Tournament prep in Almere

2012-09-29 13:32:00

I don't know why, but our group was a bit smaller today. Six in bogu, five or six without. I guess a lot of folks are off sick. After kata and warming up we proceeded with footwork practice. 

As part of balance exercises we did lunges. 

• Hold your shinai across your belly with both hands, then lunge onto your right foot. Turn your upper body both left and right. Then lunge onto the left foot and repeat. Continue like this across the hall. 
• Hold your shinai in normal kamae. Lunge onto right and strike men. Lunge onto left and strike men. Repeat across the hall. 
• Hold your shinai across the back of your hips and do fumikomi across the hall. First singles, then doubles.

In all of these exercises, if you feel imbalanced and tend to wobble or keel over, then your footwork is too narrow. When lunging, keep your feet at kamae-width and sink deep. Hold a straight back.

After this followed laps of suriashi around the hall.

• The first four laps went fine: normal sliding steps, then variation in length and speed. Some people still put left past right, but most aren't bad. 
• The two/three fumikomi to reach the other side also went "okay", though many show issues with both the right and the left feet (explained below). 
• Charel suggested a shiai exercise: start with small suriashi, then make two/three big slides and then fumikomi with follow-through.
• Then finally, with continuous fumikomi across the hall things went to pieces completely. Everyone was bad.

Loyer-sensei and Kris-fukushou inform us that the problems are twofold. For one, most of us aren't properly launching themselves with the left foot. Either we're not kicking hard enough, or we're kicking backwards after launching. Many of us also lift the right foot way too high when lunging forward. Not only does this clearly signal your intentions to your opponent, but it also slows you down. As Kris pointed out, many of us don't stomp their right foot for forward speed but we come to a full stop because we kick downward or even forward. 

While the beginners renewed their focus on kirikaeshi and kihon, we practiced a few waza.

• Hayai-men and hayai-kote-men. To keep the basics in there :)
• When doing harai-men you could say you're doing a kote-men where the kote strike is actually a push over your opponent's shinai. Keep your shinai on the center line (inside) and when moving inwards, smack his shinai aside and down to open your way to men. This is slightly similar to, but also completely different from the "special" move Heeren-sensei showed us last Tuesday.
• When doing harai-kote, keep your movements small. Make an elliptical path underneath motodachi's shinai and on the way up, smack the shinai upwards to the right. On the way down again strike his kote. Remember, the elipse needs to be very small!
• When doing kaeshi-do against a men strike, use the upswing towards your shoulder to guide motodachi's shinai to the left. Then strike do while staying on the center line. Make it a proper strike! Don't start moving to the right before you've connected properly. 

When attacking, imagine your goal to be two meters behind your opponent! Don't strike and immediately dash aside. Worse yet, don't immediately turn towards him! Rush through them and if they get in the way, go into taiatari. Don't hold your hands too high, as they'll simply topple you. "Tsuba into the mouth", as they say.

Finally, because tomorrow is a tournament day: the practice shiai! I joined Nick and Hudaifa, against Charel, Jeroen and Sander. After each round, both kenshi quickly received some pointers on their own kendo from Kris and Loyer-sensei. In my case:

• I need to build tension, work on seme. Draw my opponent out.
• My movements are too large. I completely give away what I'm doing.
• I should stick to what I can do. I really don't need to try and pull of those do-strikes.
• As was mentioned above, don't dance aside but I need to move "through" my opponent.

Because we don't have much experience with tourneys we also went over the basic etiquette. Both teams decide the order of kenshi, one through five (or three as is the case tomorrow). Only the first kenshi will be wearing his men from the start. The teams greet each other, then retreat to their side of the court. Everyone except the first sits down and pays attention to the fights. Numbers two and three will start putting on their men. Four and five will follow later. Then, each participant will continue as follows.

1. Step into the shiaijo. Step to a position from which you can reach your starting line with three paces. 
2. Bow to your opponent.
3. Three steps to your line, right foot on the line. Not over, not in front, on the line. In your steps, draw your shinai and go into sonkyo. 
4. Do not rise until the shinpan provide the command to "Hajime!".
5. Return to your line when a point has been made.
6. If something is wrong, raise your hand. Both kenshi return to their line, while the shinpan find out what is up. If you need to disrobe, both kenshi step back and the other waits in sonkyo while you fix whatever is wrong. 
7. When the match has been won return to your line. Sonkyo and put your shinai away.
8. Five steps back. Bow. Step out of the shiaijo backwards and take your seat. 

The Nanseikan kendo dojo has a more complete article on the subject of shiai etiquette.

kilala.nl tags: kendo, sports,

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On the importance of upkeep

2012-09-27 20:23:00

After last week's lecture on the importance of shinai maintenance you would think that people would actually take note. But no, sadly they don't. Last saturday I spent a good ten minutes inspecting and fixing one of our youngest members' shinai, despite having shown him how to do it and providing him with a printed booklet with instructions. He has two shinai at his disposal, the first one was in shreds and the latter was only a little bit splintered. So I took that one outside with my toolkit, also forbidding him to use the other one until it was fixed.

Sadly, many of the other members show only little more interest in maintenance. I have tried a number of ways to get them more involved, but without wanting to overstep my station I haven't had much success. The biggest "win" so far was when four of us had a great evening, doing maintenance on all of our equipment :) I'd love to repeat that sometime soon. 

For now I'll do upkeep tonight, because I've got a tournament coming up! ( ^_^)

Sunday I'll be joining five other guys from Renshinjuku at the Fumetsu Cup tournament. I won't be in a team with them, as the Fumetsu Cup pits randomly selected teams against eachother. Who knows who'll be your teammate?! :D Of course, if I want to compete my shinai need to be in tiptop condition. 

Last tuesday we had mandatory inspection at Renshinjuku Amstelveen and one of my shinai was sent back because of a tiny, beginning splinter. A quick repair later it was accepted, but I'll definitely go over both shinai with a fine toothed comb :) Ironically the shinai I loaned to Jeroen-sempai had no issues in QA. 

kilala.nl tags: kendo, sports,

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A session dedicated to seme-to-men

2012-09-26 20:43:00

Last night's class was envigorating and I went home feeling energized and ready for two more rounds of keiko! ( ^_^) Jeroen-sempai, who joined me for the first time, came away with similar feelings.

Class was started in the usual fashion, with stretching, running and suburi. In hayasuburi, Heeren-sensei admonished some of the kenshi (definitely me!) for not bringing the shinai back against the buttocks in every single suburi round, as it is a helping hand in figuring if your swings are going down the center line. So thirty more hayasuburi it was! :D

The first ten to fifteen minutes of the day's lesson were fully spent on explanation. The crowd gathered around Heeren-sensei and Kiwa-sempai who demonstrated a number of things.

• When striking, also in suburi, stretch your left arm. A lot of people are still using a crooked arm which is costing them in reach.
• In kirikaeshi and in your strikes, always do the upswing properly through the center. This has been discussed before. 
• When striking, Heeren-sensei imagines the kensen to be his finger nail. When striking, his shinai replaces his index finger, as he points out the targets in question. Point at kote, then in tenouchi jerk with left to strike. Point at men, then in tenouchi jerk with left and strike. Etc. But be careful to not make a "stroking" strike!
• This analogy should also prevent you from raising your shinai too far upwards. Raise your shinai too far and it will be completely visible to your opponent who will thus be clued in on what you're doing. 
• In what I've come to call the Heeren kote-men Special, Heeren-sensei suggested a technique to use in shiai and keiko where one strikes kote on the inside as opposed to the outside. The goal is not to strike kote, the goal is to both startle your opponent and to use the spring of his hands/shinai to speed up the men strike. Men is the goal.

They also took a lot of time explaining the physical aspects of seme to men ("pressure and men"). An excellent read on seme would be Stephen Quinlan's "The fundamental theorem of kendo?". Funny how mr Quinlan's writings keep popping up in my studies!

In this particular exercise we would be stepping in deep, so deep as to almost pierce our opponents navel. While stepping in, our shinai would go through the center (do not push your opponent's shinai aside), thus sliding on top or over the opponent's shinai. Our kensen will be held low, as to disappear from our op's view. From this position, we would proceed to strike oki-men. The rough sketches above show this: step in deep, not just a little bit and keep the kensen low, not high. 

After the theoretical part of class we proceeded with practice. We did nothing but kirikaeshi, oki-men and seme to men. Oh yes, a few rounds of uchikomi geiko as well. A very interesting class indeed! And because we were using the system where 2-3 students match up against one motodachi I was able to regulate my breathing well enough to make it 100% through class, including three rounds of keiko. In jigeiko I was matched up against mr. Mast (visiting), Kiwa-sempai and Lennart-sempai. In none of these fights did I have the feeling I was doing particularly well, but I did my best to keep in mind the day's lessons as well as Kris' recent lecture about my standard keiko mistakes. 

It was pointed out that the seme movements we had been practicing do not only serve a big role in shiai and jigeiko, but that they are also very useful in uchikomi keiko. This was demonstrated by Kiwa-sempai who repeatedly got very close to Heeren-sensei before striking the designated targets. 

My seniors also pointed out flaws in my kendo.

• Roelof-sensei reminds me every class that I strike too little with left. Right should not be pushing/striking, it's all in left. 
• Ran-sempai reminded me for a second time that my right hand wanders on the tsuka. I do not know why, but I cannot seem to keep my right hand in place! ( ;_;) The effect of this is that my strikes wobble and do not hit their target. 
• Kiwa-sempai and Miyahara-sensei both remarked that my footwork is off. Sometimes I use left to step through before striking (something similar to what Loyer-sensei sees), sometimes I step through with left after striking. I should kick off from the exact spot I'm in, instead of dawdling. 

I'm sure there was more, but it's hard to recall everthing :)

kilala.nl tags: kendo, sports,

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Kendo in Almere: also adjusting our regimen

2012-09-22 21:37:00

Starting this season, Loyer-sensei and Kris-fukushou have indicated that they would like to start using a regimen similar to that used at Museido kendo dojo (which is where Kris originally hails from). Among others, this means that:

• After warming up we will start doing more interval training, like last week's footwork practice. This week, while the beginners practiced in the center, the kendoka in bogu did laps around the hall practicing various strikes, switching halfway. We did many laps practicing men, kote-men, kote-men-do, kirikaeshi, men-taiatari-hikimen-aimen and so forth. 
• We will be doing rounds of jigeiko in the middle of waza practice. This will enable us to immediately put to practical use what we were practicing before. 
• Class will be physically demanding as there will be no breathers for anyone. 

One of the advanced waza that we practiced was maki-tsuki-men, using the spinning shinai from maki waza to open the road for a tsuki. The stab at the throat is not the goal for ippon, but used to push into a strike on men. While we went through our practice, the beginners were led by Bob-sempai in learning kirikaeshi, which we then later practiced with them. I was very impressed by Herman-kouhai's performance, whose kirikaeshi was better than mine! His strikes were very precise!

Loyer-sensei took me aside for two pointers:

• He reminds me that I am still not doing any proper fumikomi. 
• He reminds me that, when moving for a strike, I still slightly swing my right foot backwards before actually moving forwards. All three Miyaharas have been telling me the same in 020 :)

kilala.nl tags: kendo, sports,

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Upping the game at training

2012-09-15 16:38:00

So far, I'm loving this season!

This morning both Ton-sensei and Kris-fukushou returned to teach class. Kris joined the in-bogu group, while Ton-sensei trained the beginners. Kris, knowing that two or three of us want to actively participate in more tournaments this year, decided to start pushing us more. And what a great class it was!

We started on a bit of an embarassing down-note though. A show of hands by Kris proved that roughly five out of the nineteen kendoka present have actually performed shinai maintenance over the summer holiday. We were all warned to do our upkeep as it's for everybody's safety!

First up, our usual warming-up routine was followed by more men suburi. Every single kendoka was told to sound off ten strikes, meaning that we were to do 190 men strikes in a row! Wow! Sadly, I was the only one who couldn't keep up. I had to stop for a very short breather after 60, 100 and 150 strikes. It's awesome that the rest of the group managed to finish the exercise!

After that, footwork! Suriashi, variable suriashi, suriashi with hiki-fumikomi and finally "snaking" along the lines on the floor, practicing forward and sideways suriashi. It's during the snaking that I slightly twisted my ankle :)

Then, onwards to the rest of practice! Kirikaeshi, oki-men, oki-kote-men, hayai-kote-men, ai-men, maki-waza, maki-tsuki, hayai-kote with sidestep, debana-kote, all interspersed with five bouts of jigeiko. Afterwards, three rounds of uchikomi-geiko. So while last class in Amstelveen allowed for some breathers, today's class in Almere was killer. 

One important thing that Kris pointed out to both Martijn and myself: in keiko, we tend to "dance" around each other after strikes, instead of striking and rushing through the opponent. That's really bad and shows zero zanshin.

Unfortunately I had to bow out from one jigeiko and halfway through another one, but still I'm pretty happy with how things turned out. Onwards to the Fumetsu Cup in two weeks' time!

kilala.nl tags: kendo, sports,

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Back in bogu, a great class!

2012-09-12 08:16:00

Last night was my return to the Amstelveen dojo, after missing this season's first class due to standby duties. It really was an awesome class!

After putting myself back into the beginners' group in June, I'd been putting off getting back into bogu. Kendo class in Amstelveen is hard work and after my experiences from last season I was fearing another collapse. So instead I just dawdled in the beginners' section. I actually DID want to get back to real fighting though! So I weaseled around my anxieties!! Knowing beforehand that he would approve, I asked Roelof-sensei if he'd allow me back into bogu. It was also a great help that Mischa-sempai indicated that he thought I was being scared of bogu and that I should get back in :) So I did.

At the beginning of the season, Heeren-sensei informed all Renshinjuku kendoka that he would be demanding a higher level of performance from everyone. This would include an emphasis on proper etiquette, on perseverance and on attendance. It would also involve a more traditional training method which, let me tell you, was very helpful to me last night!

In the previous season, we would line up all kendoka against eachother, making a big line of duos. After each practice we'd all move up one slot, thus facing another partner. What this does is ensure diversity, but it's also pretty harsh: there are zero breathers and you also often pit beginner-against-beginner. The more traditional approach that we used yesterday is the motodachi system: seven of our higher dan-graded members and teachers line up and everyone is divided into small groups being pitted against them. This ensures that everyone only fights high level teachers, that people get the chance for a short breather and that you get plenty of mitori geiko (learning by watching). Without this system I would've dropped 'dead' halfway through class, instead of nearly making it to the end :) Hence I made sure to let Heeren-sensei know that I really enjoyed this schedule.

Practice, and some of the pointers I received, were:

• Reiho. In seiretsu, Heeren-sensei chastised us for not having the right order in the lineup. In my stubbornness to place myself left as far as possible, I'd made a faux pas: while I may be mudansha, I am still older than Nienke and Zicarlo and should thus be more to the right. Also, within the same ranking, Heeren-sensei wants visitors to take the right-most place.
• Oki-men. Initially my timing was off, but that came back soon. Ran-sempai noticed that I wasn't pushing off with my left foot, instead letting the right foot do some work. That's utterly wrong! So for the rest of class I made sure to really kick with the left foot, launching myself forward on a strike. Miyahara-sensei also asked me to properly stretch both arms on a strike. Heeren-sensei told me to keep my right arm higher on the strike: I should basically be punching my opponent in the eyes when passing.
• Kirikaeshi. On my first go, Kiwa-sempai stopped me as I was being fast&sloppy. On each strike, stop for an instant and check that it was a good strike. Heeren-sensei also reminded the group to move right forward on the upswing and to properly close with left on the strike. 
• Kote-men. Heeren-sensei impressed upon us that he wants to hear two distinct fumikomi and that he wants it at kirikaeshi speed.
• Kiai. Hearing my kakegoe (pre-attack kiai) Heeren-sensei took some time to point out to the group what you should and should not do. So far I'd been using a growl similar to what Martijn-sempai uses. Heeren-sensei impressed upon us that this impresses nobody: you're clearing your throat, you're uhm-ing, you're thinking... You're NOT being scary! Give a loud kakagoe that goes "over" your opponent and will hopefully have him reeling! In that regard Bobby's cries are perfect! Loud, short and full of energy. I've now adopted a yell, similar to Bobby's.
• Uchikomi keiko. Nothing much to say, except that Heeren-sensei thought we were all being way too slow. You should immediately jump on an attack once an opening is made.
• Jigeiko. Heeren-sensei saw that, when looking for an opening, I shuffle back and forth. He indicates that, sure, I can move about but I need to make all movement snappy. Always immediately close in with the trailing foot, else I lose all speed and mobility. Roelof-sensei saw that I first raise my shinai when going for hiki-men and that my tsubazeriai has my shinai at a huge angle to the right. Instead, I should always keep my shinai straight up (block the center!) and for hiki-men I only need to let it slide down, to whack a speedy hayai-men. After fighting Zicarlo-sempai he complimented me on my kamae (first time for everything!): apparently I was closed pretty well and he needed to work to make an opening. In my third bout, against Bert-sempai, I was almost run dry on energy. He pulled me through keiko though, encouraging me to go for openings he made. He also pulled me through the post-keiko oki-men practice.

Ten minutes before the end of class, after my last round of kihon with Bert-sempai, I caved. I wasn't breathing properly anymore and knew that if I pushed on I'd collapse. I asked permission from Heeren-sensei to bow out, which he gave. While the rest of class finished their kirikaeshi, I did breathing exercises to both regain my breath and to prevent a panic attack. Everything turned out well and I was feeling good again after dressing.

What a great class! I'm looking forward to Saturday and next Tuesday!

kilala.nl tags: kendo, sports,

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First class of the season, no sensei

2012-09-08 14:03:00

Last tuesday the new kendo season started and today was the first scheduled class in Almere. We got off to an odd start, what with all three of our sensei being absent: holiday, holiday and holiday(?). So instead, Charel-sempai and Mischa-sempai (who is 2nd dan) took charge of our group. All in all they fared pretty well! Our group usually is (too) low on discipline and so a lot of people are chatty, but they managed to reel them in (with a little occasional support from Nick-sempai and myself).

In the absence of our usual teachers, we focused on basics. Charel and Mischa had both attended the recent summer seminar and were eager to transfer a few of the things they learned. 

• Footwork. In general one could say that the weight distribution of the feet is 60/40 on back/front. Put too much on the front and you'll be slow and you'll tip forward. Put too much on the back and your backwards movement is wrong and it also slows you down. 
• Men-strikes. In kamae hold your left fist at navel level (I'm always too low) and aim at the opponent's throat. When striking, the right arm should be straight and the left nearly so. We also did the famous "throw a tenugui" test, where you put a tenugui on the tip of your shinai. If, when you strike men, it flies far away then you are doing the proper "snap!". If it drops to the floor, you are obviously not ;)
• Fumikomi. We practiced timing by doing men-strikes without the walkthrough. Just do the strike+stomp.
• Small men strikes. The common exercise at the seminar was to do repeats of 2x5. Five times you relaxedly lift your shinai onto motodachi's shinai and then five times you do small men strikes. 
• Zanshin. On the walkthrough, when turning back to face your opponent, it is often too slow to first lift the shinai vertical followed by the turn and back to kamae. You'll quickly get a blow to the head. A faster method is to lift the shinai in an arc to the other side (behind you) at the same time that you're turning "around it". 
• Uniform and bogu. Make sure that the knot of the do-himo is horizontal. All nooses must be of equal length and as long as the loose ends. Your keikogi should be straight at the back, no wrinkles! The front of your tare should have space between your belly and the fabric; this is best achieved by putting it on in seiza compared to standing up. When putting on your men, spare your himo by not pulling on the loose ends, but on the himo that run over your head. When taking off the men, first make neat loops of the himo, then pull loose by one men-tare and take off your helmet. Keep it in front of your face while you wipe, then put away.

An interesting class indeed and I'm very grateful for the help of Charel and Mischa.

kilala.nl tags: kendo, sports,

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Kendo season 2012/13

2012-09-04 22:00:00

Tonight marks the start of the 2012/13 kendo season. Unfortunately I'm on standby shift for $CLIENT, so I couldn't make it to the first class in Amstelveen. 

Instead I did my detention work, given to me a few weeks ago by Heeren-sensei for posting a Japanese balad to Facebook :) I can't help it, I just love "Kogarashi ni dakarete". In turn, he told me to do thirty minutes of kirikaeshi (video). It's a bit late, but it was a good start for the season. I did ten repetitions of three minutes, which is ten times four kirikaeshi. The last two repeats were hard, but it was worth it. 

Onward into the new season! /o/

I'm considering enroling for the Fumetsu Cup, which is on the 30th of september.

kilala.nl tags: kendo, sports,

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