Skip to main content

Let It Go!

First, I must apologize to everyone that came here looking for the next big Frozen remake.  You'll find no such thing here, so move over Elsa, I'm taking the scene!







I've been working a lot on some new things this past month, but last week I decided to do something that I don't think I've ever done before.  I decided to let it all go and just focus on kendo.  We have a tournament coming up, and instead of polluting the waters with new things that I'm not used to or proficient with, I wanted to take a step back and just work on what I know and focus on strengthening what I've already got.  For as long as I can remember, I've always been working on something.  They say that kendo is easy to learn, but takes a lifetime to master, and this is so true.  I see it more and more every day that I practice.  Kendo is definitely a multi-layered beast, and just when you think you've perfected a certain technique or movement or theory, you peel back to reveal even more beneath.  It can be the most frustrating and yet most rewarding feeling ever, sometimes. 

Sinclair Sensei has been gone a lot this past month, focusing on his own training with his teacher, so I've found myself in a teaching position a lot lately.  When I would take the reins, I wanted to focus on things that were important to me, or things that I was actively working on in my own training.  I focused on practicing pressuring in and hitting, physical pressure with the body and the shinai, as well as keeping a relaxed yet controlled grip, and using proper tenouchi to add the power and the snap of the strike at the end.  I also had a little fun, bringing back some old kote drills that Ando Sensei used to have us do when he was at our dojo.

I've actually felt pretty good this week with my training, besides the usual physical issues that arise here and there.  Even though I haven't been focusing on anything in particular, and just working on enjoying my kendo and strengthening it, I feel like my strikes have been snappier, and that my small men strikes have been small, without as much wasted movement as I've had before.  I also feel that my movement from my center has developed quite nicely, and that I'm not leaning as much as I used to.  I know there's still a bit there, but hopefully with continued practice it'll soon fade away.

So, will this new focus help me at Obukan next weekend?  I can't say for sure at this point.  I guess I'll have to wait and see what happens.  But I do believe that it's nice to just step back sometimes, clear your mind, and just let it all go.  Remember the reasons that you started kendo.  Remember the reasons you've grown to love the continued practice.  Remember the reason you tighten those men himo.


Comments

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

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

Palouse Kendo Club

This Sunday a few of my dojo mates and I traveled to Moscow, ID to visit the Palouse Kendo Club, a relatively new club to the area that was started by my friend Maina.  The club has been active for a little over a year, if memory serves me right, and we'd always talked about having visitors to the club, but we were finally able to put it together and schedule it.  Six of us traveled over, ranging from 3 kyu up to, well, me!  We pulled up to the dojo about 20 minutes before training was scheduled to start, and after greeting my friend and getting a quick tour, we were suited up and ready to go.  All in all, they had six people that showed up to train with us, and we trained for a good two and a half hours.  We started with warmups and suburi, then moved straight into footwork drills.  I have to make a confession:  I don't particularly like footwork drills.  I don't like running, either, but I do both because I know that they're both good for me and will improve my endu
2 comments
Read more