Shodan exam questions

I put here the answers to the written exams I had to do for the Shodan test. Discussions welcomed.

1. What do you understand by the term ki-ken-tai-itchi?

In the context of kendo, ki means the fighting spirit, a necessary element to overcoming one's opponent. It is most easily demonstrated by Kiai, or the shouting, to convey one's will to fight. Ken is the sword, a successful strike requires, of course, the targets to be struck accurately with the top one-third of the shinai, and the contact has to be strong and sharp. Tai is the body, without bringing the body forward with the strike, one looses his own posture and is prone to counter-techniques and from the aesthetic point of view, it is also unacceptable. The correct way of bringing the body forward is to put one's center of gravity at the lower abdomen, and keep the upper body up-right during the strike, using the left leg to propel the hip forwards. The fumigomi-ashi, which is the stomping of the right foot, should accompany the strike.

A valid strike in kendo requires these three elements together, and hence the phrase ki-ken-tai-itchi, literally meaning the unification of these three elements. This means that the striker has to make strong Kiai at the same time of an accurate strike while bringing his body forwards, with the correct posture mentioned above. These three elements together demonstrates one's skill, body balance and fluency, and further more, the commitment to a strike, which are fundamental in kendo.

2. Describe your relationship to your Sempai

In the dojo, Sempais are like the second teachers to me. They accumulated the experience of kendo over the years from various Senseis, and through practising with them, I learn these essential skills from them. I tend to pick someone in the dojo who has a much superior skill and a personality that I aspire to, and imitate his movements and postures. The personality side is equally important, in my opinion, because I do believe that one's kendo is closely connected to his personality. Therefore, it is important to learn a style of kendo that suits my personality. 

I am always grateful for the constructive feedbacks given by my Sempais after the training. Then in the next training, I usually go to the same Sempai and practise with him, at the same time, making sure that I try my best to correct my previous mistakes. 

I am Shodan

On Friday I took a BA flight to London for the grading on Sunday. As in Autumn last year when I took my Ikkyu test, I practised with the Imperial College Kendo Club on Friday evening. Luckily this time, Matsumoto-Sensei (7th Dan Kyoshi, British National team coach), Yung-Sensei (6th Dan Renshi), and Yoshikawa-Sensei (5th Dan), plus the members of the Mumeishi club. It was a hard training, where at the end I could hardly breathe.

Some exercises like keeping the distance with a partner in Kamae while moving in four directions were nice to check the body balance in Kamae.

Yung-Sensei pointed out that my sayu-men in kirikaeshi is not strong enough. Need to improve..

This time when doing jigeiko with Yung-Sensei I could get a couple of points. So I think my kendo has improved a lot since last Autumn. There was a female member from the Mumeishi club with name Gill, who is really good and fast. I couldn't quite keep up with her at times.

On Sunday - first thing when I woke up - snow, and it was bloody freezing. I spent a while trying to get to the examination venue, Kodokan.  The sports hall is very modern and very well equipped. It must be nice practising there every time.

I met Trevor Chapman Sensei (5th Dan) again, whom I first met in Kobukan in Tokyo. It was a very good feeling to see him, who is a very good person. He was the on the judging panel for Ikkyu test.

I passed the exam without much trouble, though I was a bit nervous at the beginning while doing kirikaeshi, which I felt was not smooth enough. In the two jigeikos that I performed, I got many points, but I think too often I turned around to face the opponent immediately after the strike and jump backwards. It looks much nicer to run straight through first and then turn in an exam.

We did the first three forms of Kata, and I felt I did the best I could, which I was pleased about. 

But in fact, I think anyone who could wake up to this freezing weather and goes to the examination should be given the grade straight away :)

I also watched the exams for the 2nd and the 3rd Dan. Many of them do superb kirikaeshi compared to mine, I should really improve on that. Specifically, some of them have very nice snapping sound from the sayu-men strikes. In the 2nd Dan jigeiko, I saw them taking more time to seme, and some used wazas, though mostly unsuccessfully. For the 3rd Dan, people in general have very good kamaes, and really tried to open up striking opportunities.

My current goal is: applications of waza in jigeiko. 

Imperial College and Grading

I'm waiting for the Ryanair flight to Leipzig from London. This weekend was a very good one. One training on Friday evening with the Imperial College (my old university) kendo club, and another on Sunday after the exam, with the Mumeishi dojo members, not to mention that I
passed my Ikkyu grading.

The training with the Imperial College guys was very interesting. I was quite overwhelmed by how much etiquette is practised there, though I already expected much stricter code of conduct than we have in Dresden. I made two grave mistakes, one of which resulted in me lying on the floor. First was when I did jigeiko with Miyoshi-san, a senior in the dojo, I used tsuki. This switched his ballistic mode on, and he just showered me with strikes, at which point I actually though, ``Cool! Now comes the real goodies.'' But right after the match he talked towards me and told me, ``You're good. But you're a visitor, and I don't know you. You should not do tsuki against the senior in this dojo.'' I apologised afterwards a thousand times to him about it, and expect my gratitude for practising with me.

The second mistake was when doing jigeiko with Yung-sensei (6th Dan), 48 years old originally from Hong Kong, who still represent it in the World Kendo Championship. When I struck I very often ran into him. Like I'm used to, my zanshin in this situation was raising my arms high and springing backwards with a kiai strong enough to make an earthquake (well, ok.. it's an exaggeration). But it turned out that it can be disrespectful for the Sensei. Again, I switched on his ballistic mode, though this time not so fun any more. I tried to wade off his attack and counter-attack, but he's so fast that I could not do anything. At one point he feinted a men-strike, and I tried to block it while having my kote covered. He then struck three consecutive times harai-kote that put me in complete awe. At one point he pushed me very hard while I ran into him again with my arms over my head, and that just sent me to the ground. I felt I almost penetrated the ground to the floor beneath, and I really had to struggle to get up. What made it worse, he walked backwards shaking his head, which he did a few times. I was thinking at that point, oh dear, what have I done. But he explained to me later that I should go straight through and was very kind.

The exam on Sunday was rather easy for me as the Ikkyu grade in the UK is aimed for people having done kendo for between 6 months and a year. Having said that, I was shaky on the Kihon Kata because in Germany we've never done that, and the sequence of the steps are entirely intuitive. I even forgot to take the Dou off, and no one realised until the end of Ipponme. It was a hectic moment when everyone waited for me.

Not being so eager to know the results of the exam (because there's something that interests me more, and that's to meet the UK kendo community and see what the level and the atmosphere is like), I joined the free-jigiko session of the Mumeishi dojo, where Yung sensei lead the training again. I had very enjoyable matches with three senior kendoka (Ayers, Biscomb, and Foster), and one of them asked me, ``You do kendo like this and you are testing for Ikkyu today?'' I explained that I did almost two years of kendo, and just didn't have the time to come back and grade, he said, ``Nidan, nidan.''

My last jigeiko was with Yung sensei, before I got totally exhausted. We had a decent amount of time. I tried this time always to go through head-straight, and for the couple of times when I could not, I quickly put my arms down and did hiki-men. One time I got a kote with sufficient seme, which I am rather happy with. Some times I knew that sensei will do a men-keishi-do to counter my men, but I went for it anyways. Maybe just to play down myself to respect him? I don't know. Anyhow my centre was strong enough to prevent the strike from reaching my do in time. We ended the match with kote-men uchigomi-geiko. I just kept the thought in my mind, ``Just one more, just one more.'' And kept going until the end. Yung-sensei was very please with my performance.

The practice with Mr. Ayers was memorable too. He had just a strong debana-men technique that really REALLY frustrated me. For three consecutive times, when I went for men I was overpowered by him. How frustrating! It gives me something to think about.

This weekend I slept extremely well, and felt relaxed. In the two training sessions I felt fit again, ready to push myself like before, which is an encouragement for the forthcoming intensive 3.5 weeks of training.

I'm truly grateful for the guys at Imperial, Daniel and Tim, who really took care of me and made me feel home. I hope this is a starting point for new friendships.

Some thoughts from the weekend:

• Review my kendo etiquette.
• Larger stride when doing men.
• Increase my wrist power.
• Try to go through head-straight more in jigeiko.