Ok, first budo post so if you're not nutty enough to practice martial arts, look away now. I'll divide this into three sections for kendo, iaido and jodo.
Kendo
For the past couple of months, I've been training at the Sugao Elementary School Dojo (菅生小学校道場), run by Kubota sensei (久保田先生). I got in touch with Yanai sensei (矢内先生), whom I knew from Mumeishi, and, through him, was introduced to Sugao. The senseis outnumber the deshi by quite a margin (they regularly number around a dozen) and opportunities to practice with all of them are few and far between so I tend to focus on the three or four most senior: Kubota sensei (7dan Kyoshi), Yanai sensei (7dan Kyoshi), Saeki sensei (佐伯先生) and Yazawa sensei (矢澤先生). Practicing with them is incredibly invaluable and they all shower me with more points than I can possibly absorb in one keiko but I am working through them.
The points I've been working on so far are getting my footwork back to what kendo footwork should be (years of doing more iai/jo than kendo meant that I ended up with a very wide kamae), centring my cuts (a consequence of my overactive right hand) as well as solidifying them. It's quite reassuring that I can feel my kendo improve practice by practice but it's still a long way to yondan (especially since I'm grading in Kanagawa...I hear it's one of the tougher prefectures to grade in for kendo). I also made a point of getting a heavy shinai (660g) for regular keiko and a lighter one (531g) for taikai and shinsa and I'm planning on buying a suburi-ko so we'll see if that has any effect on my kendo.
Iaido
Given that I was working at Gaba full-time, I hadn't intended on practicing at all in the first couple of months but I attended the Osaka Iaido Taikai (大阪居合道大会) in early Decembre and the Kita-Kyushu Iaido Taikai (北九州居合道大会) in March so I tried to train at least once or twice a week. More recently, as my professional situation solidified into more of an 8:00-16:00 arrangement, I've been turning up to almost every training available (I've had to give up the Tuesday practices because of Japanese lessons).
I don't put that much emphasis on competition as a mark of what I've achieved; in my mind, the primary purpose of taikai is to put the pressure on and test my self-control. Improving on technique in the dojo is all well and good but practicing and incorporating the myriad points when being scrutinised by three or four very senior practitioners is something else entirely. I think it's closest thing we'll ever get to actual combat and as such it's an immensely valuable experience that, no matter how hard you try, you just will not get in the dojo. If you can change the points you've been taught under that kind of pressure (regardless of the number of shiai you win), I think that's an excellent guide of how much your iai has changed for the better. There's also the added bonus of being seen by sensei you might not usually be exposed to and they will sometimes give you points to work on so it's an opportunity to learn new ways of doing things and of thinking about them.
The first taikai I attended was the Osaka Taikai and I went fully expecting to just have the one fight then spend the rest of the day browsing the selection of iaito, shinken and other goodies. As there were around a thousand participants, it was a three-way embu in front of four shinpan (three to give the initial decision and one standing by in case of a three-way draw) and the shitei-waza consisted of two koryu (I did Gyakuto and Ukigumo) and three seitei. Amazingly, I did get through the first round but lost the second so I was very chuffed to have had two goes. In such a huge event (I don't think any other country or continent could dream of those numbers), there's obviously a wide range of abilities so I got to see some iai that was verging on the divine and some that was nightmarish and I got to see a lot more ryuha than we get in Europe: all three of the main Hayashizaki lines were represented (Muso Shinden Jushin Ryu (夢想神傳重信流), Muso Jikiden Eishin Ryu (無双直伝英信流) and Muso Shinden Ryu (夢想神伝流)) as were Tamiya Ryu (田宮流), Hoki Ryu (伯耆流), Shinkage Ryu (新陰流), Shinto Munen Ryu (神道無念流) and Mugai Ryu (無外流). All in all, it was a fantastic experience and wonderful to see such a range of ryuha. My second taikai was the Kita-Kyushu Taikai in Kokura, Fukuoka Prefecture (小倉市、福岡県), and, since the participants again numbered close to a thousand, the arrangements were the same. This time, I lost my first fight (but still somehow got Fighting Spirit (敢闘賞)) but found a new iaito. Up until then I had first used Fuku-Kancho's very nice shinken then one of the dojo iaito (which was quite heavy, horribly balanced and the tsuka was a bit too long) so I was quite desperate to find a new one. It's a 2.6 and roughly the same weight but the balance is much better; cutting with it is quite tricky, though, and I'm now finding it difficult to adjust my cutting for it. This new iaito doesn't quite fight me but nor does it help me cut so I'm still working out some of the kinks but it's good to have one that doesn't try to rip my shoulders out on every cut.
As for how my iai is developing, with a fairly major grading coming up in under a year, I'm getting slightly paranoid as to how few points I'm being given around the dojo, and although I've had more over the past couple of weeks, I'm sure there's more wrong with my iai than that so to say I'm worried is a bit of an understatement. Additionally, although I have been told what I should be aiming for for my next grade, I remain uncertain as to whether or not my development is moving in the right direction, something which needs to be brought up with sensei in the next couple of weeks. My current training regime is to spend no more than five minutes on each form and to work my way through one set every evening. In the event that I finish the set with time to spare, I do the relevant to-rei and start over from the first form of that set. I find the time limit helps to focus and does wonders for my motivation to get it right (although this format goes out the window somewhat on the occasions when I do get points so I'll throw in an additional five minutes to work on that new point). I'd also noticed that my knowledge, ability and comfort with the higher forms, especially okuden, has suffered from lack of practice over the last two or three years so working through one set at a time should hopefully combat that. Because on Saturdays it is normal for people to work through the whole of seitei before moving on to koryu, I tend to practice seitei about twice as much as any of the koryu sets but this is definitely a good thing as seitei does tend to be more pedantic than koryu.
One specific habit I'm working on in all my forms is that every time I cut, my front leg doesn't quite maintain the same amount of tension as the back leg and as a result, my body bounces back ever so slightly after the cut. This, as well as an annoying little shoulder movement just before chiburi, can be clearly seen in this footage from the 2010 EIC in Paris (although that was over two and a half years ago but I have been picked up on this as recently as nine months ago), video courtesy of Joel Bergmark (I start around 3:40). To counter this, I'm focusing on freezing my whole body right after the final cut and trying to my make chiburi smoother (ie take the power out).
Jodo
My jodo practice since getting here has been rather frustrating in that I haven't been given many comments and although my technique's been feeling ok in general, this is usually a good sign that I'm not doing it right. I've been struggling with hikiotoshi for the past eighteen months or so (until then it hadn't felt too bad, then it all went down the drain) and again, considering that I have quite a serious grading coming up in April of next year, I'm starting to panic slightly.
Although there haven't been that many jodo events, I have turned up to a couple of koshukai (講習会, "seminar") including the central Kanagawa Prefecture seminar (when the local high grades pass on all the recent changes made to the seitei by the ZNKR technical committee) where we were fortunate enough to have seven out of Kanagawa's nine (I think) 8dans present. The jodo powers that be haven't actually changed anything to the katas themselves but they have clarified that, on Tachiotoshi, the initial small step back should only bring the toes of the right foot in line the with heel of the left and that the first step preparing for the first strike should be at an angle of 30 degrees. In addition to this, they have modified the way of holding weapons when not practicing and for gradings [again]; I did take a picture of Otake sensei demonstrating this but I won't put it up until I've had a chance to ask for his permission so I'll just describe it. Jo and bokuto should be held side-by-side on the right hip, with the bokuto on the inside and the jo on the outside. The bokuto should have the tsuka pointing forward, the ha pointing up and the tsukagashira and josaki should be level. With regards to the hands, the right hand should be holding them at the right hip and the left should be holding both the jo and tsuba with the thumb on the tsuba. Lastly, both weapons should be horizontal or with the forward ends angled slightly upwards (the logic being that the bokuto is theoretically in a saya and, although the thumb is holding on to the tsuba, the angle is an added measure against it falling out).
Well, there goes my first budo post. I doubt I'll write more than one post a month (I don't think my life, budo or otherwise, is interesting enough to warrant more than that), unless something earth-shattering happens. So, for now, that's all folks!
Kendo
For the past couple of months, I've been training at the Sugao Elementary School Dojo (菅生小学校道場), run by Kubota sensei (久保田先生). I got in touch with Yanai sensei (矢内先生), whom I knew from Mumeishi, and, through him, was introduced to Sugao. The senseis outnumber the deshi by quite a margin (they regularly number around a dozen) and opportunities to practice with all of them are few and far between so I tend to focus on the three or four most senior: Kubota sensei (7dan Kyoshi), Yanai sensei (7dan Kyoshi), Saeki sensei (佐伯先生) and Yazawa sensei (矢澤先生). Practicing with them is incredibly invaluable and they all shower me with more points than I can possibly absorb in one keiko but I am working through them.
The points I've been working on so far are getting my footwork back to what kendo footwork should be (years of doing more iai/jo than kendo meant that I ended up with a very wide kamae), centring my cuts (a consequence of my overactive right hand) as well as solidifying them. It's quite reassuring that I can feel my kendo improve practice by practice but it's still a long way to yondan (especially since I'm grading in Kanagawa...I hear it's one of the tougher prefectures to grade in for kendo). I also made a point of getting a heavy shinai (660g) for regular keiko and a lighter one (531g) for taikai and shinsa and I'm planning on buying a suburi-ko so we'll see if that has any effect on my kendo.
Iaido
Given that I was working at Gaba full-time, I hadn't intended on practicing at all in the first couple of months but I attended the Osaka Iaido Taikai (大阪居合道大会) in early Decembre and the Kita-Kyushu Iaido Taikai (北九州居合道大会) in March so I tried to train at least once or twice a week. More recently, as my professional situation solidified into more of an 8:00-16:00 arrangement, I've been turning up to almost every training available (I've had to give up the Tuesday practices because of Japanese lessons).
I don't put that much emphasis on competition as a mark of what I've achieved; in my mind, the primary purpose of taikai is to put the pressure on and test my self-control. Improving on technique in the dojo is all well and good but practicing and incorporating the myriad points when being scrutinised by three or four very senior practitioners is something else entirely. I think it's closest thing we'll ever get to actual combat and as such it's an immensely valuable experience that, no matter how hard you try, you just will not get in the dojo. If you can change the points you've been taught under that kind of pressure (regardless of the number of shiai you win), I think that's an excellent guide of how much your iai has changed for the better. There's also the added bonus of being seen by sensei you might not usually be exposed to and they will sometimes give you points to work on so it's an opportunity to learn new ways of doing things and of thinking about them.
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| 39th Kita-Kyushu Iaido Taikai (第３９回北九州居合道大会) |
As for how my iai is developing, with a fairly major grading coming up in under a year, I'm getting slightly paranoid as to how few points I'm being given around the dojo, and although I've had more over the past couple of weeks, I'm sure there's more wrong with my iai than that so to say I'm worried is a bit of an understatement. Additionally, although I have been told what I should be aiming for for my next grade, I remain uncertain as to whether or not my development is moving in the right direction, something which needs to be brought up with sensei in the next couple of weeks. My current training regime is to spend no more than five minutes on each form and to work my way through one set every evening. In the event that I finish the set with time to spare, I do the relevant to-rei and start over from the first form of that set. I find the time limit helps to focus and does wonders for my motivation to get it right (although this format goes out the window somewhat on the occasions when I do get points so I'll throw in an additional five minutes to work on that new point). I'd also noticed that my knowledge, ability and comfort with the higher forms, especially okuden, has suffered from lack of practice over the last two or three years so working through one set at a time should hopefully combat that. Because on Saturdays it is normal for people to work through the whole of seitei before moving on to koryu, I tend to practice seitei about twice as much as any of the koryu sets but this is definitely a good thing as seitei does tend to be more pedantic than koryu.
One specific habit I'm working on in all my forms is that every time I cut, my front leg doesn't quite maintain the same amount of tension as the back leg and as a result, my body bounces back ever so slightly after the cut. This, as well as an annoying little shoulder movement just before chiburi, can be clearly seen in this footage from the 2010 EIC in Paris (although that was over two and a half years ago but I have been picked up on this as recently as nine months ago), video courtesy of Joel Bergmark (I start around 3:40). To counter this, I'm focusing on freezing my whole body right after the final cut and trying to my make chiburi smoother (ie take the power out).
Jodo
My jodo practice since getting here has been rather frustrating in that I haven't been given many comments and although my technique's been feeling ok in general, this is usually a good sign that I'm not doing it right. I've been struggling with hikiotoshi for the past eighteen months or so (until then it hadn't felt too bad, then it all went down the drain) and again, considering that I have quite a serious grading coming up in April of next year, I'm starting to panic slightly.
Although there haven't been that many jodo events, I have turned up to a couple of koshukai (講習会, "seminar") including the central Kanagawa Prefecture seminar (when the local high grades pass on all the recent changes made to the seitei by the ZNKR technical committee) where we were fortunate enough to have seven out of Kanagawa's nine (I think) 8dans present. The jodo powers that be haven't actually changed anything to the katas themselves but they have clarified that, on Tachiotoshi, the initial small step back should only bring the toes of the right foot in line the with heel of the left and that the first step preparing for the first strike should be at an angle of 30 degrees. In addition to this, they have modified the way of holding weapons when not practicing and for gradings [again]; I did take a picture of Otake sensei demonstrating this but I won't put it up until I've had a chance to ask for his permission so I'll just describe it. Jo and bokuto should be held side-by-side on the right hip, with the bokuto on the inside and the jo on the outside. The bokuto should have the tsuka pointing forward, the ha pointing up and the tsukagashira and josaki should be level. With regards to the hands, the right hand should be holding them at the right hip and the left should be holding both the jo and tsuba with the thumb on the tsuba. Lastly, both weapons should be horizontal or with the forward ends angled slightly upwards (the logic being that the bokuto is theoretically in a saya and, although the thumb is holding on to the tsuba, the angle is an added measure against it falling out).
Well, there goes my first budo post. I doubt I'll write more than one post a month (I don't think my life, budo or otherwise, is interesting enough to warrant more than that), unless something earth-shattering happens. So, for now, that's all folks!
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