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!

Kendo Ain’t Easy

Too bad I actually fail that men…

A friend of mine posted an article on Facebook titled, “5 Little-Known Secrets to Utterly Successful Karate-ka” which briefly talks about some of the things that some of the most successful Karate-ka go through to reach whatever level of success they want to achieve.  I think that the article itself touches on some very good points about what it takes to be the best in Karate.  What I got from it was that the great Karate-ka are willing to examine themselves and not too prideful to go back to the basics to improve on the advanced techniques and not rely on natural talent.  Quite naturally, I applied all of this to Kendo and even thought about how I approach what I feel is success in Kendo.

One thing that I can definitely understand is that, whatever we are seeking, we would love to find that small piece of information, that familiar grouping of words, that magically gives us all of the answers.  Of course, we all quickly realize that life just doesn’t' work that way.  I am most certainly guilty of that myself.  In the search of improving my quality of life, I would hope that there is an easy way to achieve my goals, despite that never really happening.  In terms of Kendo, I really want to be able to apply very effective seme and take advantage of those results.  I read books, read websites, watched videos and seeked advice from fellow Kendo-ka in the hopes that I would find that deus-ex-machina.  In the end, I just better understood what seme means, but it wasn’t information to directly apply to my everyday practice to quickly apply said information.Well, I most certainly got more acquainted with what seme is, but I was no closer to finding the answer to my question of HOW I should perform it.  At the same time, I knew that, in the back of my mind, that I would not be able to find that answer just by asking a few questions, watching a few videos and reading a few books.  In order to be more effective in seme, I need to put in years of trial and error to see what works and what doesn’t for my style of Kendo.  I can listen to and employ various forms of advice, but I would still need to see how that works and, if it does, spend lots of time working on it to even feel like its working.

As much as I want to improve on my applications of seme, I still need to be able to employ the basics well enough to be effective in it.  Unfortunately, it does involve lots of work with things as simple as working on my kamae.  Everything from the footwork to where most of our strength comes from provides that foundation that allows us to effectively employ those advanced waza that we love so much.  Even after I have done Kendo for 50 years, I can’t forget about the things that got me to where I will be at that point.  In our minds, we want to do all the fun stuff like harai-waza, suriage-waza, or even hiki-waza, but we can’t forget about doing simple things like holding a shinai to perform them correctly.

I did mention earlier that my quest for finding out how I can better employ stuff like seme only resulted in me finding out more about what seme is.  Regardless of that, we should be willing to search for the information that we seek.  It could be through books, videos or talking to sensei and sempai, but there is the difficult task of finding out more about what we are trying to do.  One thing that really helps is that, the people that we are getting advice from are either currently dealing with the struggle, or has at least learned how to deal with it.  Getting advice from people who have “been there” makes the advice seem more useful.  However, despite getting that information, the next thing is to be able to use the information in real-world applications.

I mentioned earlier that my quest for information about seme didn’t really answer any of my questions about how to perform seme well.  That doesn’t mean that my search was fruitless.  I was able to learn more information about what it is.  Another point that was brought up in the article is that we must be willing to seek out information and learn from the best.  Getting information from those that have gone through similar struggles can help get a grasp on what’s going one.

The most important thing that I got from the article is that we must really love what we are doing.  It seems obvious, but in the daily routine of our lives, it’s very simple to just go through the motions because it’s what we are used to.  However, if progress is to be made, we must really be able to examine ourselves and find out what’s REALLY important in our lives.  If Kendo is one of them, we must be able to learn from our victories and defeats and work through those moments that are so frustrating that we just want to quit (I’ll admit that I had that feeling once a few years back).  Working on Kendo can be very draining, painful and exhausting, but we must WANT to work through the troubles.

One very important fact is that, in the end, success is relative.  Everyone has their own opinions on what the goals of Kendo should be.  The most important thing is that we must be willing to do whatever we can to reach whatever goal we set out to achieve, whether it’s to get that next rank, get a gold medal at a tournament or just hit men better than you did last week.  One thing that I think we all can agree on is that, whatever path we choose, there really is no easy route to reach our destination.

What is Seme?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What is Seme?

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

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

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

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

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