Montreal Taikai 2016 + Grading weekend (part 1 = the "pre" stuff)
Oh what a gloooooorious kendo weekend! (Praise the Lord!) The weekend will include Friday of course, and some parts before that, but this will really be a full of fan-gurling post about my awesome sempais/senseis (cos my sempais became senseis what??) hahaha, and other random folks that I'm fond of. :P Be warned. Oh, and of course, this would be split to multiple sections, cos too long ba. :P
I have been looking forward to this weekend for the longest time, because Montreal Taikai 2016, but also more because of the 3dan grading I think, rather, been panicking about it. :P And working on it. :P But hey, this weekend, starting from Thursday, had been a weekend full of kendo folks, and what more could I ask for than a weekend with my favourite people? :)
So let me start from the beginning of the week. Past two weeks have really been grading training and all, but this week especially is grading stuffs all day. Lols. Well, on Tuesday, we had a mock-shinsa, and unfortunately cos of that, I didn't get to play Thu-nhon like I hoped I would. Went up to him after training and was like "Would you be coming on Thursday?" and he says "Oh no I'm not." I was really seriously disappointed, and was like "Oh..." but then he said, "Hmm, maybe on Friday, during set-up, we could sneak off somwhere and do keiko for a bit." And I totally lit up and went "OK!!" Was telling mum after that I can't tell how serious he was about it, cos well, it's quite a commitment right? But then again, the easiest way for him to back out was to say "oh I forgot to bring my stuffs" on Friday. But then again! That's ok too. :) I mean, lols, he didn't HAVE to train me after all. :3
Then we talk about Thursday. Thursday I went in late, cos we were doing car stuffs, and Andrew was teaching class. Umm... what fun stuffs. Actually kendo wasn't that fun for me on Thursday. I went in late cos we were dealing with car stuffs, then, well, it was all right-ish. Isaac Ru was visiting, and we did mawari keiko where I got Isaac, then Shawn, then Andrew. By the time I got to Andrew though, I was really off, and blah, and after that, I played Marija, but I was still so disappointed by myself that I really didn't play well. :/ So apologetic to Marija after. Yeah... by that point in the week, I really felt that I really needed to play Thu-nhon, cos I felt like I was deteriorating over the weeks, and really needed to play him to focus back again.
And to Friday! Friday was prepping day for Montreal Taikai, and a lot of fun. Well! Mostly, the fun came AFTER the prepping of the Taikai stuffs. :) Namely dinner with Daddy and Mummy. But before that! So I was looking to see if TN brought his stuffs, but didn't quite dare to ask either, cos well, :P Not nice to ask right? So I was doing my own help with preps and all, and at one point in time, I saw that TN had disappeared, and was asking around where he went. Turned out that he was downstairs at the godo-keiko, cos apparently Sensei was randomly asking him if he had brought his stuffs, and he said he did, so sensei pretty much recruited him to go down to make up the numbers. Haha, so I was both happy (cos he brought his stuffs) and also dismayed, cos now I don't know what to do. Gang hao, TN came up at this time, and it was about 7.15pm at this point, and he sees me and asks if I still wanted to do keiko. I said "YES!" and he's like, ok, gotta go now. And so I ran for my stuffs. But as we were going down, he tells me he wasn't comfortable with playing in our own dojo, cos he isn't sensei enough to be on the sensei side, so we gotta find a spot, preferably the Mind & Body Room. So we did, and found, to our relief, that the M&B room was open when TN tested the door. So we're like "ok!" And went back to the dojo to grab our stuffs while avoiding the sensei's. Then! After grabbing our stuffs, we tried the M&B room and again, and found, to our horror, that it's LOCKED. :/ Like, probably, it was locked before, and just wasn't closed properly, but now, it was well and truly locked. So I was like "ok! I'mma go grab the keys! And change at the same time!" and ran upstairs to go grab the keys, but then found, to my horror, that the key place is locked/shut too. TT___TT Was so sad when I went back down to TN (it was sooo messy). He seemed really disappointed/at a loss too, and actually tried the door a couple times, but I was like "well, I guess it's ok! I'll just have to grab your spirit" or something to that effect. And he was like "Ok, we'll just have to do this verbally", and proceeded to give me a 15 min (ish) talk about what to do. He tells me I'm totally ok with skills, and really, just walked through the step-by-step for the keiko itself. Then he went on to tell me about what to eat to prep myself and all that. XD So funny! He was like "ALL CARBS for the day of. 3 hours if you can! Only carbs! If you can't do 3 hrs before, then do 2 hrs, but a lighter bfast in that case. Then don't eat anything until half hour before, then grab a sports drink, and that's all you should be eating. Then for warm-ups, don't do stretching." "No stretching?" "No, we usually do it for normal practice, but we actually shouldn't. Make sure you do warm-ups though, like light suburi. But no more than 15 minutes. Then put on a jacket and make sure you keep your body warm." and the like. (Wow, I remember these things. Lols.) Haha, I was pretty energized by this chat though, so that was really good. Yay TN!! TT___TT He really put in effort though. Thank you TN-san. Gah, seriously, whoever said he didn't care is blaaaah. He's awesome!
In the end, we went back to return the stuffs, and finishing prepping at around 8.30pm ish and then went for dinner. And that, haha, shall go into another post. :P Interlude!! Cos this one is already quite long...
I have been looking forward to this weekend for the longest time, because Montreal Taikai 2016, but also more because of the 3dan grading I think, rather, been panicking about it. :P And working on it. :P But hey, this weekend, starting from Thursday, had been a weekend full of kendo folks, and what more could I ask for than a weekend with my favourite people? :)
So let me start from the beginning of the week. Past two weeks have really been grading training and all, but this week especially is grading stuffs all day. Lols. Well, on Tuesday, we had a mock-shinsa, and unfortunately cos of that, I didn't get to play Thu-nhon like I hoped I would. Went up to him after training and was like "Would you be coming on Thursday?" and he says "Oh no I'm not." I was really seriously disappointed, and was like "Oh..." but then he said, "Hmm, maybe on Friday, during set-up, we could sneak off somwhere and do keiko for a bit." And I totally lit up and went "OK!!" Was telling mum after that I can't tell how serious he was about it, cos well, it's quite a commitment right? But then again, the easiest way for him to back out was to say "oh I forgot to bring my stuffs" on Friday. But then again! That's ok too. :) I mean, lols, he didn't HAVE to train me after all. :3
Then we talk about Thursday. Thursday I went in late, cos we were doing car stuffs, and Andrew was teaching class. Umm... what fun stuffs. Actually kendo wasn't that fun for me on Thursday. I went in late cos we were dealing with car stuffs, then, well, it was all right-ish. Isaac Ru was visiting, and we did mawari keiko where I got Isaac, then Shawn, then Andrew. By the time I got to Andrew though, I was really off, and blah, and after that, I played Marija, but I was still so disappointed by myself that I really didn't play well. :/ So apologetic to Marija after. Yeah... by that point in the week, I really felt that I really needed to play Thu-nhon, cos I felt like I was deteriorating over the weeks, and really needed to play him to focus back again.
And to Friday! Friday was prepping day for Montreal Taikai, and a lot of fun. Well! Mostly, the fun came AFTER the prepping of the Taikai stuffs. :) Namely dinner with Daddy and Mummy. But before that! So I was looking to see if TN brought his stuffs, but didn't quite dare to ask either, cos well, :P Not nice to ask right? So I was doing my own help with preps and all, and at one point in time, I saw that TN had disappeared, and was asking around where he went. Turned out that he was downstairs at the godo-keiko, cos apparently Sensei was randomly asking him if he had brought his stuffs, and he said he did, so sensei pretty much recruited him to go down to make up the numbers. Haha, so I was both happy (cos he brought his stuffs) and also dismayed, cos now I don't know what to do. Gang hao, TN came up at this time, and it was about 7.15pm at this point, and he sees me and asks if I still wanted to do keiko. I said "YES!" and he's like, ok, gotta go now. And so I ran for my stuffs. But as we were going down, he tells me he wasn't comfortable with playing in our own dojo, cos he isn't sensei enough to be on the sensei side, so we gotta find a spot, preferably the Mind & Body Room. So we did, and found, to our relief, that the M&B room was open when TN tested the door. So we're like "ok!" And went back to the dojo to grab our stuffs while avoiding the sensei's. Then! After grabbing our stuffs, we tried the M&B room and again, and found, to our horror, that it's LOCKED. :/ Like, probably, it was locked before, and just wasn't closed properly, but now, it was well and truly locked. So I was like "ok! I'mma go grab the keys! And change at the same time!" and ran upstairs to go grab the keys, but then found, to my horror, that the key place is locked/shut too. TT___TT Was so sad when I went back down to TN (it was sooo messy). He seemed really disappointed/at a loss too, and actually tried the door a couple times, but I was like "well, I guess it's ok! I'll just have to grab your spirit" or something to that effect. And he was like "Ok, we'll just have to do this verbally", and proceeded to give me a 15 min (ish) talk about what to do. He tells me I'm totally ok with skills, and really, just walked through the step-by-step for the keiko itself. Then he went on to tell me about what to eat to prep myself and all that. XD So funny! He was like "ALL CARBS for the day of. 3 hours if you can! Only carbs! If you can't do 3 hrs before, then do 2 hrs, but a lighter bfast in that case. Then don't eat anything until half hour before, then grab a sports drink, and that's all you should be eating. Then for warm-ups, don't do stretching." "No stretching?" "No, we usually do it for normal practice, but we actually shouldn't. Make sure you do warm-ups though, like light suburi. But no more than 15 minutes. Then put on a jacket and make sure you keep your body warm." and the like. (Wow, I remember these things. Lols.) Haha, I was pretty energized by this chat though, so that was really good. Yay TN!! TT___TT He really put in effort though. Thank you TN-san. Gah, seriously, whoever said he didn't care is blaaaah. He's awesome!
In the end, we went back to return the stuffs, and finishing prepping at around 8.30pm ish and then went for dinner. And that, haha, shall go into another post. :P Interlude!! Cos this one is already quite long...