Getting chilly, drizzly for days...Autumn. The best season for training; not humid, not hot. Only a couple people at class and Niina-gosoke watching over, so I got to focus on my own thing for a couple hours.
Expanding more on my left elbow theory, especially since Niina-gosoke explicitly taught one of the newer guys that in order to generate that Umph! for the draw and cut, you need to use not just the right arm going out, but the left elbow/shoulder going back as well. So I think I'm on the right track. The way I imagine it, the left hand holds the saya and kind of aims the koiguchi at the enemy right where you want to land the start of the cut. The left elbow/shoulder pulls back just as the sword rockets forward in as straight a trajectory as possible. This is tricky due to the curve of the blade and the tendency of the arms to move in an arc (as the radius of a circle whose center is the shoulder.) Too much snap and it's a jerky movement, not enough explosion and it's slow and ineffective. And of course moving the upper body independently of the hips just gets you all twisted up and doesn't deliver enough power. Too tiring to use all arms, too, without the hips.
As with everything, timing and acceleration (logarithmic seems to be good) are more important than muscular strength. The strongest cut in the world is no good if it's a centimeter short or a second late (or early.)
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