The mind boggles...

I haven’t had much of a chance to post here lately. I’ve been exceedingly busy with non-Kendo stuff. I have been doing suburi at home, but not as often as I want.

On the 17th of April, I attended a seminar given by Ota Sensei and Uchida Sensei. My meager vocabulary can not express the awe I held for these Sensei. They both moved with a powerful grace that I am totally incapable of doing. We covered basics in the morning (ashi sabaki, fumi komi, men uchi, kiri kaeshi) and then kata (all seven long sword forms) in the afternoon. Uchida Sensei gave me many good pointers during our session (people with bogu trained with Ota Sensei while those without trained with Uchida Sensei).

Things I need to work on:

Maai

I always move WAY to close. Even my issoku itto no maai is much too close. This goes back mainly to me taking too large a step, especially when striking. I noticed Uchida Sensei and Ota Sensei don’t always move as far horizontally when doing fumi komi, so I need to work on that as well.

Arms

Since my maai is too short, I’ve started pulling my arms in as I swing, bending the elbows so I can strike with the monouchi correctly. Obviously, I need to take shorter steps so I don’t need to do this.

Kata

I need much more practice on kata. My ipponme and nihonme are decent, other than maai (notice a pattern yet). Sanbonme is ok, though I need to work on timing and footwork more. The others are still rough. I need to work through these by myself while visualizing my opponent. I did that with the first two and was able to remember them.

We then went to dinner with several of the attendees, including Ota Sensei and Uchida Sensei. We got to hang out with ‘Frank the German’ at lunch and dinner. What a blast. I’m amazed at the social part of Kendo. When I trained in martial arts, we would meet other practitioners, but it was never a really friendly meeting. I’ve been thinking about this since the seminar. To me, the goal of Kendo is self perfection, not necessarily winning a match. We spar, so that we can perfect our techniques against a moving target that strikes back. Karate, it seems, is more about outward perfection, where winning a match holds more value. Kendo is Kendo is Kendo. For the most part, it is fully standardized and the only variation would be in teaching techniques. Other forms of martial arts are still splintered. I think this makes the practitioners of those arts more aggressive in showing that their style is ‘better’ than other styles, i.e., by winning tournaments. It’s an interesting idea.

After a very, very long day (4:00 am to 2:30 am the next morning), I had class on Sunday with James (Shodan) teaching. It was a pretty good class. We covered basics again (as always) and kata (can never have too much). Jared and I stayed after to go through all seven of the long sword kata. I feel very bad that I could not be a better training partner for him. I know Ipponme, Nihonme and Sanbonme (mostly) and have a general understanding of the others. I’ve been reading Inoue Sensei’s book, and think I have Yohonme down pretty good. I’ll practice it tonight by myself (I visualize someone to do it against) and see if I can get the movement patterns. For kata, I need to work on:

Maai

Again, I move WAY too much.

Mental Determination

Sempai James has an amazing amount of determination on his face doing kata, and it is disconcerting. I am much bigger than James and possibly stronger, but his determination is much stronger than mine.

Physical Movements

Not maai as much as mastering the intricate movements of the kata. I have a good understanding of the ‘gross’ movements of the first three, but I need to get the fine details down better. I need to master the ‘gross’ movements of the other four so I can start finer detail.

Hopefully, it won’t be so long between my next brain dump.