Coincidental to my last post on tsubazeriai, I was asked some interesting questions stemming from an incident that happened at the Mumeishi 3’s Championship last weekend.According to an eyewitness report, there had been a controversial shiai, where one kendoka, had through a succession of  taiatari shoves, put his opponent on the floor and then hit him across the back. I was asked for my view on the legality of such an attack and my view of the reaction of the referees. Now the Mumeishi taikai is quite popular with 3 courts and this year, 84 teams. My job was as shinpan shunin for Court A and this happened on Court C, so having seen nothing of the incident, a considered opinion was impossible. Still, thanks to the wonders of the internet and the digital camera, someone had captured the action and posted it on YouTube. 

Having held back for as long as possible, I trawled youtube and found the offending match. Surprisingly, I had no problem with the attack on the floor. It looked as if the attacker had aimed for men, and if the referees had not called yame, this was perfectly legal. What did attract my attention were several taiatari attempts where the culprit was pushing at chin height and it was the last of these that “decked” his opponent. In my view this is unforgiveable. Taiatari should be at waist height and if you happen to nudge the opponent out of the shiaijo then good for you, but pushing to the face to either disorientate or weaken your opponent is just not kendo.

I do not know what the referees decided as the the video showed them stopping for gogi. I did not see a hansoku given, but that may have been because of the video rather than the shiai outcome. Had I been shushin however, I would have penalised each of the pushes with hansoku.

My last Saturday was spent as a referee at the increasingly popular Mumeishi 3’s tournament. This friendly competition attracted 84 teams from numerous countries and kept the referees occupied for a long hard day. However as a good-will event made up of mixed kyu / dan teams and with separate children’s and ladies events, the standard of competitor behaviour is pretty high and the number of hansoku fouls handed out is limited.

However the conversation in the referees room did get round to how to manage overly long tsubazeriai. This was especially topical in view of the piece in George McCall’s excellent blog about the changes being brought in for high-school kendo in Japan. As suggested in George’s blog, it is a good indication that this will bubble upwards to adult kendo and will therefore be eventually adopted internationally.

Putting aside the other tsubazeriai infringements such as touching the opponent’s jinbu with your fist or attempting to trap the shinai by hooking it with your own, the referee’s biggest concern is whether extended tsubazeriai is a deliberate ploy to waste time. This is particularly true when it can be used to tactical advantage, i.e. one point ahead in a shiai, or if a draw will get you by in a team match.

My own formula is fairly simple – wakare in the first instance, maybe a second wakare if there is an element of doubt and then come the hansoku, one each if the time wasting is mutual but if the  shinpan team can detect that the hold-up is  caused by either individual  player: then the culprit alone is penalised. Hopefully the offenders get the message whilst there is only one hansoku on the board, but a repeat can lead to ippon-ari and potentially the loss of the match.

As I understand the new rule, it gives a defined 10 second period after which the competitors must separate to correct distance.  The only real change is that everyone knows when the axe will fall and the poor old referee will not get blamed for making an arbitrary decision. Still I am sure we can find something else to blame him for.

I have always found that the easiest time to hit someone is when they step back. This is normally because in the act of doing so, they break concentration and lose their kamae. Theoretically, if your chudan is correct it is impossible for an opponent to strike you. However when you step backwards, particularly when you do so to avoid your opponent’s pressure, you risk moving the point of your shinai from the centre. This is a perfect opportunity for your opponent to attack men. It is surprising that even strong players make this mistake. In most cases they do so to give them sufficient distance to make their own attack, but once they are on the back foot, it is relatively simple for the other party to take an extra step forward and strike.

It is not difficult to avoid this problem, simply do not step back. If you think about keeping the point of the shinai forward at all times it is easier to apply counter techniques and the worst that can happen is that you both move forward into tsubazeriai. Now you can move back safely into fighting distance, but do so watching your opponent and covering his shinai. Most importantly ensure that you keep your left heel off the ground, as once your heel is planted you are unable to move in any direction and again become an easy target.

I realise that this advice is taking a somewhat negative tone in being a list of things not to do. Looking at it in a more positive light, your objective is to keep moving forward. Constantly take the fight to your opponents half of the court or practice area and break his or her posture and kamae by strongly stepping into their distance. When we talk about this, the question most often asked is “what happens if your opponent also comes forward”. This does and will happen, but your mind set should be that you will dominate and if you really believe that, the chances are that the other player will crumble under the pressure.

I touched on tenouchi in an early post on holding the shinai and in my report on Chiba sensei’s first UK seminar. I make no excuses for posting about it again, because it is an important aspect of kendo and in many cases, the final piece of the puzzle that decides whether or not a technique results in ippon.

 Tenouchi translates simply as “the inside of the hand” and in kendo means the squeezing action of both hands at the point of striking. If you squeeze too hard or too early, the point of the shinai will not extend forward sufficiently to strike the target correctly and crisply. In some kendojo people were, and maybe still are, taught to wring the shinai between both hands at the point of cutting. Unfortunately this has the effect of causing the point of the shinai to rise on impact, so it actually defeats the purpose of using it as an aid to finish the cut correctly.

 Like every other component of kendo, tenouchi should be relaxed and natural. Rather than create an artificial action at the end of your cutting swing, you should start the movement holding the shinai correctly. That is with the end of the tsuka fitting into the heel of your left hand and the little finger and ring finger applying slight pressure with the middle , index finger and thumb barely making contact. For the right hand the grip is the same, but if anything lighter and the knuckle of the forefinger should lightly brush the tsuba. If this is uncomfortable, chances are your tsuka is too long. I cannot overemphasise that your grip should be light. If someone tries to pull your shinai forward out of your hand, it should slide forward without protest or friction. A further key point is that your wrists should turn in slightly, so that the centre of the V formed by thumb and forefinger of each hand should be at a 90 degree angle to the ground. 

Holding the shinai in this way, you should aim to cut through the men to chin level and kote through the thickness of the wrist and squeeze lightly with the little and index fingers after the point of impact. You should not change your grip at any stage of the cut.

As the kendo versus Iai debate has continued, I have given way to popoular demand by posting the two image polls below. The output from these should help sociologists, anthropologists and sports scientists reach a definitive understanding of how practitioners of the two arts regards each other.

The polls have been scientifically designed by Kendoinfo’s crack team of behavioural scientists and statisticians and  meet the standards  of objectivity and rigour insisted upon by national governments.

Please think carefully before choosing an option, whilst the purpose of these polls is to understand what you truly think. The future harmonious relationship of these kindred martial arts depends on the choice you make today.

Thank you for your valued opinion

On Sunday after the Dublin Open we ran a kendo seminar. It took the form that most people would recognise, with lots of work on basics in the morning and moving on to more technical waza practice after lunch. I taught suriage men as part of a series of oji techniques. As you may have seen in previous posts , my view on suriage waza  is  simple – You create the opportunity, slide up the shinai and cut down in one movement and without moving back or to the side, go forward to your opponents centre as you finish the attack.

After spending some time practising this, Henrik, one of the senior Dublin members, asked the question, “what happens when you try this and you have 150kg of Noel bearing down on you”. Now to be fair to Noel, he does not really way 150kg, but he is significantly bigger than Henrik. Rather than just explain, I demonstrated how it would work against Noel. As expected, he came forward strongly for shikake men, but stopped when my technique hit. I was able to finish my attack going forward, without moving from the centre line.

The logic is simple.  As long as your distance is correct, you keep your point forward and stick to raising the shinai and hitting in one continuous movement, the strength of your attack will break your opponent’s forward motion. One other tip to bear in mind is that if your opponent is coming forward, you can use their movement, so you do not have to step in as deeply as for shikake waza.

So, problem solved, but then thinking about it after I realise that many people are reluctant to commit to aim for their opponents centre in a spirit of sutemi (sacrifice), whether they are initiating shikake or oji waza. This is particularly true for smaller people, who may fear injury from a collision with a bigger person.

 If this is a concern, I have two suggestions. Firstly, seme – If you truly break your opponents’ centre, they have nothing left to hit you with. Secondly learn correct taiatari. If you keep your weight down and your hands low, you should be able survive clashes with opponents of any size. I can’t guarantee that you will not be the one who bounces back, but you can do it with strong posture and balance, safely ready to make the next attack.

I have just returned from a kendo weekend in Ireland and was impressed, to say the least, by the volume of comments, both on and offline, relating to my last two posts, that were awaiting my return. I was planning to follow up with a further poll on Iai and Kendo people’s perception of each other, but I have decided to hold that back until the Xmas pantomime season.

Richard Foster has stolen my thunder with an accurate summary of the preference poll. I will make no further comment , other than to add that I have no intention to defame any individual, living or dead.  I don’t particularly like cricket, but it doesn’t stop me from enjoying Phil Tuffnel’s rhumba on Strictly Come Dancing.

Much encouraged by the healthy debate surrounding my “Why I hate Iai” post. I thought it worth throwing  the subject out  in the true spirit of democracy, that recent speakers at BKA meetings have assured us that people have “fought and died for” . So here is the chance for you to make your views known.

PS. If anyone can be arsed to fill this in, there may well be a follow up on the types of individual attracted by Iai and Kendo.

Last year the British Kendo Association was hijacked by a group of power hungry Iai players. In the true British spirit of protest I slightly raised an eyebrow at the time. Now I hear from my crack team of ninja informers that there are suggestions in place for every kendo member to learn some Iai. Well, in the words of my wife’s old dance teacher “I would rather do the splits over a blow lamp”.

To be honest I did try Iai in Japan, to please a teacher who taught both kendo and iai. A CV of my Iai career reads thus:  6.45 pm reported for practise – 7.00 with difficulty managed to stuff Iaito into hakama, pausing to adjust so the saya was on the outside – 7.05 attempted standing rei and iaito fell out of saya denting pristine dojo floor – 7.10 sensei suggested that I leave the dojo, eat a bowl of noodles and return for kendo practise – 7.30 enjoyed bowl of kitsune udon – 8.30 returned to dojo and practised kendo without further incident  – 10.30 retired for drinks with sensei – 11.30 promised not to try iai again – 12.00 had another drink to seal deal. 12.30 – missed last train home – 1.00 a.m took taxi home at cost of JPY 30,000

Perhaps slightly scarred by this experience, I have watched Iai on a number of occasions since and not had even the slightest desire to try. I know a number of people suggest that, if you practise kendo you must do iai, or vice versa, but to my mind, you may as well add ikebana, sado or origami. Some of reasons I feel no connection with Iaido are as follows:

• Kendo requires a minimum of two people, as does lovemaking – Iai requires one, (read into that what you will)
• Iai requires you to dress up in silky clothes and strike poses
• Iai shiai (is that the correct term?) have the winners decided by vote, rather like ice skating
• Whereas even stopping for water is frowned on in kendo, Iai allows for the intake of tea and biscuits
• As a fan of “sweaty workouts”, I would miss having to wring out my keikogi

Do not get me wrong. I can see the value of Iai when it comes to drawing and putting away the mogito, as part of Kendo-no-kata, but the idea of turning up for seitei iai is not for me.

I have recently been re-reading an english translation of Yukio Mishima’s Runnaway Horses. Although I am sure that the translator must have done a grand job, there are a number of references to kendo that are pretty difficult to recognise. For example he writes about “kendo forms” , “without masks” and refers to ”round one ending and round two beginning”. OK, so rough guess suggests Kendo no kata, ippon me and nihon me.

Mishima himself was an experienced kendoka, so it is likely that he used the original kendo terms. Obviously the translator tried to make Mishima’s description of kendo understandable to a wide audience, but in doing so, he made it harder for kendoka of any nationality to understand. Why? because we are used to Japanese terminology in kendo. Some time ago the ZNKR issued an english language video, where everything had been changed into English. We had “blows to the head” and the “forearm”, which we all had to mentally change back to men and kote.

Now I am not advocating the use of Japanese or English to describe kendo, but I suppose I am used to the status quo and find it easier to use Japanese, particulary for complex terms. Sen no sen still makes more sense to me than Mr Lidstone’s “forehand forestall”