Bad habits in jigeiko

Yesterday evening 7 people turned up for the training, and I led the session. As always an extensive package of kihon-geiko was on offer. After about 300+ suburi swings, we did 4 x kirikaeshi, 2 x do-kirikaeshi, and few rounds of big men and middle men strikes to practise the wrist snap. Then loads of kote-men and kote-men-men strikes. 

We also practised seme and men-strike starting from to-maai when the tips of shinais just touch each other. And by moving both feet inch by inch whiling maintaining a good kamae, the kakarite reaches the isso-ku-itto-no-maai at which point he strikes. Just before extending the arms to strike, the left foot is kept still while the right foot glides forwards. 

Some 15 minutes were left for jigeiko towards the end of the training, which is rather short. Next time hopefully I can control the time better so that we can do 25 minutes jigeiko.

One difficult thing for most people including both advanced kenshis or beginners is that, many bad habits show up in jigeiko: upper body leans forwards when striking, constantly moving backwards, blocking, jumping backwards/forwards or evening sideways (which is back footwork).

It seems that for most people, the motivation to win overcomes far more than to do good kendo in jigeiko. There is a very good article on the Attitude to Jigeiko by Sotaro Honda Sensei (click). There are plenty tricks that work when fighting against players of relative low grades (including me) but they are useless against higher grade kendoka. If we indulge ourselves into these temporary moments of victory, the road to obtaining a good kendo would only be made longer and more difficult. Because these habits will become harder and harder to correct, and after one has corrected them, he would realise that much time has been wasted. 

I constantly remind myself of this.

The end of a training is important

Last night I led the training, as the usual trainers have gone to the Tengu Cup in Frankfurt with many others. Normally one expect very few people and beginners, but there were, nonetheless, a few more experienced kenshi present. In total there were 9, so we could have a very decent training.

Before mokuzo I reminded everyone to have good etiquette, good body posture and the ability to learn by observation. We started with 4x kirikaeshi, 2x dou-kirikaeshi, followed by the usual men, kote-men, kote strikes. We did also 2 rounds of oji-waza against men-strikes. The first oji-waza to learn is perhaps debana-kote. With debana-kote, the most important thing is to have a clear strike without the upper body bending sideways due to wanting to avoid the men-strike. The strike has to be straight without an inclination. If the strike is not straight, very often the shinai hits the tsuba.

Before the 20 minutes mawari-geiko, we had 2 rounds of butsukari-geiko, and we finished the jigeiko with kirikaeshi (50 sayu-men). When everyone was exhausted, I asked them to make two last big men cuts. Reminding them that it was the last chance to make perfect men-cuts with good posture and ki-ken-tai-ichi. I think that helps psychologically so that everyone goes away with positive feelings regardless of whether they had won or lost in the fights.

I was quite pleased myself with the session as I didn't speak too much and I had a good training myself too. I hope everyone went away feeling the same.

Wish the others do well in the competition!

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.