Kendo is soothing

After not practising for a week, since the Lepsig championship, Friday's training was.. well.. "soothing" if I may. The reason for not being able to practise was the conference held at the Max-Planck Insitute, which kept me busy for the whole week.

We did almost entirely jigeiko, not sure why Stephan said so this time. My way of fighting has changed since the Leipzig matches. I don't just strike, but react to the situation more. In other words, I'm starting to do kendo than gymasitics

At the end we at a shiai-geiko, in which I fought with Stephan. Wow! Even though I lost 1-0 I enjoyed the fight. I almost got he on the Men, but my Zanshin was horrible. I ran into him, and he pushed me so that my balance was lost, which means no Zanshin. This was also a problem while fighting with the big guy from Czech in Leipzig (see the previous post).

I felt the gap between my level and the older kenshis' is closing very fast. Those who turn up only once a week or every two weeks are no threats to me anymore. Well, it sounds a bit arrogant but I just mean that at least we can fight on the same level.

Leipzig Championship

Came back at nearly 1am this morning from Leipzig with the bunch of Dresden Kenshi. I was very pleased about my performance in the championship, my first one. I got through to the quater-final in the junior division, meaning non-dojo-leaders, beaten by Georg a young talented kenshi from Dresden as well. Which I wasn't too disappointed, since in normal practises with him, he was obviously better. Moreover, he went on to become the 1st place in that division.

I won 4 matches in total. Three in the single, and one in the group division, in which I was the taisho of the team. The 1st match was easy, which lasted under 1 min. I won 2-0 with a Men- and
a Kote-strike.



In the 2nd match, I was up against a Czech kenshi who is much bigger and taller than I am. Running into him felt like running into a tree trunk. But I managed to strike Men, so the match ended with 1-0. It's funny to note that he makes the sound: "so, so..so so so.." all throughout the match which I thought was funny. I almost wanted to laugh, but resisted of course. I think it's pretty useless doing that, if not damaging, because it gives away your attacking rythm or tempo. I gave an impressive-looking Do-strike towards the end, but I was out plus my shinai landed more on the front than on the side.



My third oppenent had approximately the same physical size like mine, and similar agility. The biggest error he makes is to bring his shinai too far back, which was too slow. I striked Men, and the match ended 1-0.



I lost in the quater-final to Georg with 2-0. Both times were Men-strikes in the

Training systematics

In jigeiko I mainly did Men-strikes with what I found yesterday, namely, bring the arms higher. I felt an improvement from yesterday. It's especially apparent when I was able to score against someone who two weeks ago was impossible for me (see this entry ). I also almost gave Jens a couple of head -on Men-strikes, but my shinai fell on his shoulder. Seems like I need to improve accuracy. It's also interesting that he rotates his shinai in a small circle constantly to distract my attention, and at the same time he can pull it suddenly from the smooth rotation and strike accurately.

• The things I should work on are pretty much the same as the previous training. Yet one more thing is the Kote-strike. My left hand tend to be too low. I should move my left hand more forwards rather than downwards.

To build up my own training systematics, I asked the people on Kendo-world forum what method they use. See this thread.

Asian Etiquette

During the training yesterday a guy who hasn't worn the bogu yet really pissed me off. I was the Motodachi for two people, and he was one of them. The trainer told us to finish each practise with Sonkyo, so after doing uchigumi-geiko with this guy who was the first Utodachi, I bowed and turned around to the second person. So the first guy bloody use his shinai and poked me from behind to get my attention!!! I was fucking furious but of course my sense won the day. I just told him to never do that again. This is totally ridiculous. Politeness and modesty is such a big part of Kendo. Not to mention the respect for the sword. Using the shinai as the mere extention of your arm is rediculous.

It brings me to another story, which is about whether to look at your opponents eyes when bowing. The answer is of course not. The other day someone who has done kendo for two years, thinking he's senior than I am, asked me to look at his eyes when bowing. I indirectly said that some other people said the opposite. But, oh-my-god, some people try to show that they know stuff, while having absolutly no idea about asian culture. In martial art, if one looks at his/her opponent while bowing, it means that this person is being cautious of sabotage, which not a real politeness. "Looking in the eyes" is a western etiquette.

[Note added 20/7/06: it turns out that some people even the japanese do look at each other's eyes. The bottom line is, your eye sight should not leave your opponent's body while bowing.]

Speed!!

How can Stephan be so fast on the stike? I don't understand it!! Today I did jigeiko with for the first time and he was every time faster then I was. Maybe my forearms were too tense.

I worked on mostly Men-strike today. A advice from Jasmin is that my Men-strike is too low. It hits on the metal guard more than the top. To correct that I brought both my arms higher, and then push my right arm forward/downward. This eventually worked. And I found this way of striking renders the opponent's blocking less effective.

I also work on Seme, which successfully distracted several people (but not Stephan).

I have to increase my speed. But not sure how.