Another morning in the dojo

It was chilly and foggy when I left home. In fact, I delayed my leaving longer than I should have, not wanting to venture out into the gloom. I like the fog, but I liked my warm home better at 7:00 a.m.

This morning I worked on my empty hand kata and my bo kata. I also ran my sai kata as well, on the off chance that I might actually tie with someone at Worlds.

I used to feel enormously confident, probably unfoundedly over-confident, about my bo kata. In the adult kyu division, I was doing quite well competitively. The black belt division, of course, is an entirely different story. I've realized how stiff my technique was, and I've been working on improving that, on changing the whole way I wield the bo. I've spent a lot of time analyzing the various strikes and have worked, endlessly it sometimes seemed, on swinging my long staff about, trying to originate each technique from the hips rather than from the neck and shoulders.

I've felt like a newbie all over again.

There have been setbacks along the way. That pesky biceps/shoulder injury, for example...

Now I'm unsure about the whole thing. Am I on the right track? I seem to be moving the bo faster, and with less physical effort. But the confidence isn't there yet. I still feel as if my new way of working with the bo is...well, new.

I've been training my empty hand kata as well, but in some ways I feel even less confident with it. This will be just the second time that I'm running this particular kata in competition. Actually, to be entirely accurate, I've never run this exact kata, since it has been modified a bit from its original version.

It will be interesting to see how things work out.