Dear Diary…

Bleh, yet again, there is yet another long time span since I made my last entry.  Things were getting a little busy around March due to events happening at work and balancing the responsibility of setting up the promotion exam for Kendo in the ECUSKF.  After that, I’ll admit that some laziness and distraction came up since I’m involved with other things in life that makes me wish that there was more time in a day to accomplish stuff.  Ah well.  Hopefully I can be more consistent with posting, as long as I have enough stuff to write about.

A few things have happened since I last posted.  Unfortunately, I failed my 3rd Dan exam when I went up to Cleveland.  I wasn’t able to get any advice since, by time they posted the results, we already started the Iaido seminar and just about everyone had already left by that point.  All I can do is continue practicing until the next round of exams and try again.  To compound that, my drive back was okay until the last five miles or so when heavy rain and hail started to fall to the point where I couldn’t see more than 10 feet in front of me.  Then there was the sprained ankle that magically appeared the next day, which still baffles me how that happened.  However, most of that was trumped by the fact that the UC team got 3rd place at the tournament.  We were able to defeat the other teams until we had to fight against the Canadian team.  The results really helped boost our spirits to continue practicing, improving and seeing the fruits of our labor.  Koizumi-sensei from Miami Valley Kendo Club was nice enough to post a video with just my matches in it, so you can take a look below at the team matches we had.

Video of my team tournament performance. Now, if only I can feel this good during the individuals, then I’d be all set.

I’ve had some ideas on what to type about next, but it was just a matter of actually posting.  At first, I wanted to talk about the last WKC in Italy, but I felt that, by time I would post it, most of what I wanted to say has already been said ad nauseum so I didn’t think that I had much value to put into it.  It doesn’t help that I’ve never been involved with something of that order of magnitude, nor was I even there so that was an additional strike against it.  What I did settle on though, was the concept of having a budo diary of sorts and talk about what it means to me.

When I first started this blog, I thought about making this a diary of sorts.  I guess I can say that it kind of is, but not in the sense of telling everyone how my last practice went.  I could very well do something like this, but I felt that I could provide more to the internet budo world than that so I finally settled on just talking about how I feel about certain concepts that I encounter through my practices.  Also, I don’t think I could get as personal on the internet than I can with written pages in a book where I can air my frustrations that I might not want to discuss nor do I want to bore people with the laundry list of things I did with little explanation to what they all mean.

I have considered, and tried, making a written version of the diary so that I can put my personal thoughts down on paper.  I know I really want to do something like that, but I don’t know if it’s something to do with being too lazy to keep it up, or if it’s something to do with the format of what I want to talk about.  My thoughts in the past tended to be very boring, only consisting of “we did X, Y and Z during practice and I thought I did well, or bad, performing those,” without any further reflection beyond that.  If what I’m writing is boring, then how can I really keep it up.

A few months ago, I was talking to a Kendo bud of mine and the subject of Kendo diaries came up.  He was talking about how he really goes into his feelings of the recent practice, down to if he agrees or disagrees with the lesson for the day.  It lit the light bulb in my head, giving me some additional ideas to make writing these entries a bit more fulfilling.  Instead of doing what I have done in the past, I really need to dig deep into myself to articulate my feelings on my practices.  And since it’s not really intended for others to see, I can get as personal as I feel I need to be in order to really reflect on how I feel about things.

Whether it’s online, on paper, or just in our heads, anyone that has done martial arts for even a little while notices the benefits of reflecting on practices.  On the surface, it seems like that practice begins and ends in the dojo and just attending practice a lot is sufficient to improve.  However, I think that the thoughts that are necessary outside of practice makes martial arts seem like one of those full-time jobs that people really don’t see until they are knee deep in it.  Recently, the things that I have been trying to understand go way beyond just mechanically doing techniques right.  Concepts like seme has popped up quite a bit in recent months that can’t be improved upon just by going to the dojo every day.  I really need to examine what needs to be done for me to understand it in the context of my current ability and understanding of Kendo.  You know what?  Maybe I’ll try again at one of these diary things.  There’s really nothing to lose, right?

Kendo and Physics

Anyone that does Kendo can understand that even the most basic themes can be difficult to understand or perform.  Someone might tell you over and over how to hit a better men or make better use of seme, which is something you possibly could perform given enough time.  You might be able to do it, but do you really understand what your instructor is talking about?

Sometimes, whenever I am given advice on something during training, I can get told that my body has to be in position X when I start, then it needs to be in position Y when I finish while, at the same time, I need to be thinking about Z to really carry things through.  It really works for the short-term understanding to be able to try out what they are telling me for that particular practice, or even the following couple of practices.  But, I must admit, just saying that I have to be in certain positions or thinking about certain things can sometimes ring hollow to me for the long-term to aid in personal development.  Thus, I have been thinking of certain ways to aid in understanding things in terms that have more of a personal meaning to me.

Whenever we learn a new concept, one of the highly recommended methods for memorization or better understanding is to use mnemonics which is the concept of using aids to help your memorization and understanding of new material.  The most common thing to do is to take a new word or phrase and assign it a word, phrase or concept to make it easier to understand.  So, when it comes to Kendo, doing something like men turns into basic mechanical physics concepts like vector forces of the tip of the shinai and radius of rotation and their related equations.  Or, a concept like tame goes from just storing up my energy before I attack to thinking of springs and how they operate.  Things like this really helps put things into perspective and makes everything less daunting to understand.

Another benefit of this is that, whenever I have to relay the information to others, I can have an easier time explaining it since it makes much more sense to me.  The main caveat is that, because I understand it in terms of physical concepts, relaying the information may be a bit more difficult to others to understand that don't have the same science background that I do.  Of course, any looks of confusion allows me to backpedal a bit and explain it differently if I forget who I am talking to.


Either way, the most important thing is that I turn what was previously hard to understand concepts into something meaningful and, thus, easier to understand.  Doing so allows me to rely on my own devices to aid in improvement, regardless of the type of advice I get.

Applying Pressure

It's been a while since I have typed anything about Iaido, but now, I actually have something to type about (yay!). I also have something to say about my Kendo practice, but that should be a given by now.

Iaido practice doesn't officially start until 8 AM on Sundays, but since I have a key to the dance studio where we practice, I like to get there at about 7 AM, if possible, to try and work on some things. I got there, stretched out as best as I can and began some self-practice by 7:30 or so.

I explained in one of my earlier posts that I had finally gotten my iaito after about 1.5 years of waiting. Because it is slightly longer than my previous iaito and much heavier, I have been spending the past month or so adjusting to the differences. In this particular case, I was working on using my body to swing instead of just using my arms. The instructor pulled up in his truck, in front of the building, and sat in his truck while eating breakfast and, simultaneously, watched me do my suburi and ipponme mae.

When he came in, he told me that I needed to shift my focus a bit while performing stuff. There was nothing wrong with what I was doing, but he wanted me to go beyond what I can currently do and reach the next level. Essentially, I need to focus more on the intent of every swing. Up until now, my focus has been more on the mechanical side of things, like how to perform the nukitsuke. Now, I needed to think about what I am doing for that nukitsuke and performing it as if I'm trying to kill the person before they get me first. After putting that sort of focus into my Iaido, I noticed some immediate benefits after doing that. Of course, I will continue doing the mechanical analysis, but there also comes a time when I need to put that to use.

After Iaido ended, we began the Kendo half of the practice. It was my turn to lead the class and I thought about trying to put more focus on ki ken tai icchi (spirit, sword and body as one) for each strike. I notice the overall ability in everyone across all experience levels, now it's time to get everyone really cleaning up their swings and advance to the next level. We did go over tsuki which the newest member objected to at first, but after essentially explaining to him that he needed to start somewhere with it and get used to the fact that it exists, he went along with it. We also allowed him to use some extra kote that we had. He was initially worried, but he got to the masochistic phase after practice ended saying that it felt weird and hurt at times, but he wanted more.

The main thing I have been working on lately is being able to apply pressure to the opponent. Whether or not you believe in ki, the concept of applying pressure to break your opponent's composure, or kuzushi is a very important concept to understand in the higher levels. If you believe in ki then it's trying to extend your energy to clash with your opponent's energy to gain control of the other person. If you don't, then it's a way of sending certain signals to gain dominance over the other person. No matter how you think of it, you're trying to gain control over an ability that occurs very often in the animal kingdom to reach the same goal of gaining control of the match.

I have been working hard with trying to apply pressure, but I tend to ultimately become concerned about the shinai in front of me and thinking too much about the overall outcome whether or not I have the center. With that in mind, the phrase, "The more you chase it, the more it eludes you," comes to mind. From what I understand, it means that trying too hard to achieve something can cause you to lose the original purpose of achieving that goal which can lead to even more frustration. With that in mind, I might want to try focusing on some other things that I need to work on and come back to it when it might be easier to accomplish. There are a lot of the mechanical things to think about such as weight distribution, lunging and body positioning before and after the strike. Then, there are some other things, like kuzushi, sutemi (捨て身) or releasing one's thoughts to strike and tame (溜め).

On a final note, we had an accident the week before last where someone tore their Achilles tendon near the end of practice and will be out for several months. It really brings home the necessity to be well stretched and rested before practice to prevent injuries. While it won't get rid of 100% of the risk, it will at least reduce the chances of injuries. I did get to talk to him again last night and he's doing fine and really excited to start practicing again as soon as he recovers. He told that, during his free time, he's been thinking a lot about his future in Kendo and how best to approach that. I think that this is something that every kenshi should think about from time to time to build a path that one wants to follow and possibly reignite the flame of desire for improvement for those that might have their flames slowly dissipating in monotony and disappointment. It's one thing to do Kendo, but it's best to eventually begin exploring why one chooses to do Kendo and what they hope to get out of it.

What is Seme?

For the past couple of months, Morikawa sensei has told me that I need to apply more seme to my fighting. He told me that whenever I fight him, he doesn’t feel any pressure coming from me. Throughout that time, I have been trying to apply what he has been telling me, but I still get the same piece of advice. Seeing as I obviously don’t quite get it, I decided to do a little research on what seme is, which should hopefully help me in achieving this goal. My intention was to ask Morikawa sensei for some more info on what he was talking about as well as a small section that explains what seme is in book Kendo Joutatsu Book by Inoue Hidekatsu sensei (剣道上達Book by 井上秀克). I’m not exactly fluent in the Japanese language, so I apologize in any sort of mistranslations that may occur.

The English definition of seme (攻め) is “attack.” The particular application of seme that I am looking for is much deeper than just the literal translation. Sometimes, the word may be used to tell the someone to attack more or be more forceful in tournaments, but the question is, “How is this supposed to be applied?”

After that practice, Morikawa sensei explained to me that I needed to move around, whether it be left, right, front or back. My shinai also has a small role in this by not only getting the center, but moving that around in various ways to see what reaction you can get out of your opponent. I have been trying to implement this recently, but I haven’t been getting the results I like from it. I need to be more prepared to react to anything that I see, which requires better reaction time and more immediate start-up.

After thinking about that for a bit, now it is time to take a look and see what Inoue sensei’s book says to get any additional information or confirm anything that I either heard or thought about. The section on seme starts off by explaining the general flow of events:

• Semeru – put pressure on the opponent
• Tameru – hold in your energy to prepare yourself to strike at any moment. Here, you try to feel your opponent’s reactions.
• Kuzusu – Look for an opening. Once you see an opening, attack!

As explained above, when applying pressure, you need to look out for any reactions your opponent is making. Anyone that has some sort of experience with fighting might be able to look back on some to the common ways that people defend themselves (I know I am guilty of this as well). Sometimes, there might be a slight shift of the shinai or defense of the men by lifting the shinai over your head. Then there are the other times where they might feel forced to attack before they’re ready. Once you see these reactions, it is your job to react to it.

Near the end of the section, the book mentions that a common train of thought is to think that seme only involves trying to fight for the center. My translation skills get a little hazy around this point, unfortunately, but it mentions things about how the opponent will also be fighting for the center and a lot of missed chances. I do understand where he’s going with this though, because I can definitely see it in my Kendo. Only grabbing the center is part of it, but if the opponent is also fully aware of what’s going on and totally unphased, then any attack will be useless and I would be completely unprepared to react to the situation due to a limited field of vision.

From the little research I have done, I feel I have a better grasp of what seme is. It involves more of the entire body and mind than I originally thought since I was one of those people that originally thought that seme was just trying to get the center before you attack. Of course, understanding and doing are two completely different things. While I could ask everyone what seme is, from the looks of it, I really just need to see what works in terms of the opponent I am against and my own disposition. One thing that I do know is that I have felt the effects of seme, so now it is time for me to work on dishing it out.

ECUSKF Joint Practice (May 31st)

The ECUSKF held their joint practice in Columbus this past Sunday. Unfortunately, this was a pretty small one compared to some of the others I’ve been to, but it was no less beneficial to my Kendo to train with people from all over the area (mainly Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia).

There was a kata session added to the beginning of the practice. There isn’t anything too formal with it since we just grabbed the nearest person and went through the kata and got suggestions from the senior members.

I will admit that my kata abilities were quite rusty since it has been a while since I have done them (the non-cooperating floor didn’t help matters either). I did get some much-appreciated help on them though. The biggest thing that I needed to fix was the overall thought process during kata. I was just going through the movements and not putting much feeling behind it. Granted, I was just trying to get used to doing kata again, but I also need to realize that there is supposed to be a story and purpose to each of them and it’s up to me to be able to interpret and display that when I do them if I ever hope to understand Kendo better. This tip also got me thinking about the overall perception of what kata means to kenshi.

One thing that seems to be apparent is that kata isn’t practiced all that often, or it isn’t given that much importance until the weeks approaching promotional exams. It’s easy to see why though. Kihon-geiko and jigeiko is much more active. Rigorous practice involving these give the most apparent results through better reaction times and tournament victories. Thus, setting some time on the side for kata may be seen as a burden since the benefits aren’t really seen immediately and tends to be treated as another obstacle to getting that next rank.

Things got a bit more interesting once I started to analyze what each of the kata are supposed to represent. Instead of just robotically going through each of the moves, it became an exercise in timing and dynamic body movement. So essentially, the thought process had to shift from, “I gotta move to the left,” to, “I need to dodge the person’s cut.” I would like to be able to put more focus on kata to help me permanently think in this manner. As it stands, I only do kata once a month, at best.

The second part was the normal practice where we stretched, did warm-ups and did some kihon-geiko. Going through the suburi and ashi-sabaki can be just as important as the rest of practice as it’s easier for me to break down my swings and footwork to see what needs to be fixed. There were two suggestions that I was given. The first one is that my feet were crossing during suriashi. While I had the speed, the balance and effectiveness is gone once my feet are crossing since, at that point, there’s very little I can do if someone is able to take advantage of that sort of situation. The second piece of advice I was given was that I needed to use more of my left during the upswing. Not only does it open up my elbows for easier swinging, it also serves as another piece of advice for those that may have the same issue as me.

My goal for this practice was to put more emphasis on tame and sutemi. I tend to either be too relaxed during matches, which slows down my reaction time, or I might end up being too tense which slows down my overall movements. And the fact that I tend to be too preoccupied with the results of my attempts ends up putting unnecessary doubt during times I could be taking advantage of the situation. I felt that it worked to my advantage during this segment, though my timing could use a lot of work for oji-waza.

I did my best to keep a similar thought process during the free practice with the sempai and sensei. Of course, when the opponent is moving and actually trying to take advantage of your deficiencies, things become much easier said than done. I was trying to apply some pressure to the other person for my first match, but it mostly was done in vain. No matter what I did or how hard I tried, the pressure was being put on me and I was the person losing control of the match. Despite all that, I still tried to make sure I was prepared for any moment I saw. When that match was over, he suggested that I needed to try to put more focus on my own kendo instead of what the other person is capable of. It makes sense though. Worrying about the other person only slows me down and causes me to not go for some otherwise good opportunities.

There were a few other matches I had that day in which I was trying to keep my thought processes in check. I wouldn’t call them successful, but it was better than not attempting to apply them in the first place. Another thing that I have been working on was making sure I keep a better eye on openings, which seems to be a side-effect to applying tame. It actually worked out with one of my hiki-dous since the sempai I was going against thought it was good enough and the sensei that was watching said that it was the best one he’s seen me do. I really appreciated that since I have been trying to be more effective with hiki-waza, though now the issue is actually being able to reproduce everything that went into that.

After the practice was over, I got some suggestions from the sensei. The two main things that I recall, was that I still had an issue of leaning into my strikes before I go. Not only does it put me off balance, but it also telegraphs to the other person that I am about to do something. I really need to do a better job with using my lower body to move forward instead of using my upper body to reach further. The second tip dealt with better use of seme. This has actually been a problem of mine for quite some time, and he has been reminding me of it since then. From his definition, I need to try to have better command of the center before I attack. While I try to keep this in mind, I guess I don’t fully understand what it really means to apply seme. I do recall there being a section in Kendou Joutatsu Book (剣道上達Book) by Hidekatsu Inoue, so I think I’ll do some consulting with that to get a better idea on what this seme is all about. Now if it only was written in English, it wouldn’t seem like such a daunting task.

What is Seme?

Over the past two practices, Morikawa sensei has been telling me that I need more seme. All I was doing when I go up with him is do various attacks, but not really doing much to gain control of the center before I go. This concept has been one of those harder things to grasp, so I thought I'd take a moment and do some research on it.

A quick look at the Japanese-English Kendo dictionary provided by Kendo USA says that seme is a noun meaning, "the retention of superiority in relation to an enemy through kiryoku, the shinai and datotsu." It's a pretty simple definition on the surface by basically saying that you are doing whatever you can to gain the advantage to make a successful attack. Personally, that doesn't really help me too much, so I decided to dig a little further.

The next source I looked at was this book I bought a while ago, which can be translated to The Kendo Improvement Book　(剣道上達Book ISBN4-415-01915-3). It just happened to have a whole section devoted to answering my question so I decided to take a look. I would like to note that this book is in Japanese, so I apologize in any errors in translation ahead of time.

In this book, seme is part 1 in a series of things that needs to be done before you attack--Seme -> Tame -> Search for opening (Kuzure)-> Attack. The seme here has been defined mostly as the process of taking the center by making sure the tip of the shinai is pointed toward your opponent's midline. They also made note of the fact that seme isn't just the act of getting the center. In addition to that, you also need to pay attention to your opponent because they will be trying to get the center as well. Then you still have to pay attention to any moments where openings occur on your opponent as well as being aware of yourself in the process. There are also pictures in the book that show some common things that your opponent might do that will open up several things.

This is one of those concepts that has a short definition to get the basic point across, but there are some deeper things that one needs to consider in order to use this effectively. The above definition is by no means an exhaustive description of what seme is, nor do I consider myself an expert in what it is. But at least it is a start for me to actually begin to effectively use this in practice to gain and maintain the advantage before and during a strike

How Should I Really Be Trying to Fight?

I was reading over the newsletter that is on Kendo Guide and there was an interesting article from Kendo Nippon from Sumi Masatake sensei about the attitudes we should have in fighting. He seemed to talk about quite a bit, but there are four things in the article that I'd like to talk about and reflect on how it compares to what I do now and how it could affect my Kendo later.

Komei Seidai (公明正大) - fairness
This concept is more the thought process that we all must have when we go against people. There are various techniques that are available to us to find, create, disable and attack that are within the rules of shiai. But like everything in life, it mainly remains a judgement call for how to adjust to the given situation. Some rules may end up not being applied as strictly as others depending on who's judging or loopholes might be found and exploited.

But is it necessarily the right thing to do? One thing we should ask ourselves is whether or not we are following the principles of Kendo that the AJKF made in 1975. Not only that, if we were to become victorious, would it feel like a clean win? While there are specific guidelines to follow, there are many interpretations to follow with this. So we also must be able to adapt to the situation in case someone is not doing what we call "fair." Besides, if you lose due to someone being underhanded or not doing things right, then what does that have to say about your abilities?

Tameru (溜める) - To charge, store
I have been hearing a lot about this one lately. I have already used the whole spring analogy when talking to other people my interpretation of it. In short, one should act like a spring when preparing to attack and making that move. Pushing the spring down stores the energy and releasing it releases all that pent-up energy in one, forceful blow.

This is a pretty hard one to think about. It's one thing to try to find that opening, but what must be done to put yourself in that constant state of readiness? Even if I were to get that, what about making sure I don't tense myself too much and jeopordize my overall form? A question and possible solutions were discussed on the Kendo World forums a little bit ago, but a clear-cut answer seems to be impossible to find when stated that way.

Kuzusu (崩す) - To destroy
The Kendo definition to Kuzusu can be determined as destroying your opponent's kamae by using various Kendo concepts like seme and kiai. One thing that I have had issues with is just blindly attacking people without really trying to create that opening. Most of the time, it just results in either nothing happening, getting tsukiid in the throat and maybe, maybe, just get that lucky hit that scores the point.

I have been trying my best to change that, mostly through suggestion by Ariga sensei. I need to think about what I am doing before I attack, but then I also need to make sure that I have something to attack instead of going into auto-pilot. I've been trying to project myself to make the other person react and get myself to act accordingly.

Suteru (捨てる) - To throw away
The definition given on Kendo Guide is to committ yourself to the strike. There is enough going through one's head when they are trying to set up a strike, but once you have flung yourself out there, then you must keep going. This is one that I have a hard time with though because I seem to always have some sort of outcome already planned for me. And when things don't go my way, I can pull back.

At the same time though, I don't want to literally throw myself away and put myself on auto-pilot. This sort of thing isn't fair to myself, nor is it really fair to my opponent because I know I can do better than that. I'll most likely have to change my thought processes during practice to probably get that though. There are times where I tend to go, "If I do X, then I will hit Y." But maybe I should try to see what is going on and basically go with the flow. How I should go about doing that is another question that might take a lifetime to answer.

Of course, these aren't the only things involved in making that successful strike. But from what I see here, these three things seem to go over some of the many things that I have issues with that tend to hold me back.

T-5 Days Till Testing

This coming Saturday will mark the third time that I will attempt the Shodan exam. Ever since I didn't make it in Detroit a few weeks ago, I have been doing all that I could to prepare myself for the testing to make sure that, truely, the third time's the charm. I would also like to thank everyone I have practiced with thus far with helping me out as the encouragement and practice is really uplifting.

From what I have been told, there are some physical things that I need to work on, such as keeping my balance on the back foot, relaxing my shoulders and strengthening my hits but the mental aspects are the things I might need to work on the most. Due to the advice from Takano Sensei, I have heard some new terms that are probably not discussed that much or just described mostly in other terms.

Tame (溜め) - According to the Japanese/English Kendo dictionary on Kendo USA, tame is a moment of mental and physical preparation, accumulating strength and spirit, before starting a technique. In other words, it's like constantly holding back a spring and letting it go whenever you're ready to attack. So whenever I'm fighting, I constantly need to be in that state of preparedness by looking at and sensing the opponent. Then, when I'm ready I literally go from 0 to 60 in a mere fraction of a second. This involves a lot of me keeping my left heel down more than usual, but I also seem to need to work my muscles down there to get the response I want out of it. But the whole thought process of the concept seems to help quite a bit for the time being.

Yoyuu(余裕) - According to an essay named "Space in Time in Taido" by Robert Norris and Rob Delicata, yoyuu can be interpreted as the space that a taidoka creates by means of
movement in order to gain a strategic advantage. While the article is for the martial art of Taido, just substitute taidoka with kendoka and the definition still applies. What I seem to need to do on this one is utilize the various kinds of footwork in order to achieve the proper ma-ai so I can attack most effectively to get that point. I have noticed a tendancy to have some hesitation about moving in to what I percieve as too close and/or extending properly in my strikes. The hesitation makes me lose opportunities to attack and the lack of extention makes me miss otherwise great opportunities. I guess it might have to do with the fear of going too soon and possibly getting tsuki'd or something, but I have been trying to work on that by forcing myself to move and working on getting the opponent to move when I want him/her to do so.

As always, there are many things that I need to work on, but I also need to be careful to not overload myself. From what everyone has been telling me, I seem to be okay with my skill set, I just need to make some yuko-datotsu next time and I should be set for the first part. If I make it past that, then there's the kata, which I would like to discuss at a later date. Kata is something that's rarely discussed and I was given some interesting tips on kata that I honestly never heard of before so I'd like to get that recorded on the web somewhere. There's also the whole biiru-geiko that I need to work on, but maybe my tolerance needs to go up before I attempt that one too hard.

Shinpan Seminar

This past weekend, I had the pleasure of attending the Shinpan seminar in Lexington, KY, instructed by Ariga-Sensei.

For those not in the know, a Shinpan is one of three people that judge any given Kendo match. The purpose of these seminars is to get people accustomed to all that is involved in judging a match.

When we see someone judging matches, it's easy to complain about how they score whether it be that they missed several good points, didn't give hansoku (penalty) when they should have, or just didn't seem into it. From the outside, it seems pretty simple; see a point, raise a flag. See an offense, give a hansoku. But what I quickly realized was that everything isn't as black and white as it seems.

For example, when scoring a point, it's not as simple as seeing someone strike men and raise a flag. Things to consider here are the concepts and intents behind Ki-Ken-Tai-Icchi (Spirit, Sword, Body as One), Zanshin and whether or not the person is showing spirit or just showing off. In terms of penalties, one has to differentiate between someone doing something illegal or if it's just part of a waza. You even have to think about where you are in the court since there are certain parts of the court that's your area and making sure you always have optimal view of the match.

After that, we had some matches to give the higher-ranked people to show us what they learned throughout the day. Some of the more fun ones were the ones where offenses were done on purpose, such as walking out without a tasuki, excessive pushing and holding the shinai with the wrong orientation.

I definitely learned a lot throughout the day. It gave me a whole new perspective on judging to hopefully make it less daunting when I have to go through the shinpan stuff once I reach San-Dan. Don't get me wrong, I always had respect for the judges. Heck, the sportsmanship pledge says that you agree that the judges' decisions are final. But now I have a better understanding of what goes through the minds of the shinpan within that 3-minute match. Thank God there's 3 of them.

The Training Mind

Because of the Labor Day weekend, the Miami Valley dojo and Northern KY Dojo was closed. But that fact didn't matter because I am in Atlanta right now. Despite me being away, I still got to practice Kendo at Georgia Kendo Alliance.

Today's practice was okay. It was pretty difficult to navigate the floor because my feet would slide. Because of the differences in footwork, it kinda threw off everything else a bit as well.

I attended both the intermediate and advanced practices for the night. The intermediate practice went over the principles of kirikaeshi. It was a pretty nice breakdown of the major components of it such as good fumikomi, good swings and proper distance. I put those explanations together with the ones that people in Ohio tell me to really give everything my all.

After that, the advanced practice began where we started off with waza and ended with free geiko. There were two new things that I learned from training yesterday:

• For the kaeshi waza, the foot must move as you are warding your opponent's shinai out of the center. This should allow you to more quickly get in before the opponent has a chance to react


• Another point for the kaeshi waza. Whenever I do it, I tend to just try to knock the shinai out of the center. What I should be doing is just letting it slide out of the way before I counter attack to take over the center

The free gieko was pretty nice. I tried to fight against one guy doing nitou but he put his other shinai down when fighting the lower ranked people (I was hoping to get the chance to do it). I also got to fight an old friend of mine who pretty much dominated me as usual.

I did say earlier that one of the things that was holding me back was the floor. Normally, I would have eventually adjusted by the end of practice, but there is another thing that was bothering me at the back of my mind. Gustav is heading towards the Gulf Coast as we speak. I know that most of my family is okay, but just the thought of possibly going back and seeing the city destroyed yet again really sucks. Of course, only time will tell when the storm actually makes landfall where ever it's going. Now I know how it feels to have personal connections to various disaster areas.

This brings up a point about training while something is constantly on your mind. Before every practice, you meditate (command is Mokusou (黙想)) to bring your mind to the kendo tasks at hand and away from the outside world. But, even if something is a bit more difficult to shake than a few seconds of meditation, should you continue practice?

Sometimes it can help to do something completely unrelated to the problem to make you feel better. There were times during practice where I did concentrate all on Kendo to let go of what's been going through my mind. I did what I could to put my all into practice but overall was about 95%.

The difference between most activities and Kendo is that practice depends as much on yourself as the other person you're training with. If you don't do your part, then the other person doesn't get anything out of it and that part of the session just remains empty. Anyone who has done Kendo will probably know what I'm talking about to some extent on this.

But should you continue to practice? I would say that it depends on the situation at hand and how it's affecting you. In most cases, the Kendo can be therapeutic to keep your mind off the issues at home and allow you to deal with them with a vigorous activity.

But there are times where you can't really shake the feelings you have which can negatively affect your abilities. If it's just a practice and you have been finding yourself crying or doing things negatively in your main life, then it's probably best to skip one practice to not add to the guilt of being a bad partner and not doing so well.

Kendo Police?

What I want to write about today is something that has sort of getting under my skin for a while now. And since I want to actually do something with my blog, now's the time to do it. Keep in mind that this can be extrapolated to other aspects of life, but since this is a Kendo blog, I will be specifically talking about Kendo.

People on the Kendo World forums should already be familiar with this sort of thing. We see a video on Youtube that showcases some random yahoo doing what they think is Kendo and some people decide to get up in arms about it. In most cases, it's posted for people to laugh at. But in its most extreme case, some will go to the source of the video and pick it apart and pretty much flame the person to the point where the video is taken down. You may also see cases where someone will get on the forum and post something that shows that they don't really know what Kendo is, but they feel they do. As a result, the Kendo hounds sniff it out and pile on the person.

It is understandable to do this sort of thing. Everyone that does Kendo knows that it isn't easy. First you have to find the nearest dojo which, for most people, is not just around the corner. Then there is the long period of trial and error that people go through for the rest of their Kendo career which takes a lot of effort to keep up with and improve on. So to have one person come up and just say that they are doing what we are doing can understandably get under someone's skin.

Despite this going on, is this really justified? To be a little miffed, that is understandable. But I do think that there are better ways in which we can handle this.

A lot of times, we tend to make assumptions about the person, where they practice and why they do what they do. The majority of videos on Youtube and the like have people just dicking around, not really thinking much about what they are doing. Then you have the cases where people might be misguided, thinking that they are doing what they are doing is the right thing. What we may not know is that the person may not know about those intricacies of Kendo techniques, where a dojo may be, or how to find a dojo.

Making assumptions and immediately flaming people from the get go can only cause harm to the Kendo community. Ever since I have been involved in Kendo, I have only met kind and accepting people with the bastards being a very small minimum. This would be a huge contrast to what others may think if they thought all we do is go around finding bad Kendo videos and immediately chastising the person for what they are doing. While we know that everyone is an individual, we still represent the Kendo community as a whole wherever we go, whether or not the general public knows that we do it. It's hard enough to get people to stick with Kendo, but we would only be making it harder to spread if people think we're total bitches who can't allow people to enjoy themselves.

How can we better handle the situation when we encounter these kinds of people? If we see a video online, then don't immediately angerly flame the person. First see what the intent is and take appropriate action. If they are just screwing around, then just leave them alone and let them go about their business. We may be worried that they will hurt each other, but Darwin works in mysterious ways. If they are misguided and providing erroneous information, then you can correct them, but don't expect to have a new convert who is hurrying to the nearest Kendo dojo. If they start spouting out random samurai phrases to prove they are on the higher path...then run away, lol.

Really, the best way to combat this is information. If you happen to be in a conversation with a misguided person, you should be able to answer any questions they have. If you don't have the answer, then you should know where to seek it and get back to the other person.

The previous point brings up something else. We all know that there is a lack of information out there about Kendo compared to some of the more common arts like Karate or Tae Kwon Do. Let's face it. Most of the information that is really out there for people to easily see is found in anime and movies. Not to mention that there's the erroneous information about kendo and living the samurai way and stuff.

That means that we need to take charge and get this info out there ourselves. If you happen to be HTML proficient, you can make webpages about what Kendo is, what it means to you, the dojos you go to, things to look for in a Kendo dojo, journaling your own training process and other things of the such. If not, there are various blogging sites like Myspace, Facebook, Blogger and Live Journal where you can do similar things minus all the HTML work. You shouldn't have to be a 5th Dan sensei to do stuff like this either. In fact, it would be nice to have views of Kendo from people who may not be so proficient in Kendo to have that realistic view of what it's like to be a beginner out there. Plus, it's a very nice way to get to know more about the art you're doing with a little bit of research beyond the Wikipedia article.

I would say that the main point of the article is that we should concentrate less on the others and more on ourselves. We may be able to take one video down through flaming, but with the capabilities of Web 2.0, five more videos may show up within minutes. We know what Kendo really is so we should be able to stand up and take charge and be the forefathers (and mothers) of using the internet to our advantage.

How important do you think timing really is?

Sigh, my wrist has been kinda sore for the past week so I've been out of Kendo and Iaido for the time being. Since the tournament is coming up, I don't want to risk injuring it further and ruin my chances of going to Las Vegas.

If you have been doing Kendo for a little while, you probably heard your sensei or sempai keep telling you of ways to improve your timing and how important that is. It's not that we don't believe them since we try to improve timing and strength along with the other Kendo requisites if we desire to improve ourselves.

But do we really understand the whole concept of timing? Most likely not. But this video that has been circulating on youtube for the past week or so should help with that. The guys involved in the video have the experience to move so fast and accurately and the judges have the experience to be able to see who is hitting what. But for us normal people, we have a high speed camera that helps us see just what's happening just before the hits that give them the edge. I don't want to give anything away, so here's the video, and I'll just leave it at that.

EDIT: Due to the fact that I'm having some issues viewing the video in its embedded form, I'll just post the link below.

Kendo in High Speed Camera (Slow Motion)