I have just returned from the annual European Zone Kendo Referees Seminar in Brussels. At the end of the final day, a grading examination was held and I was invited to be part of the panel for 4th and 5th dan. As an examiner, I of course had the opportunity to watch all the candidates very closely and whilst we do not discuss the outcome of our decision as a group, I was able to pick up the view of several of the other examiners.
Grading panels have to make objective decisions. This does not stop individual examiners feeling sympathy for the candidates who suffer the disappointment of not seeing their number on the results announcement. On this occasion we saw only one of six 4th dans and three of nineteen 5th dans pass. Every individuals’ kendo strengths and weaknesses are basically unique, but in my view, there was one common reason why people were failing these grades on Sunday – lack of presence or pressure and seme.
By and large people were doing technically accurate kendo but of these only the few successful candidates gave the impression that they were stamping their presence on the keiko and making rather than reacting to opportunity. The biggest obvious mistake was that people were just waiting and then attacking after the other player had started to move. This results in aiuchi (same time) strikes or atouchi, hitting after your opponent. 4th and 5th dan are both grades where the holders need to demonstrate the ability to control through kihaku (strength of mind) and from seme (breaking the opponents composure).
To impress the examination panel, from the moment you stand up from sonkyo, your posture and balance needs to show that you are able to move as soon as the opportunity arises. Your initial kiai should be loud and intense and you should also show restraint when there is no obvious chance. Most importantly, you need to be able to step into your opponents distance, make him flinch or twitch and instantly hit men or kote. Two or three times with each opponent is enough, although on Sunday a candidate who made numerous attacks passed, simply because he created the opportunity for each strike by making seme. Just to make things more complicated, you need to do all of this whilst remaining relaxed and flexible.
Following on from my post on debana men, I would like to add some thoughts on degote. Whilst not perhaps as spectacular as a good debana men, it is a great shiai technique.
It is more or less impossible to hit kote, when your opponent is in a strong, secure chudan kamae. You have to make him open the target, either by physically knocking his shinai to the right, or by making him show the kotebuton by lifting his shinai. Degote relies on this upward movement.
My preferred approach to this waza is as follows – From isoku ito ma, raise the point of your shinai to the right, in the direction of your opponent’s left eye. This should be only a slight movement. You need do no more than squeeze gently with the little finger of your left hand to make the point move. As you do this, it is likely, (although not guaranteed), that your opponent will see the chance to hit your men and start to lift his shinai. As soon as he does this push off from your left foot and hit kote. The footwork and weight distribution should be the same as for debana men, but because kote is closer, you should not have to travel as far forward. Do not wait until his hand is in the air, you should strike at the beginning of his move so that although you now see the target, it should still be parallel with the ground.
Degote is a small technique, but do not make the mistake of just using your left hand as a pivot and pushing with your right. You should try to lift your left hand and throw it forward, taking your right hand with it. Do not have the feeling of chopping down. Instead think about flicking the point out and forward like a chameleon’s tongue catching a fly. Also your body should be square on to your opponent’s kote. It helps to move your right foot across the centre line as you attack so that you finish with the toes of your right foot in line with the toes of your opponent’s right foot.
Finally your zanshin should be correct, either pointing your shinai to the opponents centre, or if one or both of you is moving forward quickly, stop in tsubazeriai. Do not spoil the technique by twisting or ducking. Keep your posture.
Many years ago I naively asked an elderly Japanese sensei “what is the difference between debana men and degashira men”. I was told that “it depended on whether your opponent had a big nose or a big forehead”. Logical really, when you consider that debana refers to the forward movement of your opponents nose and degashira the same for the front of the head.
Whatever the terminology, debana men is the “holy grail” of kendo. It is the most desirable waza to display in high dan grading examinations and enbu. In my view, the reason why it is such a special technique is that it requires the ability to attack instantly, without conscious thought in the spirit of “mushin”.
To effectively achieve debana men, your preparation needs to be perfect. You must be in your own issoku ito ma, have a feeling of pressure between your kisaki and your opponent’s, have your left heel off the ground and a 60:40 distribution of weight between your left and right foot. As soon as your opponent starts his attack, you should push forward from your left foot and strike in the “timing of one“. Effectively, you are making the down stroke whilst your opponent is starting his upward raise.
This is clearly a technique that calls for repeated practice. One simple drill for this, is working with a partner, move into issoku ito mai. Both hold the strongest chudan that you can and build up a feeling of pressure. Ensure that your feet are in correct kendo position and that the left heel is up and the weight balance is as described. Motodachi should wait until the feeling of pressure between you is palpable and then quickly lean slightly forward whilst lifting the shinai to the right and moving the right foot forward by just a few centimetres. As soon as he does this kakarite should attack men instantly.
I include this drill in most kihon sessions and although it encourages small men strikes, it can be taught at most levels as long as big kihon men is practised in the same session for more junior kendoka. I believe that it is worth doing this on a regular, ongoing basis. It is worth sweating over to achieve the “wow! Did I do that” feeling when you make debana men is shiai or keiko.
We were working on men suriage men and men suriage kote and people seem to have a degree of difficulty with both. I touched on this in an earlier broader post on oji waza, but there seem to be a number of problems with timing and distance that stop people from mastering these useful techniques.
If we look at men suriage men, my view is that the technique can be completed successfully without stepping back or to the side. If your timing and distance are correct, you can just push off from your left foot as your opponent makes his attack, lift your shinai up as his comes down and just deflect his blow with the shape of your shinai before striking men. Keep in mind that suriage translates as “sliding lift” and is not harai waza. The key factors to success are:
You have to keep the point of your shinai forward.
You must not anticipate your opponents attack, but you should relax and wait till it is nearly complete.
Distance must be correct, so that the suriage is made by the monouchi touching the monouchi.
Your opponent must attack correctly, lifting and cutting down in a single movement and maintaining the centre line. (If this is not possible, then a good alternative kihon drill is to make your opponent attack tsuki and respond with suriage men).
Just use gentle pressure to slide your shinai up against his. Do not put power into your right hand. Some sensei suggest making a “D” shaped movement to deflect the shinai. I think that this is overkill and requires too much right hand pressure. A simple slide upward should be enough.
Once you have made a successful strike, you should continue forward, through your opponents centre line, maintaining zanshin and turning when you are in safe distance.
For suriage against kote, there are some marked changes. First you need to move your left foot out diagonally whilst pushing your left hand forward and turning your right wrist anticlockwise. This makes the suriage sharper and into more of a blocking motion. Kote is closer to your opponent than men, so your suriage should be made closer to your tsuba. Although this is a “harder” technique than men suriage men, again do not be tempted to use too much right hand power.
Thinking back to my distant days as a student, I remember wading through a book entitled “Finance for non Accountants”. Picking up on the perceptions of kendo amongst people who have not tried it themselves, a similar “Kendo for non Kendoka” might be of value. Strangely enough, practitioners of other martial arts often have the most distorted view of kendo. A friend who was fairly advanced in one of the “harder” schools of karate told me, “you guys are nuts, the way you beat the living cr-p out of each other with sticks”. Another kick boxing, MMA competitor in his twenties, explained that kendo looked “far too fast for me”.
It is only on probing deeper into what they have seen of kendo, that I realise they have witnessed demonstrations of what you or I would not class as real kendo. Although now with youtube, anyone can see the real thing, but it is easier to find if you know what you are looking for.
What many people have seen, are demonstrations at non kendo events, where folk who do not know the basics thrash away at each other; typically wearing kendo equipment in their own unique way. Often the demonstrators are very able martial artists, but unfortunately, kendo is not their major. This is also true of some of the film and TV portrayals of the art. There is a great scene from one of the James Bond films, (I can’t remember which one), where a would be assassin, bundled up in kendogu smashes up a range of inanimate objects. This is nearly as funny as the old Inspector Clueseau film scene, featuring Kato (pronounced Kayto),who shows a similar level of wanton vandalism.
Ther are of course exceptions in the film industry. One that comes to mind is Kataoka sensei of New York, who is both an accomplished actor and an excellent nanadan kendoka. Unfortunately he never seems to play the kendo part, he was the non kendoka son, of kendo playing policeman, Takakura Ken in Black Rain.
So suggestions would be welcome on how we educate the general public on what is kendo. We could emulate the beer lovers CAMRA, (Campaign for Real Ale), with a Campaign for Real Kendo; but the acronym does not work. We could go with my book idea, or we could get some of the better looking kendoka to try for a career in Hollywood. Maybe we should just work on the basis that ignorance is bliss, and admit only those that wait for a few days outside the dojo door. Come to think of it though, I have still got a soft spot for Kendo Nagasaki.
Having enjoyed the Christmas holidays, I was looking forward to my New Year kendo jump-start. I managed one practice before the snowy weather, or more accurately Britain’s inability to cope with snowy weather scuppered my plans.
Today was scheduled for our national kangeiko and kyu grade taikai, which we had to cancel because of transport difficulties, so I have been consoling myself by scanning the internet for cheap flights to the international kendo events that I am scheduled to attend this year. So far, I have bought tickets for the referee’s seminar in Brussels and the Irish Open Taikai in February. I have accepted an invitation to teach at a seminar in Norway in July/August and I am waiting to see if I am selected to referee at the European Championships in Hungary. I am also working on the embryonic plan to take part in this year’s Kyoto Taikai. These plus the round of seminars and taikai planned throughout the year in the UK should keep my weekends fairly busy.
As much as I enjoy my normal practice, it is a real pleasure to train in different places with different people, particularly when you cross borders and notice subtle changes in the approach to keiko. As I mentioned in earlier posts about ko-ken-chi-ai, kendo also gives you an instant social connection to other practitioners, so when I travel to compete, or referee, or teach, or learn; it always feels as if I am going to spend time with friends, either old or new.
So the longer term kendo prospects are starting to cheer me up, and I am hoping that there is sufficient grit on the roads to get to Mumeishi tomorrow.
Today I received a kanreki chanchaku-ko from Yanai Norimitsu sensei. So, the good news for British kendo is that I will be endowing my stash of red fundoshi to younger, more streamlined kendoka.
I have always been fascinated by the variety of doudai available and have spent hours in Japanese bogu shops staring at the selection. For some reason the more outlandish models are kept on the top shelf, (rather like magazines in the newspaper shop). I have seen dou covered in deerskin, wild boar skin and even bear skin –all of these with the hair on. I can clearly see the advantage of these in shiai. If your opponent hits dou, the shinpan would not be able to hear it. However in the forty plus years that I have been doing and watching kendo, I have never seen anyone wear one.
Only slightly more common, are the dou with lacquered designs, showing scenes and animals in glorious colour. One of the few people I have seen wear one was a gentleman who regularly turned up at shiai during my time in Kansai wearing a glorious confection of gold tigers and dragons chasing around on a vermillion background. After making a startling first impression with this piece of kit, he invariably got beaten two nil, packed his dou and returned on the next occasion to display it again.
More recently there has been a trend back to the old style take-dou where the original bamboo slats are visible in their naked form. Then you have the new style car paint shop and iridescent moulded finishes and the choice goes on.
I have had two non plain black versions during my longish kendo career. One had a slightly cracked baka-urushi finish and a blue suede mune. The other was a vermillion dou, now faded to a tasteful brown, which I received as a present from my sensei. Both have mysteriously become too small for me, so I passed them on to Alan Thompson and Max Davies, both British Squad members. It was actually quite a buzz to see two medal winners at the recent Mumeishi taikai wearing my old bogu.
There really seems to be no rule about which colours can be worn at which grade and it remains a matter of personal taste and confidence as to what can be worn. I notice however at occasions like the Kyoto Taikai, the majority of Kodansha (6th 7th and 8th dans) go for a plain black dou dai. It was once explained to me by a teacher who had begun his career pre-war, that black was the senior colour as in black belt, (yes! I know there are belt colours above for kodansha). In his view black had been borrowed by folk lower down the grade scale until it became the norm.
Personally, I have always fancied a ray skin same dou, but not having the impudence to outshine the hanshi or a spare 500,000+ Yen, I think I will stick to black.
Your answers to my two polls have been interesting, but not surprising;
Why you started – There was a almost a 50:50 split between the cultural and the physical with 30% attracted by an interest in Japanese culture and 28% looking for an enjoyable way to keep fit. 10% of you added kendo to your study of martial arts, 8% enjoy fighting, and a few people were inspired by manga or Star Wars. The individual reasons you gave were clearly individual, and ranged from interests in fencing, to role play; to seeing it as a replacement for rugby. Two respondents went for character building and self improvement. My favourites were “Was interested in the Katana from an engineering viewpoint” and the Cantonaesque ”To find a better path for my sword walk”.
Kendo objectives - The winner was self-improvement at 30%, with making friends and enjoying the social life a close second at 25%. Perhaps because of the social life aspect, fitness waned as an ongoing objective, slipping down to 10% of the vote. Working toward gaining higher grades, got a mixed response with 12% of you indicating satisfaction with a 4th or 5th dan end game, 9% aiming for 8th dan, and 7% ,7th. In the individual answers section one person reminded me that 6th dan was also an option. Further variations on self-improvement were flagged up here as well as the superbly zen-like “train without objectives”. My favourite answer here was,” to be able to perform a perfect cut at will”.
There was only one example of hero worship in the answer “To be as good as” not Eiga, or Miyazaki, or Ishida, no! the role model was none other than “Andy Fisher”.
As a lifelong fan of what is, even by martial arts standards, a minority sport, I am interested to learn what other kendoka are interested in and aiming for in their practise. I am also keen to learn why you took up kendo in the first place. The format of the two polls below might be too simplistic, so if your own objectives and reason for starting are not shown or won’t fit, please send me a comment.
Also let me take this opportunity to wish you all a very Happy Christmas and New Year. Rainen mo yoroshiku onegaishimasu.
I have just returned from the annual European Zone Kendo Referees Seminar in Brussels. At the end of the final day, a grading examination was held and I was invited to be part of the panel for 4th and 5th dan. As an examiner, I of course had the opportunity to watch all the candidates very closely and whilst we do not discuss the outcome of our decision as a group, I was able to pick up the view of several of the other examiners.
