Problems Fixing Problems

Time for a statement from Captain Obvious! Everyone has their own problems to fix in Kendo. Some problems may be easy to fix within a few practices and others might take a lifetime to work out. Unfortunately, the path to fix these issues come with a bit of frustration and last week was one of those times.

The frustrating scenario happened this past Wednesday at the Corryville practice. For the past year or so, I have been told some variant of keeping my back straight, pushing more off my left leg and turn my wrist in to make quicker, more effective strikes. I have been working on these in some degree or another, but I just tend to regress back to my old ways later on. Despite working on it, it has gotten a bit on the frustrating side since it seems like there hasn't been that much improvement despite my best efforts.

I know that the path of Kendo comes with a lot of hardship, but knowing and experiencing are two different things. This frustration comes on several levels:

• The pressure I put on myself to improve by fixing any known errors
• The pressure I put on myself by trying to show that I am actually listening to everyone's suggestions and taking steps to improve myself
  
• The pressure I put on myself with the frustration of getting that same advice said to me and wondering if there is actually some improvement.
  

I typed the situations like that to put emphasis on the fact that I am putting the pressure on myself, whether or not it's warranted. The first bullet point is pretty much the only sort of pressure I need to put on myself. The sensei and senpai that give me these suggestions know that I am trying my hardest to improve, or they would have given up on giving me any sort of advice a long time ago. And, despite what they actually think, I know for a fact that anything they say is somewhere in my mind which puts it at or near the top of the list of things to improve on, whether or not I am consiously thinking about it. Also, I do realize that different problems take different amounts of time to fix which is all dependant on how big or small the change is, how long one has been doing it wrong and general ability to think about it during all forms of practice, in and out of the dojo. For all I know, I could be improving, but I don't realize it. I could be getting closer to that point where I can do things in an acceptable manner, but I'm just getting pushed to make it better.

One thing I need to think about while fretting over fixing these issues is that, the longer I fret over it, the longer it will take for me to improve. That would just cloud my judgement and cause me to lose focus on the things that do matter. The important thing is knowing that I recognize these problems and have steps planned or taken to fix them in the best way possible, no matter how long it will take. The thing about Kendo (and anything in life really) is that, even after 30 years of practice, I'll never have my back straight enough, I'll never employ the use of tame enough, I'll never use my left hand enough, I'll never...you get the idea. There will always be something that needs improving on. The thing that I realize about Kendo is that I am trying to reach that asymptotic region of 100% perfection. I know I can get close, and it might look like I am at that point from the outside, but I'll never personally reach that point.

Kendo Skill +1

I had to take a week off from Kendo to let my body heal and go through some hell at work. But I did my best to start up again as good as before. After Saturday practice in Dayton, I had a minor headache, experienced a small cramp in my left calf and some plantar fasciitis. Despite all that, I felt so alive after practice to where going through the pain during and after that was all worth it.

Ever since the tournament and after some suggestions by Ariga sensei, I have been trying my best to bring my Kendo to the next level by trying to do what I can to create openings on the opponent and getting them to move the way I want them too. This is easier said than done cause I also have to get over the personal demons that cause me to hold back and hesitate and correctly use the openings to my advantage.

I have also been trying out various other techniques to see how well they work. I seem to be belting out the Gyaku-Dou (dou strike on the left side) pretty often since after the tournament. It's nice to use, though I'd like to know the best way to score with it. I have also been trying to work with hiki-waza and all the elements that deal with that.

The main motivation for this was after participating and really paying attention to the shodan/nidan division at the Cleveland tournament. It's one thing to see people do well in certain divisions, but it's a different matter when you're trying to pay attention to everything to see what needs to be done to even have a chance at the top spots. I knew that my ikkyu kendo wouldn't be good enough, but it was great to get a perspective for what I need to do to do well.

Kendo Break

There was no Kendo for me this past weekend, though it wasn't really planned...

I would probably say that it happened a little over a week ago. The practices the week after the tournament were tougher than normal due to the desire for improvement through harder work for the next tournament. It pretty much hit a climax after Saturday's practice since it was actually kind of warm. It was in the mid 80s that day and we followed the policy of no air conditioning during training (the fans are on by the way for air circulation). There was that period of exhaustion, though I did feel a bit light-headed after practice, but nothing to get worried about.

The good news is that I was able to take it a bit easy on Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday since I was mainly teaching beginners. I did do the tough jigeiko afterward though for these practices. It wasn't until Thursday that things started to crash down when I noticed a pain in my left arm (sort of felt like a small fracture or something that could possibly snap my arm), some planar ficiaitis and general exhaustion. I really wasn't sure what the issue was, but possibly thought that maybe my body had enough exercise from the previous week (probably didn't help with doing laser tag the previous Friday as well). I ended up having to stop with that practice and just use the rest of the time to give the beginners some words of encouragement to keep myself busy. Despite that, I really couldn't help but feel kinda bad for having to stop.

My plan for this weekend was to slow down a bit and just take a break. This had to be one of the hardest things to do since I had a huge desire to pick up my shinai and iaito and start swinging. No matter how hard I tried to keep myself busy, I kept thinking about kendo and iaido. The noises, the smell and the overall activity just really kept crossing my mind with video games and apartment cleaning that really kept me sane.

This whole weekend sort of made me have that inferior feeling because I had a huge desire to do Kendo, but I also realized that this is probably the best route to prevent further injury that could possibly put me out for several weeks or months as opposed to just a few days. I tend to have this stubborn attitude that keeps me going while fighting through the pain and then feel kind of less-than-worthy when I have to quit to prevent anything bad from happening. I know there's nothing wrong with stopping to fight another day and shouldn't let stuff like this bruise my ego, but it tends to happen anyways.

Well, let's hope that things go well on Tuesday. I do plan on making an appointment with the doctor sometime soon for an overall physical to see where I stack up on the health realm, but then I do have a few other questions as well about my body condition to see about those. It's more a curiosity than anything as I don't see too many problems with that situation.

Cleveland Tournament Review

This past weekend was the Kendo tournament hosted by the Cleveland Kendo Club at Case Western Reserve. This is also the first time I was able to participate in the Shodan/Nidan division after over 5.5 years of practice.

Unfortunately, I didn't get past the first match in individuals. This was a higher tournament bracket, so I honestly wasn't sure what to expect. Then there's the fact that I was working with less than 2 hours of sleep and 4 hours of driving which probably didn't help either. If I were to stop here though, then I'd just be making excuses for myself and would really just defeat the purpose of these things.

Despite the loss, I took as to what is expected of me to do well at tournaments in this next bracket and I realize that I have a lot to work on. I saw a lot of really fast and active Kendo going on as the competitors were whittled down towards the finals, so I am pretty sure I need to get to that sort of level to increase my own capabilities.

We didn't make it past the first round for the team matches, but we all felt much better after this match compared to the individuals. Everyone was a lot more aggressive and lasted a bit longer in these matches.

Why is that? I think that it has something to do with the overall phyche of the team. When it came to the individuals, we were trying hard, but we had issues with the drive and the jitters when you see the huge amounts of people from the dojos that routinely do well in these tournaments. By time we got to the team matches, it was all about just having fun with it and being together and cheering each other on.

One thing that I think some people concern themselves too much on is how good the competition is and how badly they might be beaten. There's nothing wrong with having some concern to know where you stand in terms of the competition, but too much worrying tends to become a self-fulfilling prophecy since that concern comes out when you're out there fighting. What we need to realize is that we are going out there to show everyone the best of our abilities, regardless of who it's against. And despite the other teams having larger rosters, more sensei and/or better facilities, it's still possible for someone in middle-America to do well as long as he/she applies himself/herself.

I really hope that we can use these next few months till the next tournament to really improve ourselves and show them what Cincinnati is all about! Oh yeah, it also helps if we all got more sleep, lol. One thing's for sure, we started thinking about how we can modify our training to increase endurance, aggressiveness and accuracy.

On The Road To Cleveland

I should really be going to bed since I will be leaving for the Cleveland Kendo Tournament in a few hours, but I thought I shall post this before I go to bed.

Tomorrow is the Cleveland tournament and will be my first in the Shodan-Nidan division. We had the final practice yesterday where a lot of it was focused on endurance and some shiai practice. Takano sensei told me that I have good enough form, I just need to add resolve to my technique to make yuko-datotsu more definite and not be afraid of using the various techniques to advance my overall Kendo skill (as she put it, I can start trying to do the fun stuff in shiai).

After practice, she told us that the person we are fighting against is not the enemy. The enemy is ourselves. That really rings true in my case though. Everyone says my technique is really good, but it's the whole hesitation thing that keeps me from getting the flags to go up in my favor. This will probably be the hardest thing for me to get over though as it's hard to get the flow of the match to the point where you freely use various techniques and concepts to get the upper hand. In short, I can throw out techniques left and right, but if I don't have the resolve and the confidence to go for it, I will always come up short.

As far as getting to the tournament, there is about 4 hours of driving, so I should really use this time to mentally prepare myself for the match. I could stretch and practice all day long, but if my mind is not ready or just not there, then that will cause me to lose all the time. I don't think I'll come up with a specific game plan due to the infinite amount of unknowns, but I should try my best to instill the confidence in myself to give the match my all.

Now it's time for bed. Kinda wish that this was typed better so I hope I got the point across

Now the REAL Beginning Of Kendo Begins...

It's been almost a week since I actually gained my Shodan rank, but the celebration was short lived by way of transitioning to one of the most hellish weeks of work I have ever been through. If you've ever worked a normal work week in half the time, you'd know what I mean.

Getting a Shodan in Kendo is similar to getting a black belt in Karate or some other martial art. But just because I have that rank doesn't mean that I'm a master at anything. In fact, I have such a long way to go before I really master anything at all. All getting the rank means is that I was able to show the judges that I had a good enough handle on applying the basics to build upon.

Now that I have achieved the rank of Shodan, I need to pay attention to a lot more about myself before I commit to an attack. Is my weight distribution okay? Do I REALLY have the center? Am I really ready to attack or am I just robotically dealing with the situation? Once I can answer yes to all these questions, then I'm ready to attack, but then that's not enough as I need to further analyze the situation of my opponent to find or create an opening using seme and having a handle on the various waza to break my opponent's kamae and their spirit.

Thanks to the tips I have been getting just before the exam, the information from Fujita Sensei and the video that a friend took, I do have a place to start. When I think about this, everything does seem very overwhelming. There are a lot of things I need to do in order to feel that I'm ready for Nidan. Of course, the only thing I can really do is take these issues one at a time and not focus so much on the big picture.

Interesting Revelations

Well, I'm sitting here in bed waiting for that stupid Rhinovirus to die and let me get on with my life (the common cold). So I thought I'd take some of the copious amount of free time I now have since I can't really do much else and go over some things that I was taught in Kendo and Iaido class this week.

In Iaido, we spent some time going over breathing techniques while doing the kata. Breathing is something that is emphasized, but not really discussed, so it's a nice thing to actually go over some possible ideas on how to break things down. I have been looking for ways that I can go from just doing the various seitei waza to actually putting some meaning behind the techniques. And after learning what I did in Sunday's practice, I think I may have found at least one way to reach that particular goal.

I'll use Gohonme: Kesagiri (五本目:けさ切り) as an example since that's what we applied it to in class. I was basically told to try slowly breathing out as I stepped forward and make the nukitsuke and take another slow breath while doing chiburi and noto. After trying it out a few times, Atkins-sensei said that he noticed a big improvement in my execution. The main thing that breathing did was help me actually concentrate on how I make my cuts and how I can better execute techniques. I really would love to add this to my regimen of the other kata to see how things work compared to last time.

Tuesday's Kendo practice had some shiai-geiko in it to help us prepare for the Detroit tournament. Here are some notes that Takano-sensei expressed to me and the class:

- Whenever I go for an attack, I need to try to make sure my hit makes a distinct sound before the other person to make sure I get the points scored in my favor.

- I really should try to pay more attention to spacing. If your back is close to the boundary, the normal reaction seems to be to try to go forward and forcefully push the other person back. But another option to use would be to actually move to the side in case the other person has the idea to taiatari you right out of the boundary. Conversely, if the opponent is in a similar position, it is possible to taiatari them out of the court, but then you run the danger of being at a disadvantage. Another option is to use pressure to get them to unconsiously move back and get them to step out.

- When moving back to reposition ourselves, it's best to hold the other person's shinai with yours so they can't easily go for any openings that come up.

Out of all the suggestions that she gave me, the most important thing is that I needed to make use of "tame." I've never really heard that term before, but what I gather, I need to make effort to build up my energy and then explode with an attack instead of just moving when ready. There really isn't too much I can say beyond that since I haven't had a chance to work on it (I was supposed to do that yesterday...), but I'll be sure to get that straightened out the next time I can go to practice.

Five Years And Counting...

The month of August marks the 5th anniversary of when I started Kendo. It's hard to believe that I've been with this for all that time, considering the big changes that have happened in my life during the time span.

As many of us know, it's hard for one to keep interested in one activity for so long and Kendo is definitely no exception. The plethora of options for things to do, work and school are the biggest killers of prospective college Kenshi, but I fought it. For those that can dedicate the time, sometimes people realize that Kendo is not really what one expected it to be or took too much commitment, but I fought that too.

I pretty much started Kendo because I wanted something to do when I was in college to break the monotony of studying and slaving. To be honest, I originally wanted to do Aikido. But I found out about Kendo and considered trying to do both. But when school started, the Kendo callout came first so I went with that one first. I would have done Aikido as well, but the classes clashed with the advanced classes that I wanted to eventually attend at the time. In short, I only had room for Kendo.

It seems like only yesterday that I walked into the Stewart center as a wide-eyed, timid freshman spending two hours a week going back and forth on the floor before moving on to spending those same two hours a week making our arms fall off.

What made me stick with Kendo? At first, it got me out of my dorm so it was pretty much something to do and something to pad my resume with. But despite the difficulty of coming back with sore feet and arms every week, I still had some mysterious force calling me back. What really made me stick with it was when I saw my first tournament in Chicago. Seeing people in the mysterious armor and uniform whacking away at each other gave me a preview of what we were going to do if we stick with things long enough. It probably helps that I had no expectations of Kendo whatsoever. Sure, I went to the callout the week before the first practice, but I was going into it pretty much blind at this point.

Fast forward five years and I'm still doing it with abilities that I never thought possible. I've visited various dojo across the country and participated in my fair share of tournaments with no signs of stopping any time soon.

Where do I see myself in the future? I want to be able to continue Kendo for as long as my body is able to allow me. In the present time frame, I want to do my best to develop my own style and improve on the skill set that I have now. I also want to increase my Kendo competency enough to be able to do my best by spreading the knowledge of Kendo by teaching those that are willing to learn.

Well, I got 5 years down. Now lets hope for 5+ more!