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!

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Oops I did it again! (damn that de-kote!)

We did a lot of shiai-like training today. After the kihon-geiko, we paired up and in the first exercise, only one can attack (with shikake-waza) while the other can only defend or duck. In the second exercise, one can only defend and use Hiki-waza while the other uses shikake-waza.

In the first exercise, I started immediately with a do-strike which worked nicely: one step in to seme, raise the shinai at which moment the opponent thinks it's a men-strike and therefore blocks men or strike men, then the shinai strikes on do. Other points were not so notable.

In the second exercise, in which I was on the attacking side with Georg as the opponent, it wasn't so easy. He cleverly closed the distance so that I couldn't have a valid strike (I'm not allowed to use hiki-waza), and he could then use hiki-waza.

At the end, we had shiai-geiko, and I was against Liv. The result was 1-1 with one hankosu to each. First, she got a hankosu for being outside. Then she got a point with a men-strike against my crappy debana-kote, the same reason as when I lost to Tino in the last shiai. See here. I got a hankosu for falling - not sure how that happened - I think I was too tense. I scored the point with a harai-kote, which was the first time that it worked for me in a shiai. So I was quite pleased with it.

Overall, it was a valueable session today, reminding myself again how things can be different in a shiai, namely, the tension affects the performance, and that it is not a good idea to use a waza that one is not sure of. Why didn't I use kaeshi-do? (Which worked well for me in jigeiko.) I kept wondering. I also forgot about keeping a mobile footwork in the first half. When I remembered it felt indeed much better, as it helps to relax my body.


Advices from Stephan:
  • debana-kote should be more snappy, with ki ken tai ichi. Otherwise, it's overcomed by men-strike.
  • My hip is not following when I strike kote. Use the left foot and leg to push it forward.
from Georg:
  • Incorrect distance (too close) leads to many invalid strikes.

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