About this blog..

This is a blog that I started in April 2006, just after I first put on my bogu (kendo armour). It collects the advices given by more experienced kendo practitioners as well as those from my own experiences. Both technical and the mental aspects of kendo are written in the blog. I hope someone will find them useful or interesting at least!

Monday, August 21, 2006

Listen to your body..

..or don't think at all.

ok, so on Sunday morning I woke up. A moment of epiphany, I started to do suburi. I think that was before my breakfast. (Maybe it's because I thought I had to take a shower afterwards anyway?) Anyway, must have had a bad dream.

I did the routine stuff, jogoburi, men-suburi, katate-men, and again men-suburi. Then sayo-men and left-right do-strike with footwork (front, back, right and left). In total about 800 strikes I think, with some weight lifting prior to that. Focused on my footwork, makeing sure they're both pointing forwards and are in parallel.

In the afternoon there was a shower, followed by a almost clear sky. What a perfect weather to go outside? So I walk towards the river with a book and the intention of reading it. (I live 2 mins walk from the river Elbe.) As I was strolling towards it I felt like running. Actually, "I" didn't, it was more like my legs did. So they started running and what can I do but to follow? What would be a walk turned out to be a 30-mins jogging - the maximum which I do.

It was a productive weekend. Off to the monday training in a few mins.


Training at Budo Club Dresden
Georg lead the training as usual. It was a good training. To be honest, one of the best I've had in the past few months, mainly because we did a lot more combined techniques, or maybe one can say "combo"s, namely:

Men(/kote-men)-taitari-hiki(men/do)
-men(motodachi)-nukido/debana-kote


It was like trying to put the result of my kihon training into use to acheive the fluency. The zanshin of my debana-kote still sucks though. The problem is how do I avoid the opponent's strike, if my mendebana-kote failed, given that I want to go though to the right side. Today I tried to practise the way that Yoda does it (see the previous entry Yoda's departure ), which is to duck downwards, but it felt awkward. Another way is to turn the head slightly right, which keeps the body posture better. But my previous experience is that usually I'm not able to avoid the men.

Suggestions, anyone?

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Do you browse through kendo sites online a lot? You found my xanga page and videos :P A friend of mine told me about the youtube link a few days ago, but thanks for letting me know :).
How long have you been practicing kendo for?
I really think its great that you have a kendo blog. Too many things you learn are forgotten, good to keep track :).

-qtug

Unknown said...

Hi Eugenia - Exactly because I was afraid of forgetting things - I always do - so I gotta write them down. And why not share it with the other? I thought. So I try to make it informative so that other people might get something out of it. Well, if they happen to come by.:)

As to your question I wrote a reply to your comment a while ago, see here
http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?
blogID=26738669&postID=115167334192298396
perhaps you didn't see it? Hopefully you would see this one.

I do search for kendo stuff on the internet a lot. A bit obsessed really. Finding your site was just an accident really (was looking for Taiwanese kenshi on Kendo World forum) reconising you from the harvard kendo taitai was even more of an accident :)

Anyway, have fun in taiwan! How is the preperation going for the WKC?
You know vivian yung? She's representing the Aussie team (there's a link to her blog).

Vivian Yung said...

Hey Ivan,

With debana-kote, your focus is purely set on:

1. cuting your opponent kote, and
2. rush STRAIGHT in to close off the distance.

Closing off the distance is very important in debana-kote, because your opponent would not have enough distance to execute a valid men strike.

Please leave all the other worries behind you (incl. not to worry about being cut). If you do the two points correctly, your kote cut will win the point before the men strike.

Coincidentally, the last point in the Gosho match in my latest post (http://nintai.blogspot.com/2006/08/sliding-ahead.html) is a perfect example of debana-kote vs. men. At 1min 56sec, the white side executed a debana-kote and the red executed a men strike. Both were valid cuts, but the debana-kote won because it happened earlier than the men cut.

Unknown said...

Hey Vivian, thanks for the great advices! A question: do you tend to go through the right or left for debana-kote?

Vivian Yung said...

I go through the right. (I haven't seen anyone going through the left)

Unknown said...

ehh heh heh, in the first clip of this post of the Leipzig Championship I got the debana while going to the left.
http://shinai.blogspot.com/2006/05/
leipzig-championship.html
at 2:03.

Is there any practical reason for going to the right?

Vivian Yung said...

When both players execute their cuts by going in straight forward, it is inevitable that they will 'bump' straight into each other.

We see players twirl to the right hand side after debana kote. This is because after going straight forward to cut kote, right foot will be in front and left foot at the back. To efficiently move away from the direct path of the oncoming opponent is to retreat the back foot by spinning to the side. (Moving the front foot anywhere would only cramp out the space.)

That is the reason why players twirl to the right if they are really doing a perfectly straight-on debana-kote, without the foot moving to the side during the debana-kote process. After the debana-kote succeed, they can then twirl to the right with the reason mentioned above.

Unknown said...

Ah cool. Thanks for the explanation. I'll concentrate on that "spining" you mentioned as well as going straight in. Hmguoi-sa!
m(_ _)m