On Friday was the monthly Dresden kendo league, which I don't usually participate. But since I want to participate again in the Leipzig Kendo Championship again this year (see last year's event), I wanted to see how I have progressed, and correct on my mistakes, so that hopefully I can do better this year.
I won two matches and drew two. Though I didn't loose, I wasn't very happy about my performance, because my hands were far too tense to execute sharp cuts. My reaction was also slow. Here are some thoughts after watching the videos someone took for me:
- Feet were often too far apart. As a result I was often short by a couple of inches to reach the men.
- Cuts were not sharp enough. My hands were too tense, especially the right one. And I couldn't use tenouchi properly to bring that sharpness. This came from nervousness, I think. In jigeiko or even the Tuesday's shiai-geiko, they were fine. But I have to be more consistent.
- Apply more techniques (especially oji-waza). Apart from an attempt on kaeshi-do, and some debana-kote, I just did straight men- or kote-strikes.
- While launching the strike, put the weight a bit lower so that the hip can be brought forwards, and my body would go faster forward without unnecessary upward movement.
- Good posture. My back was up-right.
- My body did not bob up and down while inching forwards.
- Loud kiai.
Now the videos:
1. Me (white) against Mathias (red). I won 1-0 on a harai-men, which unfortunately was not on the video.
2. Me (red) against Sebastian (white). I won 1-0 on a cheeky men-strike, while he was turning around for Zanshin. It was funny that I got pinned to the wall, despite my attempt to stay inside by wrapping my leg around Seb.
3. Me (red) against Martin (white). It was a draw. It was a real fun as Martin has about the same physique as mine, and does very strong men-cuts. Stephan realised at about 30 seconds into the match that we both had white bands on. He therefore said, "Martin would have had double the chance to win (!)" ;D
4 comments:
Hey Ivan, very nice straight posture in your videos. That is fantastic!
The cuts were also straight and you were making very good timing judgments too.
Concentrate on taking your left foot up as quickly as possible when you cut. I am sure it will make your good men cuts even more powerful.
Hi Vivian, do you mean quickly draw the left foot towards the right one? Or I should actually lift my left foot up like in the case of sprinting.
thanks a lot for the advice!
Hi Ivan,
To move your left foot forward as quickly as possible, the quickest way is to move along the floor and minimize lifting up as much as possible.
You can refer to your videos of exemplar players and watch how they take their foot up after a cut. Try and imitate them to get the feeling.
I see. Cheers!
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