Started kobudo today, which means I’m a white belt again. We began with sai (class always begins with sai, I think), and I went off to the side with a brown-belt senpai to learn the basics; then a little while later, the sensei had everybody switch to bo — except me. Which was fine: I said, and I meant it, that I was perfectly happy to spend the entire class in the corner practicing yoko-buri, the basic flip-out-flip-back move. I have to get that down before I can do anything else competently, including the other sai basics, so I might as well get started.

In fact, I have a virtuous plan in my head where I do ten yoko-buri at each level (gedan/low, chuudan/middle, and joudan/high) every day for the next week or so. We’ll see if it happens, but it would mean vastly better progress if it did.

Feels like a good start so far, though it was a little depressing to have another sensei tell me I’ll probably be catching my sai on my sleeves until I’m a blue belt or so. Overcoming that error faster is high on my list of goals, I think. 🙂