Dou – collective hanshi wisdom!

Many people, who can confidently hit men and kote, continue to have difficulty with dou. This is not surprising, as whilst men and kote are obvious targets that only require you to raise and lower the shinai in a straight line; dou is harder to see and hit. There is some confusion over what part [...]

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Suriage Waza

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. [...]

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Oji Waza

Watching yesterday’s waza geiko at Mumeishi dojo, I was fascinated to see people who can make strong shikake waza, have a relatively hard time applying the same basic techniques to oji timing. Rightly or wrongly, I believe that there are only four techniques in kendo – men, kote, dou and tsuki. There are of course [...]

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Kaeshi dou

As most people who practice with me know, I like kaeshi dou. Trying to teach it though, is not a simple matter. To be honest, I have not seen many kendoka below 4th dan attempt is successfully. Dou generally is a difficult technique. Against correct chudan, there is rarely an opportunitiy for tobikomi dou. Hiki [...]

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