The First Shot…

My days start at 3:45am I’m off to the security job. I am back home by 9:30am. I get 1 hour to nap,a little time to eat and maybe do some Zazen… maybe. Then over to the Blu Pel for a 5 hour shift. After that on Mon and Wed I have a marital Art class to teach. Thursdays night is Kyudo class. I have not been going for a while. It is about a hour drive and I have needed to do other things. Also if I go I am not home until 11:30pm which means I get about 3.5 hours sleep. I can not do that often, all the time

Tonight I went , and  I almost caused an accident doing so…

I jumped on the freeway after a short warm-up of the car. The windshield  was a bit foggy but I could see. Suddenly the windshield got very fogged and I could not see. I tried to follow the lane markers but was out of my lane back and forth trying to get my spot . Horn where blowing at me … It was scary for a moment before I could recover my spot. My guardian angel was on the job!  Yokatta!

I made it to class the rest of the way without incident and arrived on time.
There were a couple of new students and some of the old ones over all small-ish class.

Unroll my rime going through things and shot ok , not great just ok. Not surprising for being out so long. My Tenouchi was getting better, but Sensei pointed out my shoulders were raising up and too tight.

After I was packing to go I got my critique. Sweat the small stuff he said. Too much hand in your hikiwaki, use your back more, my knee was not up while I waited, relax the shoulders more.

 

So I have crack down on things starting now. The seminar and test is up coming in Aug. It is more expensive this year!!!! This will be my last American event and I do not want to waste my testing fee. Also I want to have a good positive outlook for the passage in Sept.

So I need to put in more practice on the details. That I can do some on the boat, some in the office. I DO need to spend more time/focus this year on hitting. For the Sandan test it is good to hit one. With the new harder crack-down since last year … I may HAVE to hit one…better on the first shot.

The New Year begins…

The NewYear is on!

I get a sense of seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. In another post ( never posted) I said it was the Universe’s job to provide me a source of money for our trip. Then out of no where, I was offered more hours at the job with Blue Pelican Marine. Enough that I could quit the much disliked security job. Really the same amount of hours as there,  but a little more money and no commute. I had at first planned on quiting…C-ya! However after some thought I have chosen to keep the security job for another four months or more. That will give me a couple of grand or more toward our trip. That would be worth the dislike of getting up at 3:45 in the COLD during the week and going to the JOB.

I have to say since I have been allowed access to the guard shack and I bring in my little space heater it is not so bad after I get to work. It is still cold and boring though but it is more comfortable. It also helpful to my attitude now that I can classify this job as extra help to leave the country and not just survival doing a dead end job. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak.

I have set the time here at four to six months, that will give me about 3,000 + toward the kitty. That is if I can pull this off. It maybe too much ! I’ll need to start getting to bed earlier that is for sure since I can not take a four hour nap once I get home from the early a.m. security job. I’ll have to ganbatte cause $3,000 -$4,000 would help a lot.

2011 – The last shot

New Years Eve 2011, it was great I had off for the weekend. I did plan it that way and turned down some work with the sailing school that came up. I needed to have a break, so I took it.

New Years eve was the RSD’s 3rd annual 108 Ya New Year’s shoot.
I was up on the early side for a day off. However since we wanted to be ready to shoot at 10:00 it was needed for me to rise early if I wanted to follow the training I had in mind.

I was up at 7:30 not 7:00 as I planned. I got my Zazen in first, then found a spot just behind the Aikido dojo on the property, and did some Tai Chi and Qi gong. It was a little in the cool side however I was dressed for it.

My breakfast for the day which I had afterward wad lite since I had planned on a simple fast. I had four or so nuts and a green drink. Other than some green Tea that was to be my meal for the day until sundown.

I arrived at the Dojo a little late but it was cool since my Senpai were not ready yet as well. After setting up the heater,

chatting , dressing we made ready to shoot. We did not do the meditation and chanting this year, so I’m glad I got my morning drills in early before leaving home.

We selected on going 8 shots to a set. I borrowed a set of four from a Senpai and we had at it.

It had been a couple of months since I shot so I had a few concerns. My left hand would it hold up or get cramps like last year. My right shoulder had been painful for the last couple of weeks , would it hold up? Would all those unused muscles for a couple of months, be pissed off and revolt the next day.  I had the extra challenge of using mismatched Ya . So every two shoots I had to adapt the shoot to a different flying arrow. Four ya were bamboo and another four were aluminum. The bamboo were all one set and matched, they were borrowed. The aluminum were from two different sets since my set of four was not to be had due to a shipping malfunction from the past summer seminar, due to my lack of mindfulness and forgetting to bring home the ones I shot with for my test. I was too excited about passing.

I was not overly concerned about my hits but more mindful about my form and going the distance. I was very mindful of making sure all parts of the form were proper so as not to hurt myself it was to be a long day. My right hand had a bit if a problem. It felt a bit tingly when holding the ya. This was coming from my shoulder pain. I persevered and after a while the discomfort went away.

Most of my clusters looked good. Once I settled into shooting and adjusting to each pair of arrows I started working on my aim. With the San Dan test coming I need to start working more on hitting. I was averaging about one center shot per set, not bad but I need better for the test.

I was able to self correct some of the things I was slacking on. I still need work and practice but overall I did ok. Nothing to blog about, but ok.

We started about 11 and finish about 4:30 ish which include a couple of tea breaks. It was s good session for our final  108 as a group. Next year I should be on the way to Japan and one of the other two sempais will be relocated to the East Coast, so in a sense this was our last shot.

Akimashite Omedetou Gozaimasu!

Happy New Year! the dragon aproaches…