To push or not to push?

Tai-atari image from Kendo, a Comprehensive Guide

To mix a number of metaphors – The road to kendo satori is paved with conflicting advice. We have to choose, or more likely we are told, either to put our tenugui inside or outside our men before or after practice, to make our suburi bigger or smaller and to use or not use tai-atari as part of kirikaeshi.

The kirikaeshi question is an interesting one. For such a standardised, widely practised exercise, there is considerable variation between the ways it is taught in different dojo. Distance, speed and timing tend to vary, there are two schools of thought as to where the break in continuous breathing should be, but the key point of contention is whether or not to make tai-atari after the shomen strike, before starting on the yoko-men sequence.

If you are kendo student the chances are that you will have no say in how you do the drill. The way you go about it will be dictated by your instructor’s preference; having said that, a thoughtful instructor will take your experience and skill level into account.

Tai-atari in kirikaeshi replicates the situation in keiko or shiai when the opponent remains in front of you after your first attack. You need to move into tsubazeriai and push him backward and attack again either with a hikibana or hikiwaza technique. So it’s a useful thing to practice. On the other hand unless your posture is developed to a level where you can constantly keep your hips and centre engaged while relaxing your shoulders, making tai-atari immediately after a men attack causes you to lean forward and use your shoulders. This makes you unstable and therefore unable to move quickly to the next technique.

What I am trying to say in a rather long-winded way, is that if you can do tai-atari correctly, then do it. This means that your posture should be completely upright but when you make contact with your opponents’ hands you should lower your hips and push down lightly, not relying on upper body strength.

If on the other hand this is new to you, then the best way forward is not to push, but to remain in the position in which you hit men as your partner steps back into the correct distance for you to start the yoko-men sequence. In some dojo this is practised with an emphasis on motodachi creating as much distance as possible – to encourage kakarite to stretch to reach the target.

My personal view is that this no-touch approach will serve most people well up to 3^rd dan level, but again, your instructor should know best.

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New Year Kendo Objectives

At the beginning of each New Year most of us think about our goals for the coming year’s kendo. These are normally ambitious and take the form of committing to pass the next dan examination or winning certain competitions, or making it into the National Team. Certainly these are all worthy ambitions and if you think you can achieve them, go flat-out to make it happen.

What we often ignore however, are the components we need to make our kendo strong enough to reach these heights. It is worth taking time to reflect on your kendo strengths and weaknesses and to isolate the elements that if worked on, would make the biggest difference to your future improvement. Naturally these vary enormously depending on your experience level and your physical condition, but here are some that you could work on that may make a big difference to your rate of progress:-

• Footwork – Ensure that you always bring your left foot up in hikitsuke, so that you are always ready to move the instant that you see an opening. Think about keeping your left heel off the ground so that the foot makes a 15 degree angle against the floor and you will have the power to launch at will.
• Posture and balance- Hold yourself perfectly upright, but with the feeling of leaning half a degree forward. Use your hips and back to power the strike and keep your arms and shoulders relaxed. Keep your posture after you hit and make strong zanshin.
• Review your kamae – Check that your targets are not visible and make sure that your hands and arms can move quickly and freely when you see an opportunity.
• Think about tenouchi – Hold the shinai lightly with ring and little fingers and squeeze gently only after you have made contact with your opponents bogu.
• Make opportunities – Break your partners centre with strong seme or subtly invite him to attack to create the chance for ojiwaza.
• Commit – When you attack make sure that you do so wholeheartedly with a feeling of sutemi. Do not hedge your bets by thinking of stopping or going around him. Once you fire the bullet, there should be no way of stopping it.
• Be dignified – Win or lose show kigurai, but do so with humility.

Whether we are thinking about these points for the first time or are experienced kendoka who have thought about them time and time again, we should constantly review the basics and make sure that we do not let bad habits creep in.

If you have a master plan for achieving kendo greatness in 2013, please include some of these basics in your preparation. On the other hand if your aim is just to make the most of your keiko then perfecting any of these points would be a worthy ambition on its own.

Whatever your plans have a happy and successful 2013.

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British Army Kendo

I am now recovered from man-flu. Thank you well-wishers for your concern! I was back in the dojo last week and on Thursday had a visit from the British Army kendo team who are training for an inter-forces competition this weekend. After kihon practise we had a friendly shiai and finished with jigeiko.

During jigeiko the newest member of the Army squad stood there waiting for me to hit him. I am not keen on conversation in keiko, but thought a few words might be in order, so suggested that it might be a good idea for him to try attacking. He then expressed the view that it would be better if I went first. I then politely asked how long he had practised kendo, to which the response was 17 hours. I then did a quick calculation along the lines of an average of 8 hours keiko per week, over 50 weeks per year for 43 years,  gives me about 25,000 hours, so perhaps he would like to attack first and catch-up.

Talking to the rest of the squad in the pub after training, it was obvious that our friends in the forces have very different challenges to us civilian martial artists. With members being deployed at short notice to Afghanistan and Iraq, it is difficult for the same group to train regularly together, and with an emphasis put on “competitive sport”, forces teams are made up of experienced players and those who are just keen to give it a try. They then go through short periods of concerted training leading up to competition. As a good team member my reluctant attacker was practising “not getting hit”, with team strategy in mind.

It is good to know that kendo is now officially recognised by all three branches of our armed forces and many British universities including Oxford and Cambridge. Whereas kendo in the UK used to be practised only in unofficial clubs, it is now starting to gain more establishment acceptance. The trade-off is that these institutions expect to see a healthy level of competition along the same lines as other more established sports. Oxford and Cambridge have their boat race and their varsity kendo competition. In the same way the Army, Navy and Air Force have regular inter service competitions, as they do for Rugby.

So Army Team, I hope you were successful on Saturday and that kendo continues to increase in popularity. As for the man with 17 hours experience behind him, he was doing brilliantly under the circumstances.

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Kakarigeiko and man-flu

With Uegaki sensei

Regular readers of this blog will be aware that I am a keen advocate of the value of kihon training. I also believe it is unreasonable for any instructor to prescribe activities that he or she is not prepared or able to do personally.

Now in my 60’s I am hugely impressed by some of the Japanese sensei of my generation who refuse to act their age. Yamanaka sensei and Uegaki Isao sensei immediately come to mind as role models. I have had the pleasure of training with Uegaki sensei several times in his dojo in Yoshino. He invariably includes kakarigeiko in training sessions for kenshi of all ages and grades, including himself.

I recently resolved to add more kakarigeiko to my own training schedule and if I am going to suffer, so should everyone else.  At last Thursday’s practise in my local dojo, we concluded with 5 or 6 repetitions of kakarigeiko and I felt not only more virtuous but physically better for it.

I had the best of intentions to include kakarigeiko in yesterday’s morning practice at Mumeishi. Unfortunately I woke up with a case of “man-flu” and feeling unable to live up to my own expectations, I kept to the usual kirikaeshi and waza geiko routine before taking my place for motodachigeiko. I am determined however to get back on track as soon as I have stopped coughing and snivelling.

Following Uegaki sensei’s advice and example, I realise that us senior citizens can get as much benefit from kakarigeiko as do our younger, fitter colleagues. The elements that do not change are total commitment and big correct technique. Additionally we oldsters need to pay even more attention to producing strong kiai and seme, correct posture and good zanshin. So albeit slower than it used to be, kakarigeiko can still be a vital component of our training plan.

Whereas in hikitate geiko with less experienced players there is a tendency to rely on ojiwaza, kakarigeiko ensures that you make strong effective shikake waza against every partner. As such, it ensures that you constantly use your whole repertoire of kendo techniques and do not forget the value of making good seme men. The other benefits of this kind of training are increased appetite for a post-keiko beer and the ability to sleep like a baby.

So like any good male cold sufferer, I stopped off at Superdrug on my way home from keiko and collected a carrier bag full of vitamin C tablets, paracetamol, linctus and lozenges. I now plan to retire to bed with these and my Kindle. I will of course be keeping in touch with my wife by phone, sending frequent requests for soup and hot lemon and honey drinks. I should hopefully emerge by Tuesday, like an energised butterfly from a chrysalis ready for more kakarigeiko.

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“Boys be ambitious”

I am no longer surprised by beginners who after a few weeks in armour, are bursting to take up nito or jodan. Everyone who starts kendo does so with a vision of the kenshi that they wish to become. Of course having a goal to aim for is totally worthy. William S. Clark’s parting words to the students of Sapporo Agricultural College “Boys be ambitious”, became common currency in Japan, and are still quoted a hundred and thirty years after he said them.

We live in an instant age. Whereas singers and musicians achieved fame after years of learning their trade by gigging in pubs and clubs, todays “superstars” reach their dreams by appearing on talent shows. Clearly this view is slightly coloured by my status as a “grumpy old man”, but as a member of the “me” generation, I am probably as much to blame as is Simon Cowell. To face facts, there are no instant gains in kendo. Skill is built on years of hard training.

I have discussed the challenges of building patience into the kendo learning process with a number of my betters; particularly Chiba sensei. His view as a jodan player is that until you can invariably produce accurate waza from chudan with correct ki-ken-tai-itchi you should not move on to the more esoteric aspects of kendo. If you can’t control one sword then you are doubling the difficulty with two and if your feet and hands don’t work together then you will not solve the problem by reversing your foot position when you take jodan. In my humble (and Chiba sensei’s less humble) view, good kendo is built on the foundation of following good instruction and repeatedly practising basic techniques in chudan.

The stage at which people should embark on a shiai career follows similar logic. It is admirable to want to test your skill in competition against others, but unless you can do basic techniques correctly, you risk developing bad habits that could spoil your further development. One or two early exposures to competition will probably help confirm your place in the kendo universe, but without a good basis of accurate fundamental kendo, continued training with shiai in mind will harm rather than help your future development.

So far it all sounds rather gloomy, but to my mind, the joy in learning kendo is in training for its own sake and when something falls into place then the pleasure of achievement is enormous. Of course when you have assembled your kendo tool-kit then you can go on to become a great shiai player, whether in chudan, jodan or nito. As good old Bill Clark might have said “Boys be ambitious, but give it a bit of time”.

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The importance of suburi

Sueno sensei, hanshi hachidan and 1979 All Japan Championship winner from Kagoshima, is currently in the UK and has just given us a very interesting seminar. At the opening stage, he stressed the importance of continuing suburi throughout your kendo career and made the point that ”if you can’t do suburi, no matter how long your kendo experience, you can’t do kendo”.

He instructed that the path of the shinai in suburi should be smooth, in line with the centre of the body and close to the head and that we should use all three joints; shoulders, elbows and wrists.  He also insisted that we should ensure that we use the muscles in the underside of our arms rather than those on top. To achieve this, we should pull our arms back past the midpoint of the top of our heads and feel these muscles engage before starting the downswing. Once this has been achieved and the muscle memory kicks in, we are able to make our upswing smaller and smaller and that in keiko or shiai, the cut can be as small as you wish as long as it has impact.. We should not pull our elbows out and arms should remain relaxed. When viewed from the back our shoulder width should not change throughout the whole striking process.

Sueno sensei also talked about the old commonly taught concept of shibori (wringing the hands on completion of the cut), being incorrect and that we should not change our grip from beginning to end of the cut. He explained that the hands throughout the cut should be in kirite (cutting hand) position, although they could be extended in nobite (extended hand) form to lengthen our reach on impact. He also torpedoed the old myth that we should straighten our right arm on cutting men by demonstrating that doing this gave a 4 to 5 centimetre reach advantage, but that the resultant body imbalance caused us to lose 30 or 40 centimetres of distance from our footwork.

Sensei then went on to take us through a sequence of waza geiko, uchikomi geiko and kakarigeiko exercises, constantly reinforcing the concept of accurate relaxed swing. The other key point that was accentuated was correct breathing. When you breathe in you are open to attack, so before you enter fighting distance, you should breathe in quickly and conserve your breath in your tanden until you can conclude a successful waza. Finally he made the point that if you miss with your attack you should keep going until you make a successful strike.

Although I was there in an assistant instructor role, the temptation to try things myself was overwhelming. The highlight of the seminar for me was a keiko with Sueno sensei, who was of course, impossible to hit. As the old song goes “It don’t mean a thing, If you ain’t got that swing”.

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Weight training for kendo

One of the longest running debates on the Linkedin kendo forum is on the question of cross training for kendo. This has created a polarisation of opinion almost as meaningless yet as keenly contested as Jonathan Swift’s conflict between the “Big Endians” and “Little Endians” who fought bitterly over which end of a boiled egg to open.

In this case the big endians feel that gym activity is essential to kendo progress whereas the little endians will make the sign of the cross or recite the lotus sutra at the very mention of treadmills or weights. I personally am somewhere between the two camps. I would far rather practice kendo than pump iron, but if I have limited access to kendo practice I will happily use the gym for cardio vascular exercise and do low weight, high rep exercise on resistance machines to keep essential muscles working. Having said that I have absolutely no scientific knowledge of which stamina or resistance exercises best supplement kendo training. It’s more a matter of guesswork. It seems logical that if you can run for an hour, then you should be able to practice kendo for the same length of time. Where I am far less enthusiastic about gym work, is where it replaces time in the dojo as it has in many cases with Judo. 

After the victory of the 120kg Dutch man Anton Geesink in the Judo open class at Judo’s Olympic debut in 1964, Judo training for many athletes became increasingly focused on strength exercises.  Whether this change was caused by the loss of Japanese monopoly, or by Judo’s emergence as an Olympic sport, or the subsequent introduction of the lower value yuko and koka to the scoring system, Judo changed irrevocably.

Traditionally martial art training was based on repetition. In kendo this was exemplified by Yamaoka Tesshu‘s approach where a succession of opponents was faced in a concentrated period. By and large, this is still the way we train in kendo, with the constant repetition of suburi, kirikaeshi and waza geiko; aiming for that moment of no-mind or clarity where the technique emerges without conscious effort to meet the target. I am sure that sports-scientists have biomechanical models that can make kendo actions better and easier to achieve, but I wonder whether a more scientific approach will dilute the spirit of kendo.

Everything is subject to change, and kendo will of course continue to change and develop as it becomes more popular and more international. The way we train is still a subject of discussion between the Big and Little Endians, but for me, now that the latest gym membership has lapsed, my only other form of exercise is carrying my bogu from the car park to the dojo.

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Kendo Training – Frequency and intensity

A regularly asked question is “how often should I train to gain maximum improvement in my kendo?” My honest answer would be “at least three times a week.” Once a week and you are not going to make any real progress, twice and you may improve slightly if you already have a strong grounding, but train three times a week and you are able to reinforce your good habits and learn new skills.

This is however an unrealistic goal for many people. Busy working lives, family commitments and the lack of local dojo often make the ideal training schedule untenable.

The other part of the equation is how you use your time in the dojo. If you turn up, shoot the breeze for half an hour then enjoy one or two leisurely jigeiko before retiring to the pub, you are not going to improve much, even if you train on a daily basis. To my mind, an intense hour’s practice with at least half of it dedicated to rigorous kihon including drills, kirikaeshi and kakarigeiko, with the remaining time dedicated to jigeiko is the ideal session. Most Japanese instruction manuals constantly refer to “correct technique” and “in full spirit”, which reading between the lines, suggests that you should do it to the best of your ability and with your utmost energy. Of course the other element that significantly adds to the value of your training is to do it under the watchful eye of a good instructor, one who can help you correct mistakes and praise you when you get it right.

Elite kendoka in Japan often train twice a day with a break at midday for a meal and a nap. This normally happens 5 days a week with the weekends reserved for competition. There are also a number of happily retired kendoka who attend morning and evening practice five or six days a week, but for working amateurs with a mortgage to pay and kids to feed, this remains the stuff of dreams.

There has been some recent debate on a number of kendo groups about the value of cross training and I honestly believe that anything that increases stamina, speed and flexibility has got to be worth doing. On the other hand no amount of running, cycling or swimming is going to improve your kendo technique.

You can of course train at home. Suburi and footwork exercises can be practiced in most places. However looking at my own history of smashed light fittings, annoyed neighbours and a dispute with my former Japanese landlords over floor damage, I would counsel caution.

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Kendo nature or nurture?

When I started kendo in the late 1960s the reasons for many inadequacies in western kendo were explained away as differences caused by physical or cultural factors. Japanese kendoka were supposed to have more leg strength developed through sitting on the floor “tatami  seikatsu”.  They were also more flexible and less prone to concentration of strength in the upper body; a condition that was normally blamed on a high meat content diet.

Nowadays, east or west, most of us sleep in beds, sit on chairs and eat McDonalds, so how do we account for the fact that there are still more strong players inside Japan than out?

Throughout my kendo career I have noticed that regardless of ethnic background, we all tend to make the same mistakes. There is no major inherent physical difference between the kendo of an American of Caucasian heritage and one of Japanese parentage given similar experience levels. I appreciate that studies have shown that there are subtle differences between physiologies of different ethnic groups that can account for a fine margin of ability in say running, but on an average evening in the dojo I witness a mix of people with Japanese, Anglo Saxon, Afro Caribbean and Indian backgrounds all doing the same things wrong.

When I first went to live and train in Japan, I spent most of my time unlearning the bad habits developed in the U.K. With the benefit of hindsight, this was not surprising. In those pre-Youtube days, we had to make up a lot of what we did as we went along. Forgetting my own unique challenges, my illusions that a Japanese passport automatically entitled you to perfect kendo were soon shattered.

It was obvious that members who had been practising continuously since junior school were vastly better than those of the same age who had started later in life. What I also saw was that kendoka who trained regularly in dojo with strong sensei and sempai progressed quickly whilst those from weaker dojo, remained at the same level.

Cutting to the chase, Japan has almost a two tier system. Talented young kendoka, start early, achieve success in high-school and university competition then become police tokuren athletes or physical education professionals. It is however easy to fall of this ladder as the pressures of university study or a job outside kendo cut into the time needed for training. It is hard to get to keiko every evening when you are working a 60 hour week. The bulk of Japanese kendoka who achieve national or international success, come from the ranks of kendo professionals. There are of course exceptional cases and you do see shakaijin (ordinary members of society) achieve major shiai success or reach hachidan standard, but the odds are against them.

Korea and Taiwan also have long histories of doing kendo as a mainstream sport. Korea in particular has provided strong competition to Japan at international level, winning the 13WKC in Taipei. It is also worth bearing in mind that Team USA beat the Japanese team at that event. As kendo continues to grow internationally, so do the chances of teams from other countries taking the prizes. The element that Japan still has in its favour is depth of kendo, by which I mean – the number of people practising from an early age, the strong core of professional players and the quality and availability of instructors. It gives us all some interesting goals to aim for.

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Teaching timing and opportunity

Recently I was lucky to practice with Sumi sensei on his stopovers in London to and from a seminar in Russia. Despite suffering from jet lag he taught a one hour kihon session prior to jigeiko at Mumeishi. As well as enjoying (if that’s the word) the opportunity to stretch myself in keiko with him, it was interesting to see his unique approach to teaching kendo.

For many years I have seen Sumi sensei at least once a year and every time he offers a new method to teach some aspect of kendo. This time he seems to have put particular emphasis on timing and opportunity focussing on ojiwaza.

He has developed a series of drills based on moving the feet in a diamond pattern in suriashi, without ostensibly moving from the spot. Techniques included were men kaeshi men, men suriage men and men kaeshi kote. The kaeshi kote he further expanded on by developing the drill to move around in a continuous 360 degree circle.

He then introduced a practice based on an attack, block, change attack pattern, again using sliding footwork rather than fumikomi. Techniques taught in this way were kote, which was blocked and followed with kaeshi kote and men blocked overhead before the attacker reverting to oji dou. Finally he put the spotlight on seme by bringing in a drill where kakarite pushes the right foot forward to trigger forward movement from motodachi before striking men. This start on a simple hit per seme movement basis and then develops to take account of real mind contact and interaction between the two partners.

The whole approach was aimed to develop real interaction in keiko rather than the kakarigeiko style approach where you decide to attack regardless of your opponent’s actions.

As I have mentioned before in this blog, this holistic approach to kendo teaching is unusual. Chiba sensei takes a very different view of how timing, distance and opportunity are used by building different variants within drills for each technique. Both these meijin and some of the other leading hanshi teachers are being creative. In turn, trying to save us all much of the pain of learning only through hard won experience. This approach differs vastly from the old school style of teaching the basic waza by demonstration and repetition and letting the student work out how and when to use the techniques.

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