Be more explosive

Today at the mawari-keiko session, Ho sensei asked me to stand in the motodachi position for the first time. After a few fights, Ho sensei came to tell me that I should try to use more waza and execute every technique thoroughly and correctly, even fighting with junior players.

When fighting with Yi-Chen (5th Dan), I had a big problem being able to hit him, which had happened also with some other people before. When he steped in to chikma (close distance), he turned his shinai pointing to his right, in sort of a half-blocking position. I knew I could not reach his men because he can block and even do a kaeshi-do. Kote was also protected because of the angle of his shinai. The only target opened was do, which was hard to hit also because the distance was very close. But I did get his do once.

On the good side, I started to analyze more and more the opponent's movements, and try to develop a strategy against them.

I need to make my attacks more explosive.

One day I will be strong

The past few weeks were packed with activities, kendo or non-kendo related. There was the Taipei Chong-Chung Cup at the end of November, in which the mens team got the forth place and the women got the first. I was teamed up with four strong kenshis (4th and 5th Dans), who out-performed me tremendously. It was fair to say that if I was replaced with a stronger player, maybe 3rd Dan, we would have gotten the first place. I couldn't stop thinking this for a few days following the competition. My performance was poor and made my teammates nervous, so in the last few matches I was placed in the Taisho position, so that I fought the last and wouldn't affect the confidence of the other players. I finally understood the importance of the senpo and jiho, who should never loose.

Though I disappointed myself and my teammates, who still gave me a lot of advices for improvement and encouragement, I can only put things behind and continue to train hard, if not harder. One who gives up is the real looser. One day I will be strong.

Improve little by little

Thank goodness. The weather has cooled down considerably, and the trainings has become less suffering than before. In the past phew weeks I trained at Taipei Kendokan when I could, or otherwise at National Chiao-Tung University (NCTU). At NCTU, the lead trainer Chen Sensei (陳泰成) put a lot of emphasis on correct kendo and kihon practices, therefore I can gain anyways something even though the members of the kendo club are more junior than me.

During jigeiko I also try to use wazas on every opportunity. I feel like my opponent is doing kakari-geiko on me, while I use oji-waza. There is generally a lack of seme-ing. Perhaps I'll take an opportunity to suggest them exercises to improve on that.

Here are somethings I should improve, some of which had been mentioned several times, but every now and then the same problems pop up again:

• Sometimes I still use too much right hand.
• I need to launch men strike fast with my hip pushing the body, and not just the hands flying forwards.
• Kill the opponent's shinai with shikake-wazas.

A short break

No training since the start of this month.. and there's nothing I can do about it - because I'm in the 3-weeks compulsory military training! Next week will be the last one. Finally! It's like a prison in the base. Extremely boring and full of nonesenses. Really bad for the brain..

Moving to Hsinchu

Due to my new job, I moved here to Hsinchu City, 1.5 hours away from Taipei by car or 30 mins by the High Speed Railway. So my plan is to practise 1-2 times from Monday until Friday in Hsinchu, and go to Taipei Kendokan on Fridays.

This evening was the first time I went to Hsinchu Kendokan since I moved here. However, I came once here with Ozawa Sensei and Hara Sensei. Hsiao-Du-Sempai (who also practises regularly in Taipei Kendokan and a local) led the training. The session was simple, starting with kihon-geiko and then jigeiko. Four jigeikos was about enough today for me in this temperature. Anyhow, it was good that I have a place to practise here in Hsincu with many nice people.

Farewell Germany

[ My farewell Kakarigeiko in Dresden. ]

Sad but true. It was my last training in Dresden on Friday evening. Next time when I'm here, I will just be a visitor, whether that is in 2 years' time or 10 years' time.

Some people had to leave for the national squad training this weekend, who therefore couldn't participate in the training. However, before they left, Stephan gathered everyone together so that we could take a picture. Of course.. the BAKKA photo - Dresden style.

I think it's been a long time since we have done that all together. There was a full load of nice memories...

From Farewell Keiko 16/10/2007

From 2007

From 15th Leipzig Kendo Championship 2006

From BBQ 2006

Thank you all Dresden kenshis. Starting kendo here 3.5 years ago was one of the best things I have done during my 6-years-stay in Germany. I remember the first time I met Stephan was at the presentation of Dresden-Budo-Club at the St. Benno Gymnasium. Patrick, Liv and Jasmin were there as well. I wonder what they went through their minds when they saw me.

!! Rambling Alert !!

Stop here if you don't want to read my lengthy rambles.

The Beginning

My first class was at the Dresden-Budo-Club. At the time, Rohus was still actively teaching. Then I combined my training at both DBC and the university (TU Dresden) club - 3 times a week.

It was not until four months had passed, I could get into the Bogu. A month later, I participated in the Leipzig Kendo Championship. I looked so dum, and had no idea what was going on, but somehow fought my way into the quater-finals.

[2006 Leipzig Kendo Championship]

Apart from my terrible kendo form, you also see many familiar faces in the background, some of whom are still active while the others not (what a shame! I miss them sometimes.). 

Meeting Ozawa Sensei

One of the most important events in my kendo life was the meeting with Hiroshi Ozawa Sensei, Kuroda-san and Iinuma-san in Prague during the Toru Giga Cup in 2006. And in 2007, I visited him in his dojo Kobukan in Tokyo for a month of training and leisure. 

First win in tournament - 16th Leipzig Kendo Championship 2007

Paris

At the end of 2007, I worked in Paris for 3 months. During this time I could train 3-4 times a week, at Bodu XI, where Yoshimura Sensei (8th Dan) teaches. I was surprised by the high level of kendo there, but only by the Japanese immigrants but also the local French kendoka. I think France has the highest overall standard in kendo of Europe, and it made me even more humble again.

Back to Dresden, off again to Tokyo and Taiwan

In 2008, one of the most important work in my life - PhD - was handed out, which took a tremendous weight off my shoulders. My training was kept as the second priority, and I was just glad that I still went to the training regularly. I think it is still important to go to the training once a week during busy times.

Fast-forwarding to now..

In all aspect, I'm looking forward to moving back to Taiwan, for both kendo and general life. There are countlessly many kendoka much stronger than I am, so obviously there will be many high mountains to climb. I hope I will be able to break these barriers and become strong.

I will for sure keep writing when I get to Taiwan.

Surprise path

As an update to my life, I will be going back to Taiwan in May for good. This of course will have a significant impact on my kendo life as well! I'm looking forward to the much bigger kendo population and practising with people from different kendo schools with different styles (see this post and this post for some accounts on the Taiwanese kendo). And you'll be sure to have updates from me there!

It's of course very exciting for me that I'm returning and will actually be LIVING in my home country again. There are just so much things there that I'd like to do, and places I'd like to visit and see. I had never thought that I would go back so soon. However, as people always say, life is full of surprises.

New chapter in life..

From My PhD Defense 03/11/2008

My academic hat. There is no graduation ceremony in German universities. So the tradition in our group is that the members will make one for him. 

From My PhD Defense 03/11/2008

Finally the long battle was over. Though I pretty much crewed up the exams, but I managed to pass it somehow, and the defense (or viva) was not too bad.

The day after my defense my dojo mates gave the best present they could have given me - kakari-geiko!! After the training I almost puked... for not having enough sleep lately and weak body. I need to recover somehow. Yes! Holidays!

Next Tuesday I will be flying to Taiwan, and will stay there until mid January. In Dec, I will make a visit to Tokyo for 2 weeks  to do kendo, and Miyazaki for a few days to visit Ryuzo kun a very good friend of my whom I met in Paris.

This will also be the first time that I do kendo in Taiwan. I hope it will be good!

In this trip I hope to, at the same time, sort out some doubts as to what to do next in life... Not a easy one..

Von nichts wird nichts

What a f-*beep* shit day I had at work yesterday! However, the usual Friday bashing helped a lot to get my center back.

We had about half-an-hour of devilish kirikaeshi (courtesy of Georg), consisting of normal, 30-sayu-men, 50-sayu-men, and moving on to finally 100-sayuman. My shoulder and forearm muscles were cramped up after the exercise, which was good since I used the right parts of my body. The last 30 minutes we had shiai-geiko and then jigeiko. Out of the 4 matches in the shiai-geiko (ippon shobu), I drew one and won 3, with 2 men-strikes and 1 kote, which was a good ratio.

After the training, as usual I teased myself about how useless my body was and how quickly I got tired. Georg said to me, "Von nicht wird nichts." Which is an equivalent to "no pain no gain" in English. Bang on!

Strike more

The two trainings this week went went well. After a weekend of kendo, my stamina is getting back to a couple of months ago when I trained more often. My fighting spirit has also been raised up. In jigeiko, I tried to put more pressure and strike more. I think striking more (with good posture and centre) helps to develop oji-waza skills because every now and then suriage- or keishi-wazas just come out subconsciously. It also trains the eyes and reaction speed.

• Stephan pointed out that I tend to jump up when doing hiki and kote strikes. Need to work on that...
  
• My wrist power is still too weak.

Drained

This morning before I went to work I told my dad, who happens to be here for a visit, "Okay, I'm going to the battle field!" Gosh, how long had I fought from the morning at work until the end of the evening kendo training!

My body was drained out with energy after the second round of kirikaeshi; and my mind was drained out in the second hiki-waza-keiko.

This is however a good bridge to the training in Prague!

Two trainings

This week managed two trainings, yesterday and today, after two weeks of absence. And guess what the emphasis of this month is? The condition. Grrreat...

Honestly no new inspirations in these two trainings. I was concentrating on doing strikes correctly, but it's difficult when I got too tired during the training. My body leaned forward when striking kote, which is a serious problem.

Anyhow, I'm happy that I could still make it to two trainings this week!

Going to Prague

On one email that contains just a few lines of warm greeting from Ozawa Sensei, I changed my mind and decided to go to Prague for the Toru Giga Cup afterall, though without participating in the tournament, because that's the bottom line that makes myself stay focused for my upcoming PhD examination -- probably the most important one of my life.

See you there to all the people going!!

(ps. you can see from the first paragraph that I'm writing lots of articles at work. It's just one sentence!)

More wrist snap

Today only a few people turned up, nonetheless the mawari-geiko was still good.

• Georg pointed out my tenouchi was not sharp enough. I need to use more of my wrist-snap.
• I made an almost perfect tsuki today, and I even remembered to do zanshin!!
• Today I became quickly tired, so that my hip was not following in the second-half of the training. Probably due to my tired legs from yesterday's jogging.
• I wanted to use more oji-waza but my reaction was not fast enough. At the same time, I need to make better seme in order to create opportunity for oji-wazas.

Hakamada Sensei 8th Dan

I just saw from the ZNKR website that Daizoh Hakamada Sensei, with whom I had the privilege to practise in Nittaidai last year passed the Hachidan test, at age 59. Congratulations to him! The most distinctive impression that I have of him is his kamae. His kensen is aimed at the opponent's left-eye. Which was the first time I noticed this style. (This is rarely heard of in Europe, but quite common in Japan, Taiwan and Korea. There are in fact five different chudan no kamae, aimed at throat, centre of face, left-eye, left-hand of jodanka, and right-hand of jodanka. I recommend everyone try them out.)

I hope the list of Senseis I know making to the hachidan will increase soon... 

Annoyed terribly

It really annoys me BIG TIME when my opponent simply raise his/her shinai to block my strike during practice. It's understandable if it's ippon-shobu or in shiai, but what's the point in normal practices? First, it looks bad, secondly, one never improves if he/she keeps doing that. Being hit makes one realise one's own mistakes, so he can improve faster.

Last Friday seeing almost everyone blocks half of the time in jigeiko, I went ballistic and charged like mad into my opponents. I really want to tell everyone, fight the centre, and not blocking. If you have the centre you do not need to block. Blocking should happen only if it's intended as part of a waza.

First training 2008

Yesterday evening was the first training in the new year. I had not gone to training since more than a week because of the family visit and holiday closure of the dojo. So, in the first 10-20 minutes of the training, my body was slowly waking up.

Yoshimura Sensei lead the training as usual on Wednesdays. We did exercises, included, for example, seme-men x 4 for the kakarite, and the motodachi would strike debana-men, debana-kote, and debana-dou at the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th time. The two senpai in the small group whom I trained with told me to step in one step to "seme" from to-maai (with about 5cm separation between kensen), which I wasn't so happy with, because in Tokyo I was told that, in seme, one doesn't move his left foot. Moving it is like suiciding since at this moment, you're vulnerable to debana strikes. However, because I'm new in this dojo I think I should follow what they do. On the other hand, not everyone is doing the same thing here. I guess it just the senpai thought it's correct and he could tell me to do that. So this didn't help me much to improve, considering my current goal.

I had a jigeiko with Yoshimura-sensei and Ryuzo-kun (5ht Dan). I had a full-out session with Sensei. With Ryuzo-kun I tried to put more pressure and create openings before striking. It's indeed very difficult to find one. There were many times I let him too close, and was hit by his fast straight men. I need to learn how to strike fast like that...

My body was too tense because I wanted to be aggressive, and that led to an imbalanced posture, as pointed out by Ryuzo-kun. He also said that I need to gain more experience, for example, when is the debana moment. So, more jigeiko!

Happy new year everyone!

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.

Squeezing in a practice

These past few weeks I have only managed to practise once a week. But it has to be this way unfortunately because this is a really critical time for me, finishing my thesis. Recently, I've also started learning Japanese, partly for the Tokyo trip next month, and partly just because there are so many Japanese things that I do, read, and listen since my childhood in Taiwan. I mean, for god's sake, my grandparents spoke better Japanese than Mandarin Chinese!

On Tuesday I went to the training at the uni. Warming up with the basketball game. It's fun, though sometimes I feel that people can be a bit too absorbed and it can be a bit too long.

We practised suriage-men and keishi-do. I haven't practise keishi-do for a while, so it didn't go that smoothly. I need to speed up the action between blocking and striking.

Suriage-men is something I've never quite got, and I still haven't got it complete. More practise!

Good thing was that I felt I really pushed my hip forwards while striking men. The way I distributed my body weight led to this improvement I think. I'll try it again next time.

Hmm..

Yesterday was my first time after ten days from the previous one. I missed two session to spend time with my parents who visited me last week, and have absolutely no regrets.

There were 13 people yesterday, all with bogu. We divided into groups of 3-4 and practiced kihon for half-an-hour, and then did jigeiko. It felt really good exercising again, but somehow my body felt strange after a ten-day's pause.

We also practised oji-waza against kote- and men-strikes. My waza worked very well against kote, but it was much more difficult against men-strikes, mainly due to the opponent's arms blocking the men.

• Suriage: I need to practice more suriage, with two main goals: footwork to the side, and the sliding/warding-off action.
  
• Men: I also need to push with my left leg more to launch my body farther.