Obligitory Kendo/Iaido Self-Reflection...2014 Edition

Overall, I felt that 2014 was a satisfying one for my growth, understanding and participation of Kendo and Iaido, despite some pretty interesting ups and downs.  I've been able to continue practicing between 3 - 5 days per week depending on the University of Cincinnati being in session.  I've also been able to make some new friends while vacationing in Hawaii and, of course, taking the opportunity to practice there and I've been able to catch up with some old ones by visiting Atlanta and practicing there.  There was one event that happened which will really test my ability to lead and organize though.

Earlier this year, I was given the keys to the Northern Kentucky Kendo Club because the previous leader had to move away for a job opportunity.  I've spent the past few years growing as a person by leading practices here in Cincinnati and offering advice where applicable, and I've been an officer for a few clubs in the past and with our regional Kendo federation, but I've never had the responsibility for running a club.

The good news is that the club is very small at the moment so there really isn't a lot of stuff to handle at the moment.  My goal right now is to try to structure the club a little better, gain more students and make the club more sustainable.  I know it's not going to be easy but I'm willing to stand in the face of this challenge.


One problem with the old club leader moving away is that now I'm without a sensei to teach me Iaido here in Cincinnati.  Of course, that doesn't mean that I will stop practicing.  I've still been able to work with my knowledge through practicing with him and attending seminars when I am able to.  My plan is to try to attend more seminars, gain rank and knowledge and try to grow Iaido membership.  Marketability is tough since Iaido doesn't have the screaming, hitting and stomping that Kendo has so it will be tough.  At least I've been able to do demos at our regional tournaments, so I guess that's a start.

There are two major events that I have to look forward to in 2015 that's Kendo related.

• I get to see the World Kendo Championship in Tokyo in May.  I've always thought about going for years because it would be a great opportunity to see some of the best Kendo that the world has to offer.  I will be going with a friend of mine who stayed over there for a few months a while back, so she has connections to a few of the dojos she practiced at.  Not only do I get to watch some good Kendo, I have a few opportunities to get some practice in for myself!
• I will be eligible to test for my 4th Dan in November.  I have been preparing for this moment ever since I passed my 3rd Dan, but I can't help but feel the pressure from the time crunch.  There's still a lot that I need to work on before the test date, but I feel optimistic that I will be able to use my short time to the fullest to prepare.

Other than that, all I can expect is to develop myself through more Kendo and Iaido practices while meeting new people and catching up with old ones.  

明けましておめでとうございます (Happy New Year)！

Kendo Klub Duties

Dojo leaders helping their students prepare for the Cleveland Kendo Tournament

Through my final days of attending Purdue six years ago (heck, even WAY before then, in a sense), I knew that I wanted to move to a location that had Kendo available (my potential locations were the Patuxent River Naval Base in Maryland and Cincinnati, OH).  In the back of my mind, I knew that I wanted to take on some sort of a leadership position with whatever club I would belong to, but I felt that it would be a few years before I would be able to do something like that.  When I think about it, part of it had something to do with me not really having the confidence to take the leadership roles in anything in my childhood.  The other part had to do with a sort of naivete when it comes to what is really necessary to be a good leader in the Kendo world.  My expectation was that I would be required to have X rank or X amount of experience to be able to contribute anything meaningful to the day to day running of local Kendo organizations.  Regardless of what I was thinking at the time, I quickly found out that what I believed, and what reality is, are two completely different things.

Not long after I moved to Cincinnati, I became a member of the University of Cincinnati Kendo Club (UCKC(.  Since I had the extra time on my hands, the desire to get better, and had more relative experience than most of my peers at the time, I ended up leading the practices at that club, and the nearby Northern Kentucky Kendo Club (NKKC), of which I was also a frequent attendee.  Little did I know that, from there, my responsibilities would only increase.  Due to the sudden absence of the secretary of the East Central United States Kendo Federation (ECUSKF), I ended up becoming the new secretary--well, more like drafted :).  After that, I started running the warm-ups for the Miami Valley Kendo Club and then became an officer for the promotion exams that are given semi-annually.

Of course, I had no problem with taking on these responsibilities.  Being a single person in my 20s with a 9-5, Monday through Friday job, I had the extra time on my hands to take on these additional roles.  I also like to be able to help out whenever and wherever I'm able to.  In the end, I think being responsible for these things has turned out to be quite beneficial to me.  I've learned some things about what it takes to be a leader in various aspects in my life, and I've learned a lot about what it takes to bring the Kendo that people know, expect and love.  It's certainly a lot of work, but I'm glad to be a part of it.  What I didn't know was that, years down the line, I would be given a responsibility that I really would never expect.

A few months ago, the previous leader of the Northern Kentucky Kendo Club told me that he has been too busy in recent months to effectively run the club and was seeing if anyone was willing to take over for him.  The other person in the club wasn't able to do it so, instead of just letting the club die off, I decided that I would take over as the leader.  Little did anyone know that he would eventually get a new job in another location in the US.  On top of the responsibilities that I have been given over the years, now I am running a Kendo club.  The good news is that, due to my past experiences, I'm more familiar with how to run a club and I have some ideas on how to keep this particular club going.

One problem with NKKC is that the club is very small.  At the moment, there is only one person that's officially signed up and a paying member of the club.  The first thing I need to do is try to increase the visibility of the club.  There are some web pages and a Facebook group I can take advantage of and some avenues of advertisement at the moment, but I still need to get everything set up.  Overall, the goal is to try to make the club more self-sustaining and be able to pass off the responsibilities to those that are willing and, at best, take a more advisory role in how the club is run.  There are some other things that I know is getting in my way, but that's better left for a different, and more controversial, article.

I'm also involved with Muso Shinden Ryu Iaido which, due to the previous leader moving, I am the only member practicing.  On top of the problems with bringing in more Kendo people, the nature of Iaido, and the fact that I'm the only person doing it, makes it a difficult thing to sell to the masses.  The good news is that there are people that are currently practicing Kendo in the area that's interested.  The problem is finding the time and place to be able to get a group going and perhaps have Iaido knowledge grow that way.

In the end, I'm very grateful to have the opportunities to do what I have been able to do thus far.  I've been able to learn a lot about what I am capable of and I've been very fortunate to have the ability to allow my ideas to be heard, as meek as I have been in the past.  With all of this, I think one of the most important lessons of my adult life has been imparted on me.  There are some people that really work hard to get into leadership positions in life, and others that are comfortable just hiding in the background.  Whatever the case,  you could never know when those leadership responsibilities will be thrown at you and there's nothing that can be done other than dealing with it in the best way possible.

The More You Know

The Iaido practice last Wednesday night was another lonely one.  Jim had some other commitments, so he wasn’t able to make it to practice.  There are only two people that attend Iaido practice on Wednesday nights, this is actually quite a common occurrence (man, we should really get more people!).

I do admit that it has been about two weeks since I did anything Iaido related, other than watching Youtube videos.  I injured my left leg and foot during Kendo practice by using it harder than I really should have.  I think all I need to do is get massages more often on my leg to loosen up my muscles since I feel a lot of knots that tie up quite a few things.  Then, since Thanksgiving was last week, I had my parents over so I was using my time entertaining them.

It’s great to have someone more experienced to help fix various problems with my kata performance, but it’s just as nice to be able to take some time to have some uninterrupted time to work on some personal issues that I want to work on.  Lately, I’ve been performing kata two ways.  First, I would just work on the technical stuff, such as making sure my hasuji was good and performing enough saya-biki.  After doing that a few times, I would switch to performing the kata with more mental feeling behind the movements to not only apply the technical stuff to the kata, but to put more feeling behind each individual movement.  I did a mix of Seitei and Shoden kata with little rhyme or reason for performing each one.

The great thing about an art like Iaido is that the overall basic techniques are the same, but just applied differently.  For instance, doing nukitsuke for “mae” is performed differently than the nukitsuke for “San-po Giri,” but the overall concepts of saya-biki, hasuji (blade angle), and body posture are the same.  This allows me to approach the same technique from different angles and better understand the backgrounds behind each technique.

This makes me think about a post I recently read on the Budo Bum blog.  In this particular post, the author was talking about his thoughts on being able to do many techniques and being able to do a few techniques well.  There is a certain allure to being able to move on to the next step, which is commonly learning about the newest technique but, after doing a Judo for a while (or even just growing older), he started to appreciate the inner workings of the techniques he does know.  There’s a lot more to the physical aspects like angles, heights and necessary force, but adding the mental aspects to everything literally adds a whole new world to what he knew.  At that point, he began to take more value in learning more about the things he already knew than just learning more techniques on top of what he already knows.

I consider myself to be mostly in the category of being enamored by being taught the latest Iaido kata.  It could be easy to just say that it’s due to my age and/or experience level, but I think it runs a little deeper than that.  Learning a new technique seems to be the easiest way to feel that I’m progressing in Iaido.  When I’m introduced to a new kata, I feel like Jim has said that I performed the previous technique well enough to move on to the next kata.  With that thought in mind, I can really see why people advertise and emphasize the amount of techniques one can learn in their marital art style and how it can be beneficial to attendance and retention rates.  It’s easy to sell something that’s so tangible and easily understandable to the public at large.  I could go deeper into this subject, but it’s not really the point of this post, and I feel that I should do more research and introspection on the subject to even begin to understand what I want to say.

At the same time, I can understand the value that I get from being able to perform the stuff I already know better than I did before class started.  The source of this sentiment is likely from the fact that I also do Kendo, have been doing Kendo for five years longer than I have done Iaido, and that simply, Kendo has fewer techniques, so I’ve been forced to be able to better my performance of the few techniques that are available in physical and mental ways.  I feel like that this is where the real magic of martial arts comes from.  It’s one thing to say that I am X-rank, so that means that I know #-techniques, but it’s another thing to say that I was able to learn more about Seitei “mae” and be able to examine and perform the kata better than when I walked into the dojo.  Since Iaido is mostly done with imaginary opponents, that measure for me is feeling more comfortable with each technique I do and be able to perform it more effortlessly than before.  There are actually sets of kenjustu kata, but I don’t really know much about those, but I certainly would love to know more about them!

Again, it could be age, or it could be my Iaido experience level, but I feel like I have a lot of years left before I really start to not care about the number of techniques I know.  Maybe it’s simply when I learn all of the kata available in Muso Shinden Ryu, or it could be after I reach a certain age or experience level to where I feel overwhelmed with improving on what I already know before I start to shift my thinking.  Maybe my sentiments will change years in the future after I get older and learn more about Iaido, but I feel like I’m within the range of having a decent enough thought process to these martial arts I’m doing.

2012: A Year In Review

Happy New Year everyone!  Or, as they say in Japan, 開けましておめでとうございます皆さん！(Akemashite omedetou gozaimasu minna san!).  I thought that I would take some time to think about how my Kendo and Iaido training has gone this year.  Unfortunately, I am dealing with the flu right now.  But hey, the good news is that I get at least an extra day off from work!

The first big thing that happened with Kendo last year was that I got to organize the Spring and Fall promotion exams for the ECUSKF.  Since I was new to all of this, there were several mistakes that were made along the line for both of the exams, but I’m taking each mistake as a lesson for next time to make sure that everything runs smoother.  Actually, I’m in the throes of planning the next Spring exam as we speak.  Since the planning for the exam is starting earlier, I hope that everything goes much smoother than last time, when there was only a month to plan everything and get the application forms out.

The second big achievement last year was that I got my 3rd Dan after my 3rd attempt!  Unlike the first two times, I felt like I was in total control over my technique to make sure that each strike was clean and on target.  There was that sense of calm after finishing my bouts of jigeiko as opposed to the sense of dread and panic about my performance.  Now I get to spend the next three years improving myself for my 4th Dan test.

For now, I’ve been really working on my seme.  Of course, it’s much easier said than done because that’s when sparring becomes less about what you can do to the other person and more about what you can make the other person do.  This involves pressuring the opponent to give up their center for me to capitalize on either by flinching, or making them attack.  And then, it’s not enough to force them to attack you, but you must dictate where you want them to attack so you can counter-attack.  The good news is that, based on the comments that were given to me last Saturday, I’m well on my way to doing just that.  I just need to work on it more to see how I can make it part of my Kendo.

As for Iaido, I really don’t have too much to report on that.  I regularly go to practice and get corrected on things, but there really hasn’t been any big events that I attended last year.  The class size has remained small as it always has been, which has it’s good and bad points.  On one hand, I get ALL of the personal attention I could ever want since it’s mostly me and my sensei about 98% of the time.  On the other hand, having a larger group of people to practice with adds to the spirit of practice and makes things a little less lonely.  I sometimes do wonder how Iaido could be marketed to increase numbers.  Initial thoughts tell me that it’s nearly impossible to find such techniques (or we would have had larger classes a long time ago)

For the coming year, I’ll just continue practicing and improving on my technique.  On top of that, I need to work on putting some emphasis and meaning behind the strikes, which involves investigating what I am doing in the kata and thinking about the context of the situation at hand and how I would dispatch the enemy.  The good news is that, since most of it is left up to interpretation, there really isn’t a wrong answer to this.  But it does lead to some healthy discussions to how we feel each kata should be performed.  I would like to try and test again, but with travel expenses and room and board, it gets quite expensive to go across the country to get another kyu rank.  We’ll see, but I might have to sit out again and try to plan for next year or something.

A lot has gone in in the martial arts world for me last year.  While it was great and all, I think I will appreciate this relative break from the excitement.  There are the usual tournaments and practices, but I don’t have to worry about taking the promotion exam and I am starting to settle into my role as promotion exam organizer.  I could try to test again for Iaido sometime this year, but with travel being all expensive and me wanting to concentrate on the direction of my finances, it might be a little difficult to travel across the country to get another kyu rank.  Nothing is really set in stone, so anything can change.  There is the AUSKF nationals next year that I might try for, but all I need to do to prepare for that is train my mind and body like I always have and hope for the best.

Well, Happy New Year folks and good luck with whatever goals you have set for yourself!

Year in Reflection And Looking Ahead

To open up the new year, we held our annual Hatsugeiko practice.  It’s an opportunity for all participants to start the year off on a high note to make the current year better than the last with a high-spirited practice amongst friends and families.  For us in the ECUSKF, that involves having a dinner the night before, and then make it to the practice spot so that we can start at 6 AM on New Years Day.  Afterwards, we have some food, like zoni, kimchi and other dishes that I can’t really identify (but tasted good) as well as the requisite alcoholic beverages (and water for those that don’t drink or are too young to do so).  I love going to these kinds of practices as it’s a surefire way to start off the year on a high note.  I get to hang out with my friends as we all battle through the initial sleepiness and grogginess of waking up so early, and it’s just a nice Kendo practice overall.
In addition to that, I like to do some personal reflection on the past year’s events and think about the year ahead.  For Kendo, it was surely a big year.  I was able to participate in the AUSKF Kendo National Tournament in Atlanta on the men’s team and attended a wonderful seminar in Seattle, whose purpose was to give the attendees ideas on how to build and maintain a Kendo club, no matter where you happen to be based.  Iaido was a little less exciting, but I did attend the Iaido national seminar and tournament, which is where I got my 3rd Kyu.  However, some recent developments makes this next year for Iaido much more promising, which I’ll get to shortly.
This year isn’t going to be chock full of events beyond the regular tournaments and seminars held every year, but I expect nothing less in terms of acquiring better knowledge about the martial arts I know and love.  For Kendo, I plan on taking my 3rd Dan exam in March.  I’ve been preparing for this for a long time now by improving whatever I can, so it’s just going to be up to the judges as to whether they feel it’s enough.  I was also recently put on the promotional exam committee for our federation so I will be responsible for planning, organizing and running the exams every year.  I’ve never planned events of this caliber before so I’m a little nervous, but I have a great support structure to help me out if I have any questions.  For Iaido, I would like to be able to go to another seminar and test again.  I don’t know about the events that are being planned this year, so I don’t know which ones I will be able to attend.  The biggest thing though is that I’ve been hearing about there being a large demand for Iaido in this area of the country.  For now, people are making do with the materials they have, but they would like to collaborate with our dojo, being the only official AUSKF Iaido dojo in the immediate area, to help build up interest in their areas.  It’s nice knowing that there’s a demand for Iaido, and I’d love to be able to see it grow and give people more opportunities to practice it.
While I’m not much of a fan of setting those new year’s resolutions, I do like to be able to think about what I want to do based on where I’ve already been headed and set some goals along the way.  First and foremost, I want to be able to pass my 3rd Dan exam.  The sooner I pass it, the sooner I can concentrate on other things .  I’ve also been gathering materials to try to make a good program to keep practices fresh and kata learning more fulfilling.  I got copies of the Japanese-English Kendo Dictionary and Kendo Kata:  Essence and Applications for Christmas, which should really help out.  Of course, I’d like to get better and Kendo and Iaido and blah, blah, blah, but why should I plan for that?  That tends to happen just by virtue of going to practice regularly.
Anyways, I wish all readers a successful 2012 in their budo practices and everything else in life.
あけましておめでとうございます、皆さん！(Happy New Year everyone!)

Mind Over Matter!

 

The past few months have turned out to be the most stressful that I’ve been under in recent memory.  I won’t go into the boring details, but the short of it is that tight deadlines, coupled with a tough project, hasn’t made things easy on me.  Heck, things got to the point where my heart would race as I approach the doors of the building in anticipation for what would go wrong.  However, things seemed to calm down a bit, so I’m able to sort out some things and catch up to some stuff that was on hiatus when I had little time for anything.

Other than the times where I had to stay extremely late, or if I had such a long day that I was just physically and mentally exhausted, I would still go to the Kendo and Iaido practices that I could.  Being able to go home and sleep for a few hours was somewhat decent, but it was even better when I had that form of healthy escapism from the stresses of the real world.

The thing is, this isn’t the first time in my life where I’ve encountered levels of stress that bleed over into other parts of my life.  Heck, to remain more Kendo related, I’ve heard situations from friends where stressful situations cause them to not be able to attend practice for a few days, weeks or even months.  In short, situations like this happen all the time and we all have to deal with them in our own special way.  One thing that I’m sure we all can agree on, is that being able to go to practice to break the monotony can really help in calming one’s nerves, even for a little while.

As much as I would like to be able to attend all practices, regardless of the situation, there are times where the stress can become too much to the point where the practice is unproductive to oneself, and those that you’re practicing with.  That’s something that we all know and have felt before, but it’s ultimately up to us to decide when we get to that point.

When we’re in practice, we have a responsibility to ourselves to make each practice as productive as we can make it for our own development.  However, one element that should also be considered is that, due to the cooperative nature of Kendo practice and development, we also should be able to make sure that we do our part to make the practice productive for others.  For instance, when doing kirikaeshi, the attacker needs to do what they can to hit from the right distance with the best technique that they are able to in order to improve their abilities.  But then, the receiver should also have a hand in making that happen by trying to keep that distance, deciding to block or not block and just simply having their head in the game.  If we’re at the point where it’s difficult to separate our outside lives to our Kendo lives in a way to facilitate that sort of practice, then it becomes a question as to whether or not we should attend practice, or better yet, decide how we must approach the day’s practice to still make it productive.

How we deal with situations like that is very much a matter of personal taste.  There are some that need some time to decompress on their own and then they come back after a little while once things are sorted out.  That is okay to do.  Then, there are some people that fight through it and somehow succeed in their own way through practice, and that’s okay too.  Personally, I think that it helps that I’m also teaching practices here in the area so I’m able to easily get my mind off of things due to more stuff occupying my mind.  Even if I’m not teaching practice, I would still do things like focusing on some sort of goal for that night or just taking myself into the culture and temporarily erase the crap from my life.  From the inside looking out, it seems to work out pretty well.  I haven’t heard any complaints so either I’m doing as well as I think I’m doing, or they’re just too afraid to tell me .

Through these last few months, I think I’ve learned a bit more about myself in hindsight.  It isn’t so much whether or not I feel I can attend practice as that’s a relatively easy decision to make.  It’s the fact that I can develop a coping mechanism that allows me to still attend practice, be productive to myself and others, and provide some sort of normalcy in my life.  In the end, I think that’s what’s important here.  When the chips are down, it’s nice to be able to grasp onto that one thing that’s consistent in your life, whether it’s family, friends, your favorite TV show…or even Kendo.

AUSKF Iaido Summer Camp 2011

First of all, I apologize for the long break in between posts.  It’s been a mix of lack of time, laziness and figuring out just what my next post would be about.  I’ll have to consider a better system for more frequent posting sometime.

I attended the 2011 AUSKF Iaido Summer Camp at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio.  The entire seminar lasted four days which included a seminar for the first two days, a tournament on the third day and a promotional exam on the fourth day.  There was also a jodo seminar that occurred right after the exam, but I wasn’t able to attend that.

I signed myself to participate in everything the seminar had to offer.  My time in the tournament was short-lived since I was knocked out in the first round by the person that got second place in the mudansha division.  Despite that, I wasn’t all that disappointed since I was mainly there for the seminar and promotional exam, with the tournament being included in the seminar fee.  But that doesn’t mean that I went through the tournament with nothing to gain.  Seeing the nice Iaido that people performed to move up the brackets gives me ideas on what is expected for me to do the same the next time I get the opportunity.

The promotional exam went really well for everyone from my dojo that attended since everyone passed their exam.  My instructor got his 4th dan, a kohai got 4th kyu and I passed for 3rd kyu.  There was some confusion as to how the grades were handed out because I had signed up to go for 1st kyu, but only went up one level for the test.  Since this happened for everyone who was testing, this was some sort of institutional thing which is different from how most Kendo exams are handled, which allows you to test for 1st kyu after initially getting a lower kyu rank for the first time (Kendo and Iaido are under the same federation, which is why I thought that way).  In any case, all I can do is just improve myself the best I can and test when the opportunity comes and if my sensei allows me.  If anything, it should just make it that much easier for me to test for the higher ranks when the time comes .

For the seminar, we were broken up into smaller groups based on our present rank at the time and given Iaido information commensurate to our experience level.  In my group, each day started off with a discussion session before moving on to learning about the actual kata.  First, we would go step by step through a particular kata before trying it out on our own.  In some cases, we did those things and then moved on to another kata.  But then, what we did next proved to be the most enriching experience for me.

After doing some of the kata, we would break into groups of two or three people to do a set, and then critique each other on them.  At first, it would seem kind of odd that they would let us loose to let us give our thoughts on the kata to other people given our rank, but there really wasn’t much to worry about and it was handled quite well.  For one, other people are able to see some of the smaller twitches that I might not notice, like for instance, dropping my hands before swinging.  It also gave us a chance to examine how we were taught to do something and then provide suggestions to our partners based off of that and then compare notes.

The seminar itself was a lot of fun and very valuable.  I was able to learn a lot and bring the information back here to Cincinnati for the rest of the club to chew on.  I was told that the seminar next year will be in Washington.  It’s such a long way from here, but I would really like to go if time and finances go my way.

P.S.  The picture above was one of the photos that I took during the seminar.  If you want to see more, they’re on my flickr account here.  And comments are welcome.

Tightening Muscles

First of all, I apologize for the long delay in making a post.  I blame it partly on my own laziness (hey, I did hear about that two-year slump where bloggers tend to get blogging fatigue) and the fact that I made my plate a bit full with other things and interests.  Hopefully, I can try to be more frequent in the posts in the future.

These past few weeks have been rife with various musculoskeletal problems that lead to issues with my shoulders, lower back and, in some cases, my knee.  At first, I wasn’t entirely sure if it was just tight muscles or signs of an injury, so I even opted to take a week off from Kendo and Iaido practices to give my body some rest and see how it would react when I’m not putting in the stresses that I usually do when practices get rigorous.

The results for the first couple of days really wasn’t all that much different than when I started the hiatus.  My shoulders were still feeling tight and I could feel some knotting in my lower back.  Various stretches and a heating pad seemed to help temporarily, but the tightness would just come back after a few hours.  After a bit, I decided to make a visit to the massage therapist one Saturday morning.  At that point, the issue at hand became more clear.

As she was giving me the massage, she was asking me whether or not I was feeling any tenderness in my muscles and remarking on how my neck, arms, back and shoulder muscles were pretty tight.  Due to the limited time of one hour, she wasn’t able to get everything, but I did notice big improvements to how I was able to move around.  My muscles felt looser and my shoulders didn’t hurt when I moved them in certain directions.  In the end, I just decided to return to practice the following week.  I probably could have used a few more days, but practices haven’t been to bad as of late.

I did do a little research on the subject to see if I could get a little information about causes, treatment and prevention of any muscle problems.  Pretty much, there are various reasons why muscles tend to tighten up, whether it be through poor stretching, poor posture or automatic protection from micro tears of the muscles from exercise.  This can cause the muscles to not get everything that they need to repair themselves if they aren’t treated which can cause further issues.  Along with the discomfort throughout the body that can come from muscles operating differently, there can be a higher susceptibility to tearing because flexibility would be lost^{. [1] [2]}

The most important thing is that I was able to catch this issue early enough to fix most of the problems that have been ailing me for the past few weeks.  I was only gone for a week, instead of letting the problems fester and end up being out for a much longer time, similar to what happened to me last year when I was having problems with my back.  Another mantra that I keep telling myself throughout all of this is that I won’t stay young forever.  I’ve been able to run around and rely on my youth to push my body to lengths I haven’t experienced before and get a quick recovery.  However, a time will come where that just won’t be possible, and it will be even more important to make sure that I know how to adapt to the situation.

1. “Tight Muscles of the Upper Back and Neck”. Sports Injury Clinic. 2011. March 3, 2011. http://www.sportsinjuryclinic.net/cybertherapist/back/upperbackneck/tightmuscles.htm
2. “Tight Hamstrings”. Sports Injury Clinic. 2011. March 3, 2011.   http://www.sportsinjuryclinic.net/cybertherapist/back/hamstrings/tighthamstrings.htm

Yearly Retrospection

2011 is now here.  When the year is ending, I like to go back through the year and evaluate what happened and how I performed throughout the year and think about how I can improve myself the next year.  Since martial arts is such a goal-driven activity, it’s especially important to think about these things to give yet another frame of reference for where I want to go.

The biggest achievements of the year were in the grading realm.  In Kendo, I successfully got my 2nd Dan rank in March, followed by getting the rank of 4th kyu for Iaido.  The Kendo rank is much more surprising for the fact that I was able to get it on my first try, when it took me three tries to get my 1st kyu and 1st dan ranks, each.  The differences between my dispositions for my 2nd Dan exam and the other ones brings up another issue.  For the previous ones, I was very nervous to the point where it really affected my performance.  Not being able to think straight caused me to not perform based on how I usually would in class and get very concerned afterwards before the grades came out.  However, this time, I had a plan to go out there and do what I wanted to do and feel satisfied with my performance.  Obviously, whether or not I passed or failed depended on how the judges thought I did, but it was one of those things where passing would be excellent, but failing would just mean that I need to fix some things and try again later. 

Some analysis on that fact makes me think of a few reasons as to why I might have felt more calm under pressure than I usually have been.  First of all, I have been instructing classes and helping out with Kendo demos pretty often.  Over time, I began to get used to performing in front of people which started to carry on into other points in my life, even promotional exams where the stakes are much higher.  Because I was able to think more clearly, I was able to go out there with a plan and execute that plan and just leave it up to fate whether or not I passed or failed.  Another reason could just be as simple as just being used to the grading environment after going through the cycles quite a few times.  While the stakes are still pretty high, sensory adaptation could be present.  In other words, going through the same processes bring out the same sensations which begin to have less of an effect on me.  Whatever the case may be, I hope that this is able to continue so I can put my focus on the things that really matter when doing a performance.

This year seemed to be the year of learning how invincible my body REALLY is.  I’ve been able to go through Kendo for seven years without any major injuries until I messed up my back in April.  Luckily, all it took was some trips to the chiropractor and a little time off of Kendo and Iaido to make myself as good as new.  Then, about a week after I was able to go back to classes, I sprained my ankle while doing suriashi-men early during Kendo practice.  While it was painful due to not being able to take any medication for it, the injury wasn’t too severe and I was as good as new by the following week.  What I’ve learned from these events is that doing martial arts as often as I have been doing requires much more work with maintaining my body than usual.  More care has to be taken to take preventative measures so that I can avoid injuries as much as possible, especially considering that problems will only be compounded as I get older.  Unfortunately, the information I have now is pretty small, but I would like to try to find out more and report those findings on the blog when I do.

Now is the time to think about next year and make goals or resolutions that I would aspire to achieve over the next 365 days.  Before I begin that, there is a small concern that I would like to address when it comes to making them.  When making goals, we have to be very careful of the kinds of goals that we make for two important reasons.  First, there needs to be a metric of improvement when the goal is being made.  For example, some common goals for Kendo would be to be able to hit men better or perform better seme when going against an opponent.  Well, both of these are things that even 8th Dan people are working on so it’s not like there’s much of a clear end goal for improvement.  Second, the things that we work on tend to change pretty constantly.  One practice might be spent working on men, but another practice could change to working on fumikomi due to other issues that might crop of.  Of course, you could go back to working on men, but then there’s the chance that the derailments become too numerous to where it’s hard to go back…or the original goal gets forgotten in the mix.  Thus, when I’m making these goals, I’d rather try my best to provide a metric of improvement and/or base my goals on events that will happen next year.

In Kendo, I don’t have any promotional exams to take next year.  However, there are a lot of tournaments and perhaps a seminar or two that will still be occurring.  What I would like to do is work on improving myself so that I can do better in the tournament setting.  I can see that my basics are very sound, as evidenced in the video taken of me during the Johnson Cup.  But, due to some weak strikes, anything that I was making contact with wasn’t convincing enough for the judges.  Thus, I would like to be able to do what I can to make my hits more solid so that there’s no question to the quality of the attacks that I’m making.  Also, there’s this issue of me lowering shinai before I make an attack, which needs to be addressed as it’s making me lose precious seconds in attacking and tips off the opponent that I’m about to do something.  They may not know what it is, but it’s just enough to react and nullify my attempts.

Iaido is looking to be pretty void in terms of events going on.  There is the seminar going on in the summer in Cleveland which includes a tournament and promotional exam, which are things that I would like to try for.  As I don’t really have any specific issues that I can think of that are holding me back from anything, I’ll just continue training like I have been and addressing any big or small issues that tend to crop up after during practice.  When I’m out there, my body is going to just do what I have practiced for months and months through practice so there really isn’t much additional that needs or can be done.

From what I can see, next year will be filled with the usual events of Kendo and Iaido events that are within reach for me.  Whatever the case, I’ll do what I can to just continue training to reach my goals for improvement and take care of any issues that crop up during training.  However, no matter what the result at the end of the year ends up being, I will be happy as long as I feel decent improvement over the previous year.

Thanksgiving Thankfulness

I recently made it back from Milwaukee to visit the sister and see other family for Thanksgiving.  There was no Kendo or Iaido involved for the trip, but it was all worth it with the good food I ate and the cool things I saw in the area. 

In the spirit of the Thanksgiving holiday, I want to take the opportunity to list the things I am thankful for when it comes to my martial arts circles:

• I am thankful for the support I have received from my family from day one of me starting Kendo and Iaido.  I have heard of many cases of family members not giving people any support due to lack of understanding on the parties involved or general family dynamics.  I have been lucky enough to even have my family willingly fly out to see some of my tournaments at their request.  That really means a lot to me and it’s been a major catalyst for me sticking with it.
• I am thankful for the friends that I have gained from doing Kendo and Iaido over the years.  When I moved to Cincinnati almost three years ago, I was able to instantly make friends due to having a common activity with people that are very willing to support each other.  I do sometimes wonder how my life would have been if I never continued with these arts.  Beforehand, I was playing video games, watching anime and hanging out online.  I imagine that I’d be living a lonely life similar to that, which honestly wasn’t all that much fun when I look back on it.
• I am thankful for the many opportunities that I get when it comes to participating in Kendo and Iaido events.  Because I have limited obligations outside of work, I have been able to participate in various seminars, tournaments and promotional exams throughout the country.  I have also been able to participate in up to five practices per week which gives me a lot of chances to improve myself throughout the week.  I’m even able to lead practices for some of those times, which has helped me in ways that I never thought it would in terms of ability and confidence.

Whether or not we have ample access to reliable resources to improve ourselves, we should always be thankful for what we have in front of us.  On one end, having one practice where one can learn a lot and reflect for the rest of the week is better than having no practice at all.  On the other end, one must be happy to have such opportunities for ample training.  Because or lives can change at any moment, there are possibilities that we might not be able to do it with such frequency as easily later in life.

Well, I hope that everyone had a good Thanksgiving weekend, whether or not you celebrate it.  Now that everyone has eaten their fill of turkey and other random food stuffs, it’s time to sit back, relax and prepare for our return to the regular work week.

Quality Over Quantity?

I really, really want to improve in my Iaido…

I’m very fortunate with Kendo because the three dojos that are in the area provide me with up to five days of practice per week, but I’m not so lucky when it comes to Iaido.  Usually, we have two days per week to practice, which is fine.  But due to some scheduling conflicts with the Corryville Rec Center for the fall/winter season, we only have time to do Kendo on that day.  As a result, I am now down to one official practice per week.  The club is getting an additional location that should be opening up within the next couple of weeks, but with my busy Kendo schedule on top of work and other activities to keep me sane, I’m not sure how many of those I would be able to feasibly make on a regular basis.

One thing that I like to do on Sundays is to get to the dojo about an hour early so I get some time to warm up and work on some things before the main class starts.  Unfortunately, that means that I’m there at around 7 AM on a Sunday morning, but that’s a sacrifice that I’m willing to make.  For the most part, it works out pretty well.  Though lately, I’ve been learning how to take better advantage of the situation.

Recently, I’ve been able to give my practice a little more focus.  Instead of just doing the kata for the sake of getting the movements down, I’ve been able to really pinpoint the things that I would like to improve, like my balance, blade direction and zanshin.  It gives my practice a little more purpose so I can feel that I’m improving.  It also helps me form any questions that I might have so I can ask them when one of the instructors comes in. 

One particular example is me working on one of the exercises that was taught during the Iaido national seminar earlier this year.  It was a modified form of seitei mae where yoko chiburi is performed at the end, instead of the usual oochiburi.  Then, this was done once in the front, once to the right, once to the back and once to the right.  In essence, it’s like doing the first four kata in the shoden set without really formally learning it.  I’m most certainly am getting some leg work out of it but I’m also getting so much more.  Being able to do proper cuts from all directions and maintaining zanshin while keeping balanced are some of the things that I would like to achieve from doing these.

The advantage that Iaido practice has over Kendo practice is that it’s much easier to be able to practice on your own.  While there are some things in Kendo that can be done solo, like suburi or footwork, a lot of the execution is dependent on having at least some tangible object in front of me to work on various other aspects.  Iaido, on the other hand, involves a lot of imagination to perceive that someone is there that you’re cutting.  At the same time, the balance and zanshin can be done on my own time.

While the practices may not be as numerous as what Kendo in the area provides me, it’s more important that I do what I can to get the most out of the time I do have.  Using technology like video cameras, Youtube and even blogs like this one allows me to expand the dojo outside of the place I practice in and gives me time to reflect on what I particularly want to achieve on a given aspect of Iaido.  So maybe the situation is not so bad after all.

Keeping Members

Originally, I wanted to give some advice about how to retain members in the club, based on my own personal experiences.  But as I keep pondering on how to go about doing that, I'm slowly beginning to realize that, in most cases, there's very little anyone can do to try to make people stick around.

The biggest thing that gets in the way of retention is the sequence of progression.  People tend to drop out after the honeymoon period of doing Kendo is over several weeks or months after starting and after the moment bogu is worn.  At these points, they see what Kendo is all about and then figure out whether or not Kendo might be for them.  Of course, there are other reasons why someone might quit, but going in depth with that could fill up a blog post.

The one thing that could be done is to create a sense of community around the club by doing things outside of Kendo together.  It could be as simple as gathering somewhere after practice, traveling together for tournaments if that is available to everyone or holding parties throughout the year.  Giving someone a place where people feel they belong is very beneficial to allow people to stay.  An examination of teaching style might be beneficial as well.  Something like incorporating new teaching styles, techniques or even different facets of the techniques they already know.  Repetition is very important in Kendo, but sometimes it might become overkill to people to the point of boredom that they might not be able to handle.

Despite all that, it's important to remember that there is no magic bullet to keep people coming.  Sometimes, it's almost like rolling dice where, some years, you get a lot of hangers-on.  Then, the following year, the total amount of people that stay till bogu is like zero.  Despite that, it shouldn't hurt to see how the club is going and examine what works and what doesn't and continue on based on what you see and hear.

How To Improve Club Visibility

The Northern Kentucky Kendo Club has grown a lot over the past year.  When I first arrived, there was only me and about three other people that regularly attended the practices each week.  Now, through the efforts of the dojo leader, Jim Atkins, the club has blossomed into a decent-sized club that has about 10 to 15 people that come on a regular basis.

This wasn't an easy thing to do on his part.  Through his own life experiences and connections with those in the community, he has been able to do his part in getting the world out there and tapping into the demand that exists in the area for "sword fighting."

Club growth and retention is a well-known issue in martial arts circles.  While the sword arts are gaining popularity through the proliferation of anime, samurai movies and better access to all things Japanese culture, some places still seem to have problems with getting people to step in the door.  What I would like to do with this post is take some time to go over some things that he has done to get the word out and get more inquiries and people walking through the doors to practice.

1)  Have an online presence
The drop in prices and increase in access to the internet has brought more people to the information superhighway (how long has it been since I've heard that term?) to do commerce and find out information on a variety of subjects.  With Facebook and blogging websites, it is now easier than ever to create a webpage to advertise the club with minimal knowledge in all things HTML (hypertext markup language) or CSS (cascading style sheets).

The most interesting thing about this aspect is that the club website doesn't have the fancy pictures and videos that most would feel is required to bring people to the website.  Obviously, those things would ultimately help, but showing a regularly updated page with club times, locations and contact information seemed to, at least, provide the minimum information to those that are interested.

The most important thing though is that the website must be easily searchable to those that might be looking for information on your club.  For example, you type in "Kendo Cincinnati" into a search site like Google and the club shows up as being the one of the links at the top, thus making it easier for anyone to find information on your club.  I don't know much about how to do this other than making sure your website has various keywords that might make it possible, so it's best to do some research on that to bring your website to the top of the search engine results.

2)  Take any opportunity to demonstrate
Public speaking is hard.  I can say that from personal experience.  But it is necessary to take whatever opportunity you put on demonstrations in your area.  The most accessible venues are Asian festivals and "club days" that school campuses have throughout the year, but more locations like libraries, talent shows or even banks (yes, the club will be doing a demo at a PNC bank in the next few weeks) should be in the range of possibilities.

The usual format is the introduction, description of equipment, demonstration of strikes and having some matches to finish it off.  But it isn't enough to just go through the motions.  This is your chance to show off your club, so it's probably a good idea to take this chance to show off the club in the best light.

The way that Jim does his presentations is to cater to the crowd.  He uses words like "ninja", "samurai" and "sword fighting" to identify with the crowd since that's what the typical layman is used to hearing.  It's not totally accurate, but it gets the point across which ends up opening the doors to allow more specific, yet basic, information to get absorbed.  Another thing that he does to engage the crowd is to find out what the audience knows by asking basic questions about what they may or may not know about the sword arts and build the presentation off of that.  This step not only engages the crowd even more, but allows the most adept of presenters to mold the rest of the presentation based on the crowd they are presenting to.

The most important aspect to remember about this is that presentation styles aren't "one size fits all."  How Kendo and Iaido is presented depends on the particular event, people in attendance and ones own presentation style.  I have been gaining some experience in this aspect, but I still need to fool around a bit with how I say stuff to really settle into a style that works for me.  Some research and practice in public speaking might be in order for most people.

3) It's not what you know, but who you know
It's one thing to know the steps you want to take in order to show the existence of your club, but it's another thing to be able to actually take those steps to reach your goal.  Being involved with the community and having friends in special places can really help in making things easier for you to do the things you can to advertise for your club.  In Jim's case, he was able to get his friend to tape a video for the club and put it on the public access channel for anyone to see.  This is a pretty hard step, but it's really necessary and I've seen how well having connections and a good personality can help in getting what you want and need.

4) Advertise, Advertise, Advertise
Okay, so you have the website and done the demos.  For some, that may be enough, but for others, there might be more steps that you need to take in order to get the word out.  It's really important to get creative and advertise the club through the various outlets at your disposal.

Here are some ideas that could be taken:

• Do various community service projects in the name of the club.  Not only is it easy advertising, it also helps out those in need.
• Put on various forms of fundraisers.  This could be through bake or garage sales.  There is the ease of advertising, but it also raises funds for the club in order to do more outreach programs or help out the club with other activities or equipment assistance.
• Make T-shirts for club members to wear and/or give them out at demonstrations.  The possibility of this is dependent on the funds of the club and/or members, unfortunately.  But it can be a powerful form of advertisement.  Some anecdotal evidence of this is the fact that I was stopped in a Kroger a few times when someone wanted to ask me about the shirt I was wearing.  It didn't yield any results, but it shows that people do pay attention to what you're wearing.
• Lots of people participate in various things online.  Do you have a big passion for Kendo?  Why not blog about it?  You can also put links to club websites in online profiles and forum signatures.  This one also requires a bit of creative thinking to at least get the name of the club out there.
• It's possible to convince a your kid to do show-n'-tell segments at school or perform in talent shows.

5) Luck
It's really not the step that most people wouldn't want to hear, but let's face it, the ability to get information out there is also based on luck.  Opportunities sometimes happen by chance, like having members and friends with certain credentials, to having the planets line up correctly is sometimes the only thing you can rely on to get the word out.  In cases like these, it's best to seize whatever moments you have and think with the "glass half full" mentality.

This list is definitely not absolute.  The steps that you can or willing to take is all dependent on where your club is located, thought processes of the public in your area, comfort level, local laws and monetary funds.  However, no matter the situation, it will take a lot of hard, and possibly fruitless, efforts to get the name and purpose of the club out there.  In any case, we know that there is a demand for doing these exotic Japanese arts, it's just the issue of showing people that you can provide that sort of thing.

It's also important to realize that the club won't grow overnight, and there may be some hard times ahead for the club if it hasn't been there already for various socioeconomic reasons.  In this case, it's best to persevere for the sake of the club and press ahead to make sure that your club goals, however big or small they may be, are reached.

The next step is that, if you happen to be lucky to get more members, how can you learn to keep them?  The advice on that is going to be in the next post!

AUSKF Iaido National Seminar 2010

I got to spend five days last week in San Antonio for the AUSKF Iaido Seminar.  While I have been to two Iaido seminars in Cleveland, this is the first time I've attended the national seminar.  To be honest, I wasn't sure what to expect to experience and learn.  In the end, I was very pleased with the organization of the event, the people I met and the things I learned (minus some political issues, but that's for a different discussion).

The seminar had the welcoming party on the first day, the seminar on the second and third day, tournament on the fourth day and the promotional exam on the fifth day.  It was the perfect recipe to finish each day with sore legs from all the seiza and tatehiza, and a sore brain from taking in all that new information.

The seminar days went over some new exercises, such as a modified ipponme where we do the nukitsuke to the front, left, right and back and adding some kiai to the nukitsuke with the modified ipponme.  We also basically spend some time with each of the 12 seitei kata, learning various things like what's required for the movements and what's required for effective zanshin after we swing.  I would say that these were the most intense days as it was filled with tons of new information.  At the end of each day, I was mentally exhausted due to taking in so much.

The fourth day was just the tournament which was a whole new experience for me.  I'm more used to the Kendo tournaments where there's a lot of screaming and whacking going on and people running all over trying to get to where they need to be.  Because there was complete silence, the pressure was more intensified than the Kendo tournaments since there aren't any other sounds to drown yourself into.  In the end, lost at the second match against a really good opponent.  It was one of those moments where you could tell someone's skill just by looking at them.

To be honest, I wasn't all that wild about participating in Iaido tournaments in general.  It was something to do just for the experience, but I wasn't sure about really traveling as much as I would for a Kendo tournament to participate in one (if there are even such events existing in the US).  My initial impressions was that there wasn't all that much to gain from participating in these things because I saw it more as just doing the same thing in class, but having a different set of people looking at you.  After actually participating in one and feeling the different sorts of pressure, I do feel that there is just as much to gain from these tournaments compared to the Kendo tournaments

The final day was the promotional exam, which I also participated in.  There was a little less pressure on me that day because:

• I was just going for whatever kyu rank they felt I deserved.  So this exam wasn't a matter of "pass-or-fail".
• The tournament prepared me for the procedures and atmosphere so the experience was less jarring.

I was able to make it to 4th kyu, which I'm happy with.  It serves as a jumping point to know what the Federation expects of me to improve, which is pretty much all I feel gradings are for anyways.

Overall, I was really pleased with the seminar.  Not only did I learn a lot, but I met a lot of great people from all over the country.  I look forward to seeing them again in Cleveland next year (which is great since the driving distance is small :)).  In the meantime, I'll take what I learned and work with that until I find out more that needs to be fixed.

I had a chance to use my camera skills while I was there.  I think I'm starting to get the hang of using the camera so I feel that these came out better than some of the other ones.  A friend of mine told me that the ISO might be set too high so I guess that's another thing I should spend a little time with.  Without further ado, you can view the pictures on the flickr slideshow.

Until next time!!!

Upcoming Iaido Test

My application to attend the AUSKF Iaido seminar in San Antonio has been sent in.  Now I just need to do further preparations such as plane tickets and a possible stop in Houston before I leave.  There will be the general seminar, tournament and testing over four days of Iaido goodness.  This will be my first AUSKF Iaido seminar, so I honestly don't know what it will be like.  At this point, all I can assume is that it would be somewhat similar in structure to the Kendo seminars with the content learned in the Iaido seminars I went to in Cleveland.

I've been thinking about the whole testing process more than anything.  I'm pretty much guaranteed to get something since I'll be vying for one of the kyu ranks, but I would like to put up the best performance I can.  There's a slight learning curve since I've never tested in Iaido before.

All that is required of me is to perform five kata from the Seitei set in under six minutes.  One thing I need to do watch my perception of time.  While I made it through a sample kata set in well under the allotted time, it was still surprising how quickly five minutes can pass.  Of course, it won't do me any good to rush through them all.  One thing that's good about the nature of Iaido is that it's easier to prepare for the exams on your own time.  In Kendo, I'm really only able to get the full benefit of preparations when I have someone to fight against.  For Iaido, since everything is done by yourself, I only have me to rely on and me to blame for taking the time to train beforehand.

For now, I should try to get in the right mindset when doing the kata during practice.  At the same time, I need not worry about all the small details that tends to psych me out and makes me perform worse than I want to.  I should also throw in some home training to really up the concentration.

Injury Recovery

For the past few weeks, I have been skipping out on Kendo and Iaido practice due to a back injury.  Essentially, while doing things to take care of my stiff muscles in my back, my spine kind of just locked up.  I have been visiting the Chiropractor to get things fixed and things have been improving with each treatment so I should be able to return within the next few weeks.  According to the doctor though, I must have been living with a misaligned spine and muscles for quite some time, which actually sounds kinda creepy in retrospect.

However, even when I do return, I can't really just immediately start putting on my bogu and go at it.  Once I finish the adjustment segments, I need to get some therapy to strengthen the muscles I have since they are going to be operating differently.  I will be able to return to Kendo, but will probably have to spend that time just working on my basics and taking things easy until I feel more comfortable to get more active.  This isn't necessarily a bad thing because I will have an easier time concentrating  on all the basics, such as my footwork and suburi through either my own work or helping out any beginners that are attending practice.  It would be interesting to see how it all plays out once I'm able to join the main practice though.  Because the nature of Iaido isn't all that physically demanding, I'll be able to return to practice quite easily.  Heck, I could do it now as long as I'm not in pain on that particular day.

But, until I recover to that point, I'm stuck at home while I recover.  This has given me opportunities to catch up on some games I've neglected, but I've also been doing several things to keep my mind up to speed about Kendo and Iaido.

The biggest thing I have done was buy this book from E-Bogu.  The order was actually in addition to an Iaido hakama and new bokken set so I could save on shipping ($13 shipping vs. a $15 book + free shipping...hard decision...).  It's in Japanese so it's slow going as I actively translate everything, but there's lots of cool pictures drawings in there.  Iho hanshi (the author of the book) does a lot of comparisons between Kendo and various mainstream sports in terms of teaching some of the basic mechanics, though I'll have to see how that plays out as I continue reading.  I have also been reading various blogs and watching tournament videos on Youtube to keep things fresh and reflect on my own abilities. 

I am awaiting the moment I'm able to return to practice.  I'm honestly sick of having to sit around and wait but, if this prevents further injury and makes my body better than it was before, then all the wait time will all be worth it.

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.

Yearly Introspection

The final days of the year are approaching us. That means it's time for us to close out the year with reflection over how this year was spent and look ahead at the next year to see how we would like to approach it, given past events and lessons learned over all of our lives.

I thought I would try to approach this differently than in the past. I choose a word or phrase that best summarizes my experiences in Kendo and Iaido over the past year, and choose another word or phrase to summarize my goals for the following year. Then I justify each word or phrase.

Kendo
This year's word: Planning
One thing that I needed to do more of is to put a little more thought into my fighting. Beforehand, my habit was to mindlessly attack something with little to no planning. More often than not, it just resulted in me getting tired and not really gaining much in the end.

In order to move on to the next level, I need to begin using more seme to create openings and attack any weaknesses my opponent might show. I save energy and it allows me to mold my fighting style as I read the opponent's style. For the most part, I am understanding all the suggestions I am being told as I am reaping the benefits of doing so. Obviously, I have a long way to go to master that as there are many holes that need to be filled.

Next year's word: Resolve
Despite beginning to know about the benefits of using seme, most of it would be for naught if I don't have the resolve to beat the opponent. Oftentimes, I am distracted by the shinai in front of me and the many potential outcomes of any attempted strikes. Any sort of distraction will only diminish my attacks. I really need to do a lot of fixing on myself if I want to increase my chances of defeating the opponent.

I am going to try to get my nidan in March as well. Everyone remarks on how I have good basics, now I need to translate all that to performing well in front of a random opponent and a group of five people trying to grade me. I have failed the shodan test before because of incessant attacking, so hopefully I should be okay if I increase my resolve and institute planning to my Kendo.

Iaido
This year's word: Technique
Since I've only recently begun Iaido, I have mainly been concentrating on the physical aspects of performing all the seitei kata. The first hurdle was memorizing all of the moves. Once I got that down, then it was all about performing all of my swings more efficiently to make them look and feel better. There was a small bump in the road around August when my new iaito came in. Since it was bigger and heavier, there were some new aspects of swinging that I needed to get used to. As of now, I'm slowly getting it as my body is getting used to handling something that heavy.

Next year's word: Intent
Once the basic moves are taken care of, the next part is understanding everything that I am doing. Without that, then I would just be swinging around a sword with no meaning, which gets boring really quickly. Every kata has a bunkai, or intent, that gives all of your moves some sort of meaning. Whether I am supposed to be in a thin hall or taking down a few people, I am supposed to perform as if I was actually in that situation. Of course, it means I need to use a lot of my imagination and, when there are multiple things that are already going on in your head, there isn't room for much else.

I would also like to try to test for Iaido when I get the chance. The issue now is that I need to know when the next available test is. Because I don't have a rank, getting a grade of some sort should be relatively easy. What grade I get is a matter of the judges and the grading culture of the region I will be testing in. Either way, I will be trying hard to make sure there is some intent in all of my kata to make sharper swings, effective nukitsuke and accurate noto.

Obviously, I don't know what the future holds. The chosen goals are based on advice given to me and my introspection throughout the year. If I do get sidetracked for whatever reason, I hope it's for some other important element for improvement instead of just coasting through practice for the sake of it (though sometimes that may not be a bad idea if things get too frazzled). No matter the outcome, I hope I can approach each practice with something I can improve on to make my Kendo and Iaido better, little by little.

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.

Iaido Training 2.0

There's nothing like being able to see yourself on camera to knock your pride down a few pegs.

Last night, I took my video camera to the racquetball court at my apartment complex to record myself doing the seitei kata to see how I look with a different set of "eyes." Needless to say, there are a lot of things I need to work on, but for the sake of sanity, I'll only concentrate on a few of the things I saw for now:

• I noticed that my back wasn't straight for a lot of the kata. There were times when I could feel it, but there were a lot of times when I did it unconsiously as a function of the various stances I would take that I haven't quite gotten use to (tate-hiza, I'm lookin' at you!) and trying to look down at the dead opponent to make sure he or she is dead.
• There were a lot of involuntary movements that I was making while swinging. Maybe it's because my movements were counter-balancing the swings during kirioroshi or moving the saya back during noto. For the noto, I had my obi and hakama on a little tight so it was a little difficult to move, so there's still some need for me to find that happy medium to make sure my hakama stays on, but the iaito is secure enough
  

I am a huge supporter for using video to help with fixing your Kendo and Iaido technique. There have been many times where I would be told to fix something, but seeing it on video really made me realize the extent of the problem. Recently, I have been able to use it to show to Takano sensei before tournaments where she would look at it and then pull us aside during one of the practices to show us what needs to be fixed.

The former case is probably one of the best tools that you could have to supplement your training. Note that I said supplement because there needs to be some actual face-to-face training in order to get correct reference material to see what is wrong. It should NOT be used as a replacement for instruction as there are some things that can really only be best corrected when someone can walk around you and see how to use your body type to improve your abilities. The latter case is great as well, but it depends on who you show it to. Showing the video directly to your sensei or senpai can be a great tool for whenever you can't interact directly from time to time. There is also the option to post your videos on Youtube, but the caution there is that there are a lot of ninja and samurai people who think they know what they are doing, but have no clue since their perception is only what was seen in historical and instructional books and movies. Then there are those that may have formal instruction, but give suggestions from only training for a few weeks or months with little perspective for what is going on. For the most part, it can be used to just show off your skills and have people remark on how you did or ask questions, but shouldn't really be used too much as an instructional tool.

I have used video cameras before as a self-instructional tool, and plan on using them in the future. While it can be a little embarrassing to see yourself, that small ego downer is small potatoes to the potential benefit you can get from actually seeing those errors that people talk about. If you have the ability to film yourself and haven't done so yet, I really encourage you to do so. And it doesn't really require fancy equipment to take advantage of that either. With cameras coming on point-and-shoots, laptops and cell phones, most already have the ability, but might have an issue of setting the camera right to film yourself. Then, with the ease of transferring data with the use of memory cards or just connecting it by USB to a computer or TV, it's a lot easier to see it in multiple spots on larger screens to make the watchers more comfortable. It's definitely a far cry from 20 years ago with the camera my parents had where everything was recorded directly to VHS tape. Being the young kid I was, that thing was HEAVY.

If you can't use a camera for whatever reason, then there's no reason to fret much about it. Using the camera is just a tool to use, but has very little bearing on how good one can become. There are many people that have some of the most respectable Kendo and Iaido skills and got them just by spending time in the dojo and feeling things out with a back-and-forth dialogue between you and the sensei. The only thing that matters is one's dedication to improve with the tools that are laid out for them.