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.
kendoinfo.net 
Useful information!!
nice!
Hi Salmon Sensei,
I was wondering, on diagram 46, what is the small box on the wrist that the centerline of the shinai is passing through? Is it a bone or some kind of a anatomical landmark?
Thank you!
David Pan
Hi David
I hope that all is going well. The mark is the katakana for “ro” and the one avove is “i”. The illustration comes from Matsumoto Toshio sensei’s seminar notes. I do not know what they are meant to signify. They are too far apart to read “iro” which would be in hiragana anyway.
Anyone out there got any idea?
Regards
Geoff
That’s the curious part…in the version that I have, the katakana isn’t there on diagram 46.
In the text, it seems like it refers to the same “I” and “RO” in diagram 45 where the “I” refers to the 2nd joint of the ring finger on both hands (counting from the finger tips) and the “RO” refers to the palm heel where the thumb root meets the heel of the palm pinky side…the text describes it as the root of the lifeline of the palm, and describes diagram 46 as the top view of applied diagram 45 in kamae.
I would be curious to know if there are further footnotes for 46I and 46RO is missing in my version of the text, as I sure don’t see it!
Thanks again!
I imagine that I and RO would be the first two characters from the traditional Japanese ordering of the hiragana/katakana according to the poem which starts I-RO-HA. You still see characters used in this order to number bullet points and theywould usually be in katakana rather than hiragana when used for this purpose. As David Pan points out, they’re probably just being used in the diagram to indicate a reference in the text.
Thanks David. Just to fill in the blanks David Pan had a copy of the notes from which I took the illustration and the previous picture (not shown in my blog was marked thus but the picture I posted was not, so I sent DP a scan of the original.
[…] Geoff Salmon, “Tenouchi,” KendoInfo.net, Nov. 2009. […]
[…] Note: For more details on the mechanics and theory behind the tenouchi action, I’d suggest reading [Kenshi247_Tenouchi] and [KendoInfo_Tenouchi]. […]
[…] [KendoInfo_Tenouchi] Geoff Salmon, “Tenouchi,” KendoInfo.net, Nov. 5, 2009. […]
[…] two digits in the grip shape that he demonstrated earlier at (0:24) and also in the only figure in [KendoInfo_Tenouchi] just above the symbol “イ”. Instead, if the two digits were tightened, the […]
[…] Master the “V” (Tiger mouth) grip [KendoInfo_Tenouchi]. […]
[…] many years ago. And more specifically, on those exercises that could help develop my tenouchi [KendoInfo Tenouchi]. They recommended that I practice tenouchi exercises with a special home-made bokuto while at […]
[…] and tenouchi (手の内) [KendoInfo_Tenouchi] seems to arise naturally without any need to pay attention to the sequeezing of the […]