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!

Sunday, December 09, 2007

A question about Kirikaeshi

A question about kirikaeshi came up after visiting several dojos. Some dojos do proper taiatari with the strong impact, while the others, like Imperial College, Budo XI and Kobukan, do very soft taiatari, which I probably wouldn't even call it so. What they do is, after the sho-men strike, the hands are dropped so that the right hand is roughly the chest level. The motodachi does the same and, upon gentle clash, he goes backwards and receives the sayu-men. It feels more like a tubazeriai.

So that question to you is, what does your dojo do, and if anyone knows, how come there is such a big and fundamental difference between dojos.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi Ivan.
I don´t know why this happens but I have experienced the same thing as you regarding the tai-atari after kirikaeshi. In fact, what I´ve noticed is that some people make correct kirikaeshi from the hip, while others do tai-atari clasing kote against kote.
At my dojo (Kenwakai in Madrid) I can see both behaviours. I´ve asked and been told that both are common, but theoretically the one from the hip is more correct.
Personally, I prefer the hip one, but the problem is that if the other person goes for the kote one, I end up eating some kote for lunch. :p