Concentrate with your eyes

Tomorrow is the Taipei Chung-Cheng Cup where I'll be fighting as a member of the under-30 team from Taipei Kendokan. In the past two weeks, due to my busy schedule I could only stay in Hsin-Chu and train with the university students. The downside is that it's hard to find a competative opponent to fight against especially in terms of speed and putting pressure. So that, everytime when I go back to Taipei Kendokan, it feels like I hadn't trained for a while.

Chang Sempai gave me some advices during waza-geiko:

• focus on using your eyes and not the feet nor the hands, to observe the opponent's movement and find the right moment to strike.
• stronger forward motion.

I found also that I tend to lean back a little when striking men. My cut is not strong enough and is easy to loose an ai-men facing a strong fighter. I should correct this mistake.

I hope tomorrow I will be in a good condition for the matches!

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.

Hsin-Chu Cup 2009

Last Sunday I participated in the Hsin-Chu Cup which celebrated also the 10th anniversary of the Hsin-Chu Kendokan. The competition consisted of many catagories - team and north-against-south. The team is made up of 7 people, 2 female fighting first and the rest male. I fought along with the Taipei Kendokan friends and you know what? We were the Winner!!



Although I didn't fight in the final match, since I didn't perfom well enough on the day and I thought the opponents might be too strong for me, I didn't loose the earlier matches, and had two wins and a draw.

The north-south competition featured 39 kenshis from the northertn half of Taiwan and 39 kenshis from the southern half. Much like the Tozai (East-West) Competition in Japan. Being a mere Nidan I was placed as the second person to fight, or aka the jiho. I didn't know I had to go up so early, therefore it was a little shock to me. Anyhow, I won 2-1 with two kote points.



My performance on the day was unsatisfactory because my body was too tense, and at the same time my mind wasn't calm enough. It's only when there were large gaps between our kills could I perform clean cuts.

Some thoughts from the day:

• Learn to analyse my opponent and adjust fighting strategy accordingly.
• When facing an aggressive and young opponent, be calm and use oji-waza.
• Need more shiai experience!!

Here are some videos from the final match, the red side is Taipei Kendokan, and the white is Hsin-Chu Kendokan.

Senpo

Jiho

Gosho

Yonsho

Sansho

Fukusho

Taisho

First training in Tsing-Hua University

Yesterday I practised at the Tsing-Hua University for the first time. The main reasons to go there are that I need to practise 3 times a week, and that the students from this university whom I've met in the dojoes are passionate about improving their kendo. Therefore, even though they're not stronger than me, training with them would be a pleasure because a person with a good attitude makes a good training partner.

It was indeed a good idea to go there, and I did manage to train myself. Some of them are quite good given that they're beginners. However, the common problem is that they're way too silent when doing kendo. Kiai is not enough, which is in fact one of the most important things in Kendo, and the first thing one has to learn to do well. It seems that this is not emphasized enough in many places I've visited.

Nonetheless, their potential is great given there are several sempais in the club who are passionate about kendo. With the right instruction, they can become strong quickly, at least I mean winning in competitions. Dresden is exactly one of the examples..

Anyhow, I'm glad to find a bunch of hot-blooded young guns to train with!

Goodbye Adam!!

My young Czech friend Adam Urban had his last training in Taipei last Wednesday. He spent 2 months here and came to training regularly. I was very grateful that Ho Sensei took him in as one of his students and gave him a lot of advices. It was a pleasure also to see him improve. Keep it up Adam, and make us PROUD!!