Up and Down
I’ve found that my kendo is very inconsistent. There are days when I feel great and openings seem to just appear before me, whilst other days, I really struggle to see any and just go for the cut and pray style of kendo which I see a lot from last years beginners. Sheppard sensei made a great post about kakari geiko on the forums regarding the feeling during this keiko and the feeling you should you have during jigeiko/shiai. It’s a level of mushin where all you are thinking about is doing a cut, and everything else is automatic. Anyway, I find that my kendo feels the best when I can attain a certain level of this ‘mushin’. When my kendo feels shit, I feel that my conscience kinda takes over, and I’m thinking way too much. I need to learn how to switch this mushin on as at the moment, I only get glimpses of it randomly, and its quite frustrating. I’m sure there’ll be a few more shiai’s during the squad trainings, so being able to turn it on is going to be more important to me.
Squad training. Went through the official Vic team warmup at the squad training. Before that though, we had to do our own stretches, where my judgement of time screwed me over. We were supposed to be ready within 5 minutes, but by the time that was up, I was just starting my calf/forearm stretches. Need to learn to be more efficient. We did suburi then menstuke for the team warmup keiko. The focus was to not do kihon style cuts, but to do shiai style cuts. Very important for motodachi to make it ‘real’.
Shiai time. Only managed to get one shiai. Got a debana kote in the first few seconds. I kinda eased off the attacking after that since I had the advantage. I really should have tried to get the second point to make myself the clear cut winner. I just remember trying to use my seme effectively for most of the match. Another I noted was that my opponent was just going for cuts that weren’t there, but he’d follow through strongly, so I had to walk to him to get to issoku distance. I remember trying to do this with a sort of ‘focus’, where I wasn’t just rushing to him to attack, but I did a measured walk completely focussed on him. Don’t know if this was the right thing to do, but I just wanted to maintain my focus. I’m starting to think that the ‘correct’ thing to do lies somewhere between kakari style fighting spirit and what I did. Will have to work on it.
After all the shiai’s, Kelly sensei mentioned a few things. Firstly, he told us to make sure we understand shiai etiquette. A few of the players still weren’t doing the proper things, myself included. I remember I walked onto the shiai-jo before the shimpan were ready. I only did this because I couldn’t see the shimpan on my left in my peripheral vision and didn’t realise that they were doing a change over. I based my time to walk in on the other two shimpan that I could see. Something to keep in mind for next time.
He then made an important point about zanshin, and how people are still just playing ‘contact’ kendo, where they just swing the shinai to make contact with the target. What we should be doing is ‘cutting’, ie. with ki-ken-tai and zanshin, where we have zanshin before we even physically make the cut (or something to that effect). This whole zanshin thing is still a bit of a flickering light bulb to me, but I understand where he is coming from. I did see some people ‘tacking’ on their zanshin after cuts, where you see a definite pause when they ask themselves if the cut landed or not.
Monady Training.
Again, I was picked as motodachi. Tried to focus on having good kamae. Worked on trying to keep my feet in the ready to cut position. Found it quite hard as I kept wanting to cut. It feels like I’m trying to balance on a knife edge, where I either want to cut, or move back to a position where I’m too steady to cut instantly. It’s a bit like that moment when you seme in, and you have a bit of momentum which can you can either use to drive you forward to stop completely and settle down again. This was something Kelly sensei was trying to iron out, where he made us stop completely after our seme but remain in that ready to cut position which is what I tried to do when it was my turn to cut.
Anyway, after the class separated, we did jigeiko. I ‘hid’ myself in the junior line so that I can fight with the more senior people. Fought Tom, Andy and Hiro. I tried to refrain from the cutting and praying and really tried to force openings. I noticed that I didn’t go for cuts as much as I normally do, which I hope is a good thing. I think should try to do this more often. It reminded me of a keiko that the squad did (when I missed out and just watched), where it was jigeiko but each kendoka only gets 3 cuts to try and score. I think it’s to make you more conscious of your cuts so you don’t just go in wildly and flay away. It must be a good way of improving the quality of your cut selection.
Tuesday at Fudoshin.
Went to Fudoshin for the first time. I can understand why Chiaki ‘defected’. The quality of the training is so much higher, because you’re training with mostly yudansha, and there are 3 sensei there. Certainly if I wanted to be a ‘pro’ kendoka, i’d consider changing clubs, but as it stands, I think I’m just aiming to be a good casual player. Smith sensei was very different to what I’d imagined him to be. I guess I’ve only seen him at shiai’s where he’s got his game face on, but seeing him take the class, it just reaffirmed my belief that the really good kendo players are the nicest guys. The way he takes the class is very helpful and not at all as intimidating as I’d expected. I’m definitely planning to train there more often.
Anyway, to the training. Smith sensei focussed on two things, the position of the left wrist and the snappy movements of the left foot. For the wrist, he mentioned that the wrist bone should be directly on top the of the shinai. He also went through the dynamics of the cut with respect to the arm. On the up stroke, the first movement should be the shoulders moving up, then the elbow bends, then the wrist. To make the shinai come down, it should be in the same order, that is, the shoulder, then the elbow starts to straighten then the wrist then everything snaps into place at the point of the cut.
With regard to the left foot, it should really snap into place. To practice this we did kirikaeshi for the length of the dojo (which is the size of a basketball court). Note that I said length, not width. To start, we did it very slowly, with each cut being an individual cut. Smith made the point that we should be in control of every cut, and not do what people normally do and just use momentum to move forward. Anyway, as we did this, he watched me and noted that my arms were too straight on the upswing and told me to bend it more. I think this may be why my kirikaeshi’s this year have been so laboured, it’s because my arms were too straight and I was only cutting with my shoulders, where I should have used my elbows as well. I think I did this as an antithesis to people who just cut with their wrists/elbows and not much at all with their shoulders so their cuts were just tiny (in some cases the base of their shinai’s didn’t move much from their starting position).
Anyway, I really liked the training. I almost felt as if Sensei was talking directly to me. He said something along the lines of ‘I like to focus on a particular thing every now and then, not that I think that its an issue I need to address in your kendo, but just to set your fundamentals’. I really related to this, as I don’t feel like I’m particular weak when it comes to my left hand and left foot snap, but its nice to practice it directly to solidify my kendo foundations.
Squad training. Went through the official Vic team warmup at the squad training. Before that though, we had to do our own stretches, where my judgement of time screwed me over. We were supposed to be ready within 5 minutes, but by the time that was up, I was just starting my calf/forearm stretches. Need to learn to be more efficient. We did suburi then menstuke for the team warmup keiko. The focus was to not do kihon style cuts, but to do shiai style cuts. Very important for motodachi to make it ‘real’.
Shiai time. Only managed to get one shiai. Got a debana kote in the first few seconds. I kinda eased off the attacking after that since I had the advantage. I really should have tried to get the second point to make myself the clear cut winner. I just remember trying to use my seme effectively for most of the match. Another I noted was that my opponent was just going for cuts that weren’t there, but he’d follow through strongly, so I had to walk to him to get to issoku distance. I remember trying to do this with a sort of ‘focus’, where I wasn’t just rushing to him to attack, but I did a measured walk completely focussed on him. Don’t know if this was the right thing to do, but I just wanted to maintain my focus. I’m starting to think that the ‘correct’ thing to do lies somewhere between kakari style fighting spirit and what I did. Will have to work on it.
After all the shiai’s, Kelly sensei mentioned a few things. Firstly, he told us to make sure we understand shiai etiquette. A few of the players still weren’t doing the proper things, myself included. I remember I walked onto the shiai-jo before the shimpan were ready. I only did this because I couldn’t see the shimpan on my left in my peripheral vision and didn’t realise that they were doing a change over. I based my time to walk in on the other two shimpan that I could see. Something to keep in mind for next time.
He then made an important point about zanshin, and how people are still just playing ‘contact’ kendo, where they just swing the shinai to make contact with the target. What we should be doing is ‘cutting’, ie. with ki-ken-tai and zanshin, where we have zanshin before we even physically make the cut (or something to that effect). This whole zanshin thing is still a bit of a flickering light bulb to me, but I understand where he is coming from. I did see some people ‘tacking’ on their zanshin after cuts, where you see a definite pause when they ask themselves if the cut landed or not.
Monady Training.
Again, I was picked as motodachi. Tried to focus on having good kamae. Worked on trying to keep my feet in the ready to cut position. Found it quite hard as I kept wanting to cut. It feels like I’m trying to balance on a knife edge, where I either want to cut, or move back to a position where I’m too steady to cut instantly. It’s a bit like that moment when you seme in, and you have a bit of momentum which can you can either use to drive you forward to stop completely and settle down again. This was something Kelly sensei was trying to iron out, where he made us stop completely after our seme but remain in that ready to cut position which is what I tried to do when it was my turn to cut.
Anyway, after the class separated, we did jigeiko. I ‘hid’ myself in the junior line so that I can fight with the more senior people. Fought Tom, Andy and Hiro. I tried to refrain from the cutting and praying and really tried to force openings. I noticed that I didn’t go for cuts as much as I normally do, which I hope is a good thing. I think should try to do this more often. It reminded me of a keiko that the squad did (when I missed out and just watched), where it was jigeiko but each kendoka only gets 3 cuts to try and score. I think it’s to make you more conscious of your cuts so you don’t just go in wildly and flay away. It must be a good way of improving the quality of your cut selection.
Tuesday at Fudoshin.
Went to Fudoshin for the first time. I can understand why Chiaki ‘defected’. The quality of the training is so much higher, because you’re training with mostly yudansha, and there are 3 sensei there. Certainly if I wanted to be a ‘pro’ kendoka, i’d consider changing clubs, but as it stands, I think I’m just aiming to be a good casual player. Smith sensei was very different to what I’d imagined him to be. I guess I’ve only seen him at shiai’s where he’s got his game face on, but seeing him take the class, it just reaffirmed my belief that the really good kendo players are the nicest guys. The way he takes the class is very helpful and not at all as intimidating as I’d expected. I’m definitely planning to train there more often.
Anyway, to the training. Smith sensei focussed on two things, the position of the left wrist and the snappy movements of the left foot. For the wrist, he mentioned that the wrist bone should be directly on top the of the shinai. He also went through the dynamics of the cut with respect to the arm. On the up stroke, the first movement should be the shoulders moving up, then the elbow bends, then the wrist. To make the shinai come down, it should be in the same order, that is, the shoulder, then the elbow starts to straighten then the wrist then everything snaps into place at the point of the cut.
With regard to the left foot, it should really snap into place. To practice this we did kirikaeshi for the length of the dojo (which is the size of a basketball court). Note that I said length, not width. To start, we did it very slowly, with each cut being an individual cut. Smith made the point that we should be in control of every cut, and not do what people normally do and just use momentum to move forward. Anyway, as we did this, he watched me and noted that my arms were too straight on the upswing and told me to bend it more. I think this may be why my kirikaeshi’s this year have been so laboured, it’s because my arms were too straight and I was only cutting with my shoulders, where I should have used my elbows as well. I think I did this as an antithesis to people who just cut with their wrists/elbows and not much at all with their shoulders so their cuts were just tiny (in some cases the base of their shinai’s didn’t move much from their starting position).
Anyway, I really liked the training. I almost felt as if Sensei was talking directly to me. He said something along the lines of ‘I like to focus on a particular thing every now and then, not that I think that its an issue I need to address in your kendo, but just to set your fundamentals’. I really related to this, as I don’t feel like I’m particular weak when it comes to my left hand and left foot snap, but its nice to practice it directly to solidify my kendo foundations.
posted by Son at 8:56 am
1 Comments:
Hi I'm your secret admirer and I was so impressed by your kendo and your sexy body. I'm further impressed that you got up so early to publish that blog just before 9am...you must be so free at uni and not have to work 12 hour a day.
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