Pre-Taikai Thoughts

Tomorrow we head out for the Rose City Taikai in Portland, OR. This will be the third year I've competed in this taikai. This is also a special time for me. Three years ago, at this very taikai, was my first experience competing in kendo. I've never really competed in many things in my life before I started kendo. A couple of local skating competitions when I was a teenager. A spelling bee here and there for school. But other than that not much. I wasn't big into sports growing up so I never had the opportunity for competition.

The one thing I've noticed, in my own experience, is that it's not about winning and losing to me. Don't get me wrong, winning is nice and it feels good to come out on top, but to me that's always just icing on top of the delicious cake that makes up the taikai experience. I enjoy seeing my friends that I've made throughout the area, ones that I don't get to see or hear from much because we live in different parts of the state. I enjoy the atmosphere and all of the wonderful matches and great kendo that goes on. And I love putting myself against others to see where my strengths and weaknesses are. I always learn so much about myself after a taikai; that aspect alone is worth the trip. And I always come back to my dojo a rejuvenated man. I believe that this year will be no different.

This year is going to be a tough one, though, because about 90% of the people going from our dojo will be in the same division. Despite that I feel ready, and I feel confident in myself. I know that they'll be giving everything they've got, and I plan to do the same. I will give everything to each one of my opponents this weekend, and win or lose I know that we'll both come out of it improved in some way.

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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

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

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

Keiko: A Kenshi's Journey

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