Skip to main content

Rollercoaster

Kendo is a funny thing to me sometimes.  It's a constant battle with myself, and I tend to fluctuate wildly with my training.  Some days I'm on top of the world, and other days I'm at the bottom of the barrel.  I think the only consistent piece throughout it all is my ability to keep going.  Last night I didn't have any super highs or lows, but I did have quite a few fluctuations between the start and end of class.  Some things I did great, others not so much, but I kept pressing on and kept giving all that I had.

After helping out with the beginning class we started into our advanced class.  Warm-ups were the usual, and I tried to focus on keeping my connection with the group and making each strike a good strike during suburi as well as during Hayasuburi drills.  After warm-ups, we worked on flexible wrists and took that into work on Kote, specifically hitting from an angle like we've been going over lately.  I can feel the potential with this variation of a regular Kote, and I can also see where it's rooted in being able to do a good basic Kote strike.  I want to continue working on this technique and see where it takes me.

After grabbing the rest of our bogu, we went into hitting drills interspersed with Kirikaeshi.  Men, Kote, and Do.  Again, we focused on striking on an angle and used that when transitioning into our Do drills.  It felt good to do Do strikes, since we haven't done much of them in our drills lately.  Afterward we went into Debana Kote drills.  I have to be careful with this one as I have a tendency to hit too hit and get the knuckles or the wrist instead of the actual Kote target itself.  But when I do hit it I can definitely tell from that satisfying POP that it makes.  Hopefully that means I'm putting a little more power into that strike so it's more forceful and not such a light tap.

We continued on with Waza Geiko, and I took the time to concentrate on Kote-Men.  During this time I tried striking Kote on an angle a few times, to see how it felt and how it would affect the Men strike itself.  I also played around with hitting Sayu-Men a couple of times, with some rather satisfying results.  I want to be able to branch out with that technique so it's not always a straight, predictable strike.  Given enough time I think I can make this a very valuable weapon in my arsenal of techniques.

We ended the night with Jigeiko, and I tried my hardest.  I think my hardest opponent of the night was Finn.  He is an older gentleman, but there is no disadvantage to be had by that.  He is very quick and can spot my openings so easily, it seems, and I also have a hard time getting through his kamae and his defense to attack him.  I think I got a few hits it, but I had to really work for them.

We were also given some good news.  Last night was our last night at our current location; next week we move into our permanent dojo (at least, I think it's permanent).  I, for one, am excited about this new location and the possibilities that it presents for us, and am looking forward to seeing it in person next week!  We have a short break due to the holidays, but we'll be back in full force again next Wednesday!

A few thoughts:

Ando Sensei - He pointed out that I have a slight bounce before I strike, so he can see very easily when I'm going to attack.  I will work to eliminate this so that I don't have any "tells" about when I'm going to strike. 
Labels:

Comments

  1. AnonymousSeptember 1, 2011 at 4:56 PM

    Word on the roller coaster that is Kendo. And commitment is what keeps us on it! :D

    Tells are fun to try and work out. I shift my left foot ever so slightly forward before a strike. My senpai used to glance right with his eyes before striking, but then I pointed it out and he has since stopped and is now even more difficult to beat in keiko. Ha.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sutemi

 The Japanese-English Kendo dictionary, located at www.kendo-usa.org, defines sutemi as: " Sute-mi   (n.)  1.  Concentration and effort with all one’s might, even at the risk of death.  2.  Concentration of all one’s effort into one strike, even at the risk of defeat." Ok, so risking everything at the risk of defeat or death.  But how does that apply to our own training?  Fighting to the death is a very foreign concept to many of us, but I believe that we can all understand fighting at the risk of defeat.  This is a concept that we've started examining in more detail at our dojo lately, and one that I believe can be learned at any stage of practice that you're at. To put it simply, Sensei explained that sutemi is putting 100% effort into a strike.  Holding nothing back and leaving all cares and worries behind so that you can give all of yourself over to that strike.  it sounds like a complicated idea, and it is, but just like all things in kendo I believe that
4 comments
Read more

Nuki Men - A Personal Look

2010 Kent Taikai This month we'll be focusing on nuki waza at our dojo, specifically nuki men and nuki kote.  Here are just a few of my own (emphasis on own!) thoughts on the subject. I, personally, love nuki men. It's been one of my favorite techniques for years and years, and I used it a lot when I was a mudansha.  I still use it now on occasion, for that matter, but in order to become and stay effective with it I had to learn a few things.  These are things which work for me and your mileage may vary, as one of my friends like to say.  First off is the movement itself.  I'll start with the "classic" version with kote-nuki men.  One person attacks the kote, and their opponent responds by raising the shinai up and countering with a men strike of their own.  In this scenario there are a few things I like to keep in mind.  The first being to get my hands out of the way!  I can't just lift my shinai and expect to be ok, I have to also get my hands (and my
Post a Comment
Read more

Harai Waza

Photo courtesy of T. Patana, Kendo Photography Another month down, another new focus for training.  This month we'll be focusing on harai waza.  Here are some of my personal thoughts on it, from my own training and experience. I really had trouble figuring out how to start this entry.  Normally I just open the page and go to work, letting whatever ideas and thoughts I have flow out onto the screen, but this one really had me stumped for a while, mainly because everything I started to write sounded really negative and I didn't mean it to, so I think I'll just go with it and try to get to the point that I was trying to make in the first place. When I first started learning harai waza it was part of kihon kata three.  If you want to be fancy, that would be the Bokuto ni yoru kendo kihon waza keiko ho, kihon san - harai waza .  The idea was simple: strike the motodachi's shinai out of center and deliver a men strike, all in one smooth movement.  It was one of the
Post a Comment
Read more