What I can gain from Degeiko

Wow… yesterday I finally launched the Kendo Cat Blog ♡ to the whole world! My heart was pounding like crazy!
But when I think that somewhere in the world some kenshis might read my blog… it also makes me feel a little excited. Since I can’t travel overseas myself, I’m kind of hoping my blog can travel instead—like, “Go explore the world for me!”♪

Anyway, today I’d like to write about Degeiko– practice at different dojos.

In kendo, Degeiko means exactly what the words suggest: leaving my own dojo and going to another dojo to train there.

A long time ago, I went through a phase where I thought, “It’s all about the number of practices!” So I traveled around to many different dojo to practice.

But before long, I realized something. What I was doing—without any clear purpose—was simply piling up repetitions. And those repetitions were actually embedding my bad habits deeper and deeper into my body. In other words, it had become nothing more than negative repetition training.

That wouldn’t do!

So I decided that first I should focus on firmly building the minimum fundamentals. From then on, I consciously held back from doing Degeiko.

Then the other day, for the first time in a while, I felt like going out for visiting practice again.

It can be a little nervous to attend practice at another dojo by myself, but this time, I went with one specific challenge in mind.

It’s something very basic:
whether or not I could deliver a strike with ki-ken-tai-ichi no matter the situation.

But the practice conditions were very different from my usual ones.

Practice time wasn’t in the morning like usual, but in the dark at night.
Instead of three students, there were around fifteen (mostly young guys—much younger than me).
And instead of just one teacher, there were several.

Training in such a completely different environment was, as it turned out, extremely difficult.

The way people lined up, the order of warm-ups, the menu of suburi, the footwork drills, the kihon keiko menu… everything was done in a way that was different from what I was used to.

I was honestly surprised at how much simply doing things in an unfamiliar sequence could disturb my concentration.

In my usual practice, I rarely get the chance to train with kenshi who have great speed and power. So when one of the younger kenshis suddenly whoosh! struck my men in an instant, there were several moments when I found myself standing there thinking, “Wait… did I already get hit?”

Now, about my challenge.

Originally, I planned to test it during jigeiko. But I suspect that while I was busy being confused by the unfamiliar warm-up routine, I completely forgot that I had even come with such a challenge in mind. Hey! What happened to my plan?

And when jigeiko began… it turned into a downpour of strikes where my ki-ken-tai were not in unity.

To put it plainly, my practice was pretty embarrassing.

Well, I suppose I did manage to finish the entire practice without giving up midway, even though I was exhausted. But when it comes to the question of whether I accomplished what I had hoped to achieve that night…,I have to give a big, loud “No.”

After practice, I felt totally dejected. I even thought, “Maybe I shouldn’t have come at all.”

Actually, as time passed, a simmering anger toward myself started to build.

While I was fuming to myself, suddenly—before I knew it—Celery senpai suddenly appeared.

Celery Senpai looked at me and said,
“Haru chan, your face is bright red. What are you huffing and puffing about?”

So I poured out all my frustration about tonight’s degeiko.

Celery senpai listened and then, with a calm expression, said:

“Haru chan, you learned something very important tonight!”

But Celery Senpai continued.

(From here on, the words of Senpai Celery)

In everyday life too, everyone has places where they feel comfortable and places that somehow make them uneasy or stressed. Kind of like home and away, right?

In places where you feel comfortable, you can be yourself.
But in stressful environments, you might suddenly become tense, overly cautious, or overly self-conscious about what others think. And before you know it, you lose your usual self.

In a comfortable place, maybe you can perform at 100.
But when the environment changes, maybe you can only manage 20.

When that happens, what you need to understand is this:
You thought you could do 100, but perhaps your true ability is still only 20.

Or maybe it’s more accurate to say that only 20 has truly become part of you.

If you’ve experienced doing 100 before, but you can’t produce that same 100 anytime and anywhere, then it might be worth thinking about why that is. What was missing?

It’s true. If I hadn’t gone out for degeiko tonight, I might never have realized that such embarrassing kendo was still lurking inside me.

Just noticing that sad reality means the trip was worth it.Even though I’m extremely disappointed in myself.

So what I need to think about starting tonight is this:

Why did it turn out that way?
What exactly happened to me during the degeiko?

One thing I realized immediately is that the moment I entered a different environment, I got swallowed up by it.

The unfamiliar practice sequence threw off my rhythm, and I couldn’t maintain my usual calmness. Because of that, I lost the sense of how to set my concentration, and I ended up practicing in a scattered, drifting way.

Thinking back, I’ve had similar experiences before—especially in tournaments.

Like when I thought my match was still far away, only to suddenly be called because another competitor was absent. I had to rush into the match without any mental preparation.

Or during a promotion exam, when the moment I stepped into the examination hall and saw the stern judges sitting there… I was suddenly swallowed by a wave of tension.

Yes, this kind of thing has happened quite a few times.

But honestly—whether you’re human or a cat—

staying your usual self at any time, in any situation… maintaining Heijoshin-a calm and ordinary mind-… is incredibly difficult.

Yet perhaps that’s exactly what I must keep pursuing through practice.

Otherwise, I won’t be able to perform my own kendo anytime, anywhere.

For someone like me—who proudly calls herself an “emotional roller-coaster machine”—this is an incredibly difficult challenge.

But Celery Senpai, thank you again for helping me realize something important!

… (silence)

Huh?

Celery Senpai has disappeared again before I even noticed…

She always appear out of nowhere and disappear just the same.

I wonder when I’ll see her next.

Next time we meet, I hope I’ll have some good news to report to her.

So for now—
I’m off to practice again tomorrow! ♪