First time cutting

So of course I was looking forward to cutting. Who among us wouldn't? Cutting's one of the pillars of our art, one of the things we spend all our time striving to perfect. Cutting's when we first get to use our sharp katanas, our shinken, the point at which we graduate to the responsibility of real weapons and a reminder of what our art was developed for. And cutting is, well, awesome. Beginners watch with glee and envy as senpai drive their swords through targets, waiting for the day when we get to cleave with our katanas too.

Of course, I was also dreading cutting. What if I suck? We've all winced with sympathy we watch others' cuts go bad, or as a series of cuts go bad. I certainly didn't like the prospect of sucking for everyone to see, and especially sucking at something that's one of the main benchmarks of the art.

On the one hand, the expectation that I'll suck as a novice is a little demoralizing. On the other hand, there's supposed to be the legendary beginner's luck of cutting, where beginners apparently often do well with their first swings, and the expectation that I'm supposed to do well actually made me nervous as well. The kind of no-win situation that comes up if you're the kind of person to over-think everything and psych yourself out like I am.

So yeah, I sucked my first two mats. That's all right, though! Because hey, cutting is still hella awesome. It doesn't matter how much I suck, the act of cutting's still tons of fun.

Once I got the sucking out of the way, I relaxed. No place to go but up, right? So I did better on the next mat — the mat reserved for the worst cutter in the room, ha ha. And hey, I did better. Not great on the last couple of cuts lower down, but probably about as one would expect for a beginner.

So hell yeah, that was fun. And now that I've gotten the worry about doing bad out of the way, my mind is prepped to aim at becoming good. Psyched.