Kendo Senpai...and feet

Last week at Kendo I got to be Senpai! (I missed training this week due to Adelaide Cup Day public holiday)

There is a bit of a roundabout reason for this.

[Discussion of my feet ensues - you may skip to next brackets to avoid]

I have been having a lot of problems with my feet because of Kendo - every week I get a massive blister that consumes the entire ball of my left foot. I have kinda got used to this after nearly 3 years of training but about a month ago I got some additional blisters on some of my toes and elsewhere on my feet. Normally the blister on the ball of my left foot breaks and comes off by the next training - so I am constantly growing new skin on the same place every week. However the other blisters (which were also on my right foot) caused heaps of additional skin to peel off. Then at my next training even more skin came off from around where the blisters has been.

To make matters worse other training started to cause my feet to peel - skin forcefully came off my toes at BJJ so much that I started bleeding and had to tape them up heaps (which was a pain because the tape kept slipping off due to the friction of the mats).

In summary my feet looked like the feet of a leper.

To remedy my feet I skipped a week of kendo and cut off as much skin as I could off my feet. My feet were doing better, until last Monday at kendo when I started to get a blister. I decided to wuss out (and let my feet recover) and so halfway through Kihon I stepped out and asked if any help was needed with the beginners.

[End references to feet]

At Kendo they only have beginner intakes at the beginning and the middle of the year. This means that Senpai are not spending all their time instructing new people on basics like how to hold a shinai, they just do it twice a year.

Last year the intakes were unfortunately a bit small, but a couple of good students joined out of them. When I started there were about 25 new people. Out of them only myself and another (who is an awesome kendoka) remain.

At this intake there were over 30 new people!!!

The other senpai found my big voice useful (and I have been teaching karate for 5 years not so I have a couple of tricks for keeping people engaged). Within a couple of minutes I went from assisting with a couple of students to taking the whole 30!

I tried to keep up the spirit of the class and did lots of big kiai's with the cuts. I think we even gave the seniors a run for their money! It was heaps of fun and there are lots of promising new potential kendoka. I really quite enjoyed being a Kendo senpai and wouldnt mind doing it a couple of more times during the beginner course.

Fortunately with kendo they really look after peoples training and it is unlikely anyone at the club will get stuck teaching and therefore miss out on their training. Everybody trains, every week. Even when we get visiting Sensei the highlight of the class will be doing 'Sensei-Geiko' (sparring against Sensei).

Everybody traiing is one reason why there are no Fat Sensei at the kendo club!