gigeiko and I did with a 6th dan lady, the last 2 minutes of the gigeiko I was in Jodan no kamae. It was a nice keiko and at the end of it, as far as I could understand with my broken japanese, she told me that I was good and I striked a couple of nice kote. Then, she asked me when I was going to make my go dan exam and I told her in June and she wish me good luck 😊.
Then, I rapidly went back to hotel,  and after a quick shower I run to the ISEV meeting  were I spent all the rest of the day.

 

In the evening, I had a very nice dinner in an Indian restaurant with friends of Donatella. What can I say, challenging practice in the morning and friendly and relaxing dinner in the evening, it was a great day!