Importance of the wrist

One of the things that I have concentrated on since last year training in Tokyo is to increase my wrist strength. And fortunately, I have been making steady improvement. 

It is told by almost any teacher that the wrist strength is important for making the strikes sharp, and hence validating a point. However, its significance is much further beyond the mere sound effect. The following is a list of the other benefits:

• It keeps the upper body up-straight. A lot of young kenshis (for example high school students) and beginners whose sole interest is winning tend to let the upper body lean forwards when striking men, in order to add an extra speed and strength to the strike. If this can be achieved by the wrist movement along, the leaning of the body can be avoid. This of course looks better, and is also essential if one were to make continuous strikes.

• Better ki-ken-tai-ichi and more explosiveness. These are direct consequence of the previous point. Because if one keeps the body up-straight during seme or at the initial stage of the strike, it is very difficult for the opponent to detect when the strike will come. 

• Shikake-wazas rely heavily on wrist strength, as elucidated by Ozawa Sensei when I was in Tokyo. They include harai, maki, osae, and of course kote-men, etc.

How to increase wrist strength? 

Many ways. In fact, I have seen many people telling each other special exercises on how to increase wrist power, but I think the most effective exercises are the OLD SCHOOL STUFFS: kirikaeshi, renzoku-waza and continuous men-strikes raising the shinai to the "medium" position (see here for explanation). While doing them, make sure the arms and the wrists are fully extended. Especially the right index finger, if straightened, should point downwards as much as possible, instead of pointing horizontally (with the right arm being horizontal). 

Training with Tatsuro 1

We practiced yesterday with Tatsuro, a Waseda University student who already visited us once earlier this year. We did the usual kihon-geiko until the last 30-40 minutes, when we did jigeiko.

During kihon-geiko, we did a couple of round of butsukari-geiko (two consecutive sets of men-taitari-hiki-men/kote/do, and finishing with a men-uchi). I was lucky enough to did this with Tatsuro. He corrected me that I should never move as a motodachi when the kakarite execute taitari. The lower abdomen should be pushed forward, and be brought to clash with the opponent. It's one thing training with the others and another thing training with him. It felt like being hit by a bull. So I had to almost exaggerate (from our normal standard here) my movement in order to stop him properly. I tried it again and it worked.

I also practiced sashi-men with him. What stood out from his men-strike is the forward movement of his hip and abdomen. The moment that he seme'd and launched his strike, it felt like he was "falling" forwards onto me. The power and the speed was tremendous.

I was extremely tired towards the end of the jigeiko. Maybe because I trained only once a week in the past month due to various reasons.

Tatsuro gave me some advice after the jigeiko:

• He noticed that when he seme'd I tended to back out. He told me to have patience and seme back.
• The distance between the left feet of both players should be kept the same most of the time. The right feet, however, moves forwards or backwards during seme.
• I pointed out that when he retrieved while I attacked, I tried to do rezoku-waza with men, but I couldn't keep my momentum up. He said the left arm is important, and I should do more katate-men. One should also strike with the hip.
• He said, in kendo, the body is relaxed, and the hip is very important.

Stephan told me after the jigeiko:

• My seme leading up to the men-strike is not enough. I have to hold the centre while bringing my shinai up.

Tonight there's the last training with Tatsuro before he goes back to Japan.

In shape again

Yesterday, I went to the training after my neck recovered from the shock last week. I led the training at the university's club, as both Georg and Stephan are away at the moment along with most of the more experienced kenshi, because of this, the event at the Baltic sea. Surprisingly, 7 people still came to the training, among which 5 had bogus. So we could do some decent training.

I emphasised at the beginning and the end of the training that the basic requirements for doing good kendo are perhaps the fighting spirit and body posture.

After some rounds of suburi, we started with 4-5 rounds of kirikaeshi. I stressed the breathing and its importance. This was pointed out by Ozawa sensei in last year's seminar in Prague. I repeat here again:

• Kirikaeshi: (1) men-strike, (2) breath, then 4 sayu-men forwards and 5 backwards, then men-strike, (3) pause and breath again (4) repeat (2) and (3).

Like jogging, when one breathe systematically, he can run for longer.

Then we did more kihon. But this time I asked very one to start from toma, where they should kiai and move their feet, before taking one step forwards to take the centerline with the tip of the shinai, and strike. After the strike, they should push their body diagonally to the left of the opponent to go through.

Then we did like this for kote, kote-men (motodachi stay still), and kote-men-men (motodachi take one step backwards after each strike). I emphasised that distance and footwork are the key points in these exercises. At the kote-men it is a common mistake to take too large a step at the kote-strike, so that the men-strike is too close to the motodachi. At the kote-men-men, the point is that because the motodachi is going backwards, one must draw his left foot quickly forwards to prepare for the next strike, at the same time maintaining a good posture.

I'm glad to see they take kendo seriously with lots of intention to improve themselves. It's very important to train yourself as well as to think of exercises to do so. I'm glad to see two of them stayed after the training to do even more exercises themselves. They obviously care about their own kendo.

At the core

My graduate study is approaching towards the end, and, in order to ensure that I work hard enough to finish it on time, training will be kept at maximum twice a week. If every training goes well, this would not be too bad, though I can probably more or less only try to make my existing techniques more proficient. Not a bad situation. As there are still plenty of space for improvement.

Yesterday, about 14 kenshis with armours turned up. The kendo population in Dresden has really been climbing steadily in the past 1.5 years. When I started around that time, only a handful of people with bogu would turn up at each training. Once a few more beginners advanced enough to wear the bogu, a few with bogu would drop out. So the population had always somewhat maintained at an equilibrium.

So why has it grown so much in the past year? Well, I attribute it to the fact that we now have a handful of kendo fanatics, regular practitioners, whose will to improve their kendo is so strong that it surpasses the desire to engage in other activities. This tight circle of people makes up the core on which the Dresden kendo community builds. As they make effort to improve themselves, the rest feels the passion radiated from them, and sees a reason to learn more and to train hard.

Who belongs to this core of kenshi? Well, you know who you are.

So back to the training itself. Because all of us had bogus, we could concentrate on waza. After 10 mins of warm up, we did 30 mins of kihon and debana-kote. Then 30 mins of jigeiko.

When doing jigeiko with beginners, I practiced debana-men and uchiotoshi-men. With more advanced players I used more renzoku-waza. I still find it hard to make my left foot follow up quickly enough, especially when I am tired. But how fast the follow-on strikes can be executed depends largely on if the left foot is close enough to the right one. Other notes are:

• remember when executing sashi-men, the initial motion resembles tsuki to secure the centerline, and at the same to prevent debana-kote.
  
• keep the center of weight lower so that it's easy to launch forward to attack. But still need to try to maintain the posture.

Stephan's feedback from jigeiko:

• In seme and kamae, keep the right arm relaxed while the left fist stays in the centerline. Do not push the shinai too hard.
• For debana-kote don't think about avoiding the attack before the strike. Otherwise the posture would be broken.