Natural stance kamae 自然身構

After reading a document written by Toshio Matsumoto (松本 敏夫), 9th Dan Hanshi, talking about various detailed fundamental aspect of kendo, including body postures and weight distributions in kamae and during strikes. It got me excited after reading it, because I have noticed a few things which worried me at the back of my mind:

• 1. I lose the ai-men strikes very often, and my shinai tends to miss and drift towards my opponent's left-side.

• 2. Most sensei's kamae appears that their left hand is not exactly aligned with the tip of the sword, but shifted very slightly to their left. And I have also seen black and white pictures of some renounced 9th and 10th Dan Senseis, holding kamae in this way.

• 3. Kuroda-san once mentioned when I visited him in Tokyo that shifting the left hand slightly to the left and pointing the shinai towards the left eye of opponent. But I haven't actually gone out and try it.

After reading the document by Matsumoto Sensei, I think I found that could be the answers to these questions. The following are some main points:

• The bottom of the waist would face directly towards the opponent, however from there above until the shoulders, the body is twisted naturally towards the left, with the direction shown by the dashed straight line in the picture at the top.

• The root of thumb of the left hand is placed in front of the navel, and because of so, with the upper body facing slightly to the left, the left hand is slightly off-center, which is drawn as the solid line connecting between you and the opponent.

• The tip of the shinai should, however, be on the solid line pointing towards the opponent's left eye or between the eyes. So that a triangle is formed by: 1) the line connecting the two shoulders, 2) the tip of shinai to the right shoulder, and 3) the tip of shinai to the left shoulder. (As shown below.)

• This triangle should be maintained during movement, and is the basis to all attacks and defenses.

• The left hand should be at the "body-centerline" (the dashed line in the top diagram) always.

This is what Matsumoto Sensei called the "natural stance (自然身構)". Because this is the most natural, without the unnecessary tension, for example, on the left wrist if it were to be exactly on the center-line (to the opponent).

He also said that there are following three advantages to stand this way:

• The opponent's tsuki-attack slides off easily.
• When you strike men, the opponents shinai slides off easily.
• Difficult for the opponent to strike the kote.

However, one should be careful that if the shinai tip is too much to the right side, the men would be left open.

I experimented with this last week, and had good results. My ai-men was stronger, and suriage-men felt more natural. It seems that because I wanted my shoulders to face directly forwards before, my left hand tended to shift to the right during the strike, which is very self-destructing. Maintaining a natural angle with the shoulders seems logical since the right hand is much farther than the left hand. I remember once I asked Ozawa Sensei if it's ok to have one shoulder extending farther than the other, he said promptly: "Ok, ok!"

Back to live in Taipei

I finally moved back to Taipei from Hsin-Chu, which means that I can go for training at the Taipei Kendokan more often. My goal is to train from twice a week moving gradually to three times a week. However, living in Taipei while working in Hsin-Chu means that I need to get up at 5:30 in the morning and go to bed at 10:30pm in order to catch the dedicated bus going to my company. Everyone awed at my new schedule, and some bet that I won't be able to last long, because it's too tough. Well I'm tough, too. ;-)

Speaking of toughness, the weather is becoming unbearable to train at the dojo. I need to make sure that I have enough water in-take well before the training. Last night I felt so dizzy towards the end of the training. When I practised in Europe, I thought taking break during the training was a shame. But I tell you, in this climate this is really a matter of life and death. We usually take a 5-10 mins break after 1hr, just before mawari-geiko and jigeiko.

Yesterday I put a lot of attention on my feet, making sure that they are not too far apart. And also their fluency when executing zanshin after the strike, for both forward strikes and hiki-men strikes. There should be a smooth coordination.

Looking forward to the next practise.

First morning keiko

I made the first morning Keiko today, between 7:30-8:30am just before my working hour starts. It's not so easy for me considering I usually get up at about 8:30-9:00am. So when I woke up seeing the dark outside the window, I was wondering if my alarm clock was broken. And the first reaction was, "Oh, bloody hell.."

We decided to have this extra session for Bogu-wearers only, doing only jigeiko in mawari-geiko format (rotating partners). Which is a great idea. Nine people turned up, and I had in total eight jigeikoes.

Good:

• Landed a few popping kote.
  

To be improved:

• Keep a good distance. Chikama is too dangerous. At this distance wazas are perhaps useless.
• Stronger doh-strike.
  

I was originally apprehensive about training before going to work, whether I'd be too tired, but it turned out to be the opposite. It felt like a morning work-out, like many people going to the gym before work. Well, I guess. Not that I know anything about working-out in the gym. After a shower at my institute (yes, we even have a shower) I felt very refreshed and ready to start the day.

Congratulations Stephan!!!!

Congratulations to Stephan who just had his first child -- a daughter!

The training proceeded as normal with Georg as the trainer. Stephan only came briefly and left presumably because he has lots of things to do. We didn't spend that much time on Kihon at all, and went into jigeiko after 30 mins. I didn't feel that I've impressed myself today, but I guess that's just a normal training.

Things I felt lacking:

• Ki ken tai ichi
• Zanshin - real alertness, instead of just "showing it".
• bringing forward my hip

Things I felt improved:

• kote-nuki-kote
• mobile footwork

Against taller dojo-mates I was too defensive. I was anticipating that men-strike, which lead to actually being struck, like I was lost even before the opponent initiated the attack. Deep, ain't it? I should not be afraid but seme in and strike.