Hi, Alex. We all get older and as we get older we need to do adult kendo. "Reading" your opponent in order to do ohji-waza is not sufficient. You need to pressure them into the attack you know is coming so that you can do the ohji-waza. For shikake-waza, you need to create your opportunity through pressure: once you have broken their kamae, you can take the point even if you are not so fast.
This is all stuff that you need to be able to do to pass 4 dan and up, classified by my sensei as "mental things": seme, tame, zanshin. For me, it is more interesting than the purely physical/technical kendo we require for 1-3 dan.
Neil Gendzwill
Saskatoon Kendo Club