Portsmouth Visit

Due to the Easter break we arranged a club visit to Portsmouth Kendo Club.

About 10 of us made the trip down to spend three hours of Ono Ha Itto Ryu and kendo practice.  The guys at Portsmouth have taken an interest in Itto Ryu and take every opportunity to train with Blake and Harris senseis, this was no exception.

A few snapshots of Harris sensei's ad-hoc seminar.

The day ended with an hour of jigeiko and it was good to mix it up with a few new faces.

Easter Hates Kendo

It's easter holiday season again which means school closures and disruption to regular kendo :(

My regular place was shut so I planned a visit Tora kendo club. However, first capital connect had other ideas (surprise, surprise) and cancelled my train. Not straight away mind, they let me wait 30 mins on the platform so we could watch the late train wiz past without stopping to make up time – no announcement, nothing (F****** ****s!). I hate that train company.

I have been working on a number of things over the last few weeks with varying degrees of success. Some resulted from another pasting I received from Young (as usual), who explained that I rely too much on Hiki waza because my Shikake waza and attacking presence is weak.

I have to admit my faith in my men attacks is at a low, I can never seem to get though. As a result, I’m using oij waza more to try and compensate for the poor success rate. I suppose I should keep plugging away and not get caught up with ‘must win’ attitude.

On a plus point he did say my footwork is improving, but I still need to increase my distance.

I’ve been doing a bit of research on the net to try and get an idea on how to improve my Shikake techniques.

One vid interested me in particular, I’m wondering if this will help me attack from distance. HERE.

I was also given a few more tips from Katsuya sensei. These included:

• Attack/seme by bending both knees so it looks like I’m moving forward. Salmon sensei also demonstrated this technique to me a few weeks ago. I have since tried this a few times in jigeiko and I cant quite get it to work. Will persevere.
• Don’t stand there doing pointless tapping and fiddling with the shinai. These moves must serve a purpose otherwise keep kensen straight.
• I explained that I have difficulty fighting rank beginners and end up getting tangled up. Katsuya suggested I use straight, big waza with follow though and zanshin. This can help create an opportunity to change target if the opportunity arises which means I can learn something new.
• I should open out chest with my shoulders back in kamae. Not only does this improve posture and appearance, it also means the shoulders can snap forward slightly with the cut and increase its effectiveness. If the shoulders are already rolled forward in chudan then the have nowhere else to go while conducting a cut.

Blake sensei has also been bashing into our heads that we should sustain our attacks until be mentally beat our opponent. He doesn’t mean unleash in a torrent of kakarigeiko cuts, but maintain absolute pressure. E.g. kote, men…. Hiki men without procrastinating, then zanshin and ready to immediately beat the opponent if they show an opening/ signs of weakness.

He repeats the phrase “Beat the man, not the equipment”. Words which I feel takes kendo from a mechanical process to understanding how to dominate the opponent.

Another phrase I heard last week made me chuckle. This was ‘Statue of Liberty’. This was coined by a dojo mate to describe an opponent who rigidly stands in chudan and allows you to run onto his sword point.

‘Statue’ describes their pose and ‘liberty’ describes taking liberties in thinking you’re going to simply run onto their kensen. Heh, I like it.

Edit//: This is ace! HERE

Kashi No Ki Kenyu Kai Seminar 2011

This was originally Kashi No Ki Kenyu Kai’s annual Ozawa Sensei seminar. However, due to the circumstances in Japan he had to cancel his visit. In his absence Paul Budden sensei (7DR) took his place.

The theme of the two day seminar was ‘The role of the motodachi’, and the aim was to highlight the importance of this task to help improve shidachi’s kihon.

Turnout was pretty good considering the cancellation, I’d guess about 40 people. These were mainly from the midlands, with a sprinkling of northern and southern dojos.

Day 1
The first day was concerned with outlining motodachi’s role. Budden sensei explained what he has learned from Sumi sensei on this subject and takes the form of three key considerations (referenced here):

1) At any time was I in ‘a resting' mode, so did I spend any time without concentration?

2) Did I make the appropriate distance (Maai)?

3) Did I encourage and make Kakarite execute their skills fully? And did I also encourage them to do a little more than their usual ability?

Though a number of drills involving shikake and oji techniques, we were instructed to facilitate good kihon with out partner though adjusting maai (come to one step outside distance –toi maai) and providing encouragement.

We were constantly asked “did you maintain concentration?” throughout the day, it was very easy to ‘switch off’ when tired!

We completed lots of kirikaeshi during these drills. We practiced 1-7 kendo no kata during the second part of the day and finished with jigeiko with the seniors. This was my first practice with many of the midlands based sensei, many of which I’d not seen fight before.

I managed jigeiko against Trevor Chapman and another Kashi No Ki Kenyu Kai senior which was fun, I was impressed at the speed and timing of both their kaeshi do waza… must be a notts favourite.

Day 2
The morning session was concerned with waza basics using bokato, many of which are used in kendo no kata (e.g. kote suriage kote). This allowed us to study correct cutting without the temptation ‘whack’ using shinai.

These were conducted using suriashi footwork in order to retain a strong posture.

We then donned our armour and practiced many of these techniques with shinai, full spirit and fumikomi – ensuring the motodachi performs his/ her role as highlighted earlier.

After lunch we had a few hours of referee training in which we took it in turn to shinpan a shiai match.

I found it very difficult to concentrate on positioning/movement in relation to the head shinpan AND watching the actual match, I ended up missing an obvious ippon as I was concentrating too much on my own movement –doh.

The final part of the seminar was rotating jigeiko with fellow attendees and seniors. This allowed us to fight people we’d only performed kihon with… it was noticeable that some of us were struggling by this stage, many of our legs knackered and had stopped working!

Other than the 4 hour dive home this was an enjoyable seminar. I’ll try to travel up again in 2012, hopefully Ozawa sensei will be there next year.

Happy 45th Nenriki!

I suffered with another cold during the last few weeks.  This included an annoying cough which I was unable to shift for ages. I still attended practice but it knocked me for six every time due to my lack of energy.

This year is my home dojo’s 45th anniversary. One of the celebration events was an Ono ha itto ryu seminar run by Harris and Blake sensei. Both have studied this form of kenjitsu for decades, itto ryu is acknowledged as one of the origins of modern kendo. Due to my cold I was unable to attend the morning session.

The second part of the day was a talk by Victor Harris sensei about the history of the dojo and kendo. Harris sensei is very knowledgeable in Japanese sword art history, one of the dojo's originators, is a retired curator of Japanese Antiquities at the British Museum, completed the first English translation of the Book of Five Rings and has made numerous appearances on history channel style documentaries. His presentation was made in one of the school’s classrooms and was very interesting, a playlist of vids can be found HERE.

The final part of the day was keiko back in the dojo.  I managed 5 fights before flaking out, one was with Fuji sensei who was one of the first sensei to teach at the club during the 1960's.  Keiko with Fuji sensei was fun but must have looked a little odd, i'm guessing he is about 5"1' or 2' while i'm 6"4'! I have attached a few photos of the practice below.
 

Men wo tsuke

Fighting Fuji sensei

Wait for turn



Tsumani

Thoughts to all those hit by the Tsunami in Japan... shocking state of affairs.

Practice with the squads

After another missed week of practice, this time due to stinking cold passed on kindly by the Mrs, I made it to Tuesday practice. The beginners we being trained separately so I gave the seniors a full session of kihon.

Lucky Young was present to take part of the class and explained maai for the kote, men and do. I have been taught this before by O'Sullivan sensei but it was good to run though it again.

• Men - The individual's distance to be able to cut men in one step. This is usually where the tips of the shinai are just crossing each other. This of course depends on the height/reach of the two fighters.
  
• Kote- The individual's distance to be able to cut Kote in one step. Because the kote is closer than the men, this means that the shinai the tips are barely crossing or separated from each other slightly. Again this of course depends on the height/reach of the two fighters, I can sometimes score a kote before the tips cross because I'm taller.
  
• Do - Do is further from the other two targets so the starting distance is slightly closer than men. However, higher grades seem to be able to negate this by faking men while moving in, making me lift my arms and leaving the target wide open. This is something I'd like to learn myself.

While fighting Young during Jigeiko , he pointed out that I need to drop my hands a bit in chudan in order to generate more power in my cut. In addition, he noticed that i'm twisting my hips with the right side further forward. I need to fix this.

I was worried that my cold would have killed off my cardio. Perversely, I felt pretty sharp during this and my following practice on Thursday. I think its because I managed to shake off the downer I was having a few weeks ago!

During Thursdays practice Salmon sensei commented that he's enjoying his fights with me a little more as I'm starting to engage him with seme with fewer brainless attacks. It's still early days but this cheered me up a bit.

On Friday I drove over to Brunel University to join in with the 5 Nations Kendo comp warmup practice. This competition is designed for smaller kendo countries (i.e. not France!) to blood new squad members. It was good to see the guys putting on their new GB gi and zekken for the first time, they looked very proud. It made me wish I started kendo younger.... sadly there's little chance of me catching these guys up at my age.

The hall was filled with squads for GB, Germany, Finland, Sweden and Switzerland, their team managers/sensei and us hangers on. Practice was with the senseis so the queues were long, I only managed three in the hour.

I didn't know any of the senseis so I picked at random. The first was a Finnish sensei called Salonen , as I queued I noticed how steady he was (no bobbing about), effectiveness of his seme and how explosive his cuts were. Very impressive. When it was my turn I gave it my best shot, I literally couldn't touch him! Seriously... the only time a managed a cut was with short uchikomigeiko at the end. He's the best I've ever fought against with the exception of visiting Japanese sensei. Only afterwards did I find out he'd passed 7th dan in Feb, he's a very young nanadan for a European.

Next was a Swiss sesnsi called Tsherter who's also a 7th dan. Tsherter sensei gave a few smiles as I fought him which put me a ease. He commented at the end i need to attack from a bit further out (agghhhh! I never learn).

My final fight was against a Japanese sensei who I forget the name off. We running out of time so after a short jigeiko I had a minute or so of uchikomigeiko.

I managed a few pics with my mobile phone so the quality isn't brilliant.

Long queues!

Senseis in action.

I'd like to end by saying good luck to all the GB squad today.

Crap Performance

Its been a very frustrating period since the xmas break. A mixture of work and uni studies has messed my training frequency.. and it shows.

I can't seem to do the simple things right, I feel lethargic and I'm getting annoyed with myself during keiko. To be honest I think this is my lowest point since i started training over 5 years ago.

My biggest issue at the moment (still) is distance. I am constantly told to attack from further out and that im a 'small person trapped in a tall person's body'. Therefore, I try to attack from longer maai which results in terrible posture, I tend to lunge forward and flick my left foot up behind me.

As a result, over the last few weeks I've asked a number of higher grades their opinion on the best distance for me. Generally it has been split between (or words to the effect of):

• "Attack when opponent enters my range"; or
• "Attack from the distance I am comfortable with".

Both Blake and O'Sullivan senseis suggested I should stick to the latter, with O'Sullivan sensei elaborating that I will be able to attack from further distance as my skill level improves.

Without the constant worry of trying to attack from extreme distance and breaking my posture, I will try to cut from the distance I'm happy with then work from there.

Kendo, makes you wonder why we do it?