Near Death Experience

Yesterday i had kendo training. And during one of the Keiko sessions (free sparing), a bad habit of mine almost cost me my life. In kendo, one of the four areas of attack is the neck. Where a trust is used to obtain this point. Thus, there is this flap kinda thing that protects your neck. So if your head is tilted upwards, the flap would be tilted upwards as well, exposing your throat. So yesterday, i was up to my bad habits as i tried to reach further while executing a cut to my opponent's head. At one of these moments, my opponent wanted to scare me off with a thrust to my throat. And it DID! resulting my collapsing to the floor and coughing like hell, feeling as though something has pierced through my neck. I forced myself to continue training, thinking it shouldn’t be that big a deal although it hurt like hell. And also, its very disrespectful and not to mention depriving your opponent of practice if one leaves training half-way. After training, when i took off my Bougu (Armour) I realized it worse then i thought. There was a 4 inch long red mark on my neck, with a width of about 1 inch. It is bad, but i realized if it has hit just 1 inch higher, i could have been dead. Because the thrust landed on the bone in-between my collar bone, and got deflected in an angle to the side. If it was any higher, it would have thrust straight into the soft spot below my adam’s apple and into my wind-pipe. Possibly causing much greater pain and even killing me.

All this just because I didn’t kick a bad habit. I KNOW that I have this habit, and should correct it. But I didn’t. And it almost cost me my life. Some may be able to just brush the incident side, but I think I can’t. Not that I will forever dwell in this, but it has launched me into some serious thought again, about my kendo, my attitude and my life. This is because I treasure my life. And what I can do with it.