Well done and congratulations to the beginners who graded at the Oxford Kendo Cup!
You have achieved so much during this term!
I was very pleased to see so many people looking good doing kendo.
Thank you very much to those of you who also stayed for the Armoured members' competition as well.
I hope you enjoyed watching the match.
Here's some of the things we learned during the this week's practice:
1. Continuity
During this term, you have learnt to make basic cuts. We have practiced this during suburi, and kihon geiko.
Now we've moved on to do a bit more than just single cuts.
When doing kirikaeshi, or uchicomi geiko, you have to make sure to have the continuity from the beginning of an exercise to the end.
This includes the first chudan-no-kamae at tooma, and lasts until you've made your final cut and turned around to chudan-no-kamae at tooma again.
I think Dave-sensei instructed to do a uchicomi geiko (men, kote, kote-men, men) in one breath during this Monday's practice. Many of you may have found this challenging, because it's often difficult to do everything in one breath when you are not used to moving around very fast.
Don't worry too much if you couldn't do everything in a single breath at this moment, because if you try to speed up too much, you may lose some of the important aspects of the cut we learned so far.
Instead, it would be useful to know the concept and the mentality, and try to get there eventually. The reason why we do exercise with multiple movements, is to train our mind and body to give good zanshin, and to stay focused so as not to give away opportunity to the opponent during a match.
Try to keep yourself focused throughout the exercise. Don't worry if you do something wrong, or miss a target. It happens all the time in sparring or a match. If you break your concentration, you are giving your opponent a big opportunity. The important thing is to just keep your mind focused until the end of the exercise without breaks in between.
Once you can do that, try to make your kiai a little more continuous as well. This will train you for correct breathing, and eventually you will be able to do everything in one breath.
2. Being a motodachi
If you are not wearing an armour, you will rarely be asked to stand as a motodachi (unless you are receiving cuts with your shinai).
However, from next term on, you will be wearing armours, and you will have to stand as motodachi, so it's useful to know a few things about being a motodachi at this point.
During the exercise where you are the kakarite (person doing the exercise), watch what your motodachi partner is doing.
Motodachi is supposed to aid the partner's practice, and offer a good target for kakarite.
They should kiai with the kakarite, and should keep a good posture throughout the exercise, be ready, and move according to the exercise being practised.
When the kakarite move through after a cut, motodachi should either step sideways (taisabaki) and avoid impact, or receive a taiatari (body impact) with a correct posture. Once the kakarite is back to the position to make a cut, motodachi should be ready right away to receive the next cut
This may involve the motodachi running after kakarite (either gone through, or did a hiki-waza) to catch up at tooma. If the motodachi doesn't do this, kakarite will end up having to run back up to them before they can make the next cut.
This is an important exercise for the motodachi as well, because it train their readiness and to work out the distance at all times.
3. Some Japanese words you may want to learn...
At the beginning of an exercise: Onegaishimasu
At the end of an exercise: Arigatou-gozaimashita (thank you)
Do try to use these words during the exercise. It will encourage your partner and yourself to practice kendo with a positive attitude!
See you next week!
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