Kendo and such

Well, today's theme was studying and Kendo. I got up at 8.30, and worked on my project for Linguistics for a few hours. I am going to study Japanese dialect, or 方言. I'm not sure if I will focus on 3 prefectures and the differences, or if I will focus on two Kyushu prefectures (for instance, Oita vs. Kagoshima), or if I will focus on a region such as the Tohoku (northern Honshu). I am still thinking about it.
So I spent a few hours today in the study room.


Then tonight I had Kendo, and I had a shinai splinter really badly. You have to keep shinai oiled, because they're made of bamboo and they dry out. It wasn't so bad in Oita, but here the desert air is really dry. So I can tell I will have to oil them a lot more often lest I spend tons of money on shinai. I disassembled the splintered shinai (I had two which were splintered, ironically enough), and was able to repair one with some sandpaper. the other shinai, though, was too bad. But I can save the shinai pieces, and when another shinai breaks I can take a slat and make another shinai.

So since I had the shinai apart, I took a new one apart, sandpapered the edges so they were smooth, and oiled all the slats. It's best to do them really well the first time, and then perform routine maintenance. This may be a familiar site to my friends at Shobukan. My sempai was telling me today that he oils his shinai about every 2 weeks so that it doesn't dry out and splinter. I just wish we had the spray can oil like they do in Japan.



Here's a photo of me, afterwards, fixing the himo on my men. They had become twisted, so I had to fix them. I take my men and kote out of my bag after every practice and air them out in the living room. Once a week I put them outside to dry for about 20 minutes. That's all it takes here. That's how warm it is. No mold growing here on bogu, that's for sure!