Kendo Basics

I think kendo has three phases of human development and these phases are really similar or the same as our human development in the society.

You are Selfish!!

The first phase is a selfish phase. When you start kendo you have to learn rules, etiquettes and the basics. You learn solo movements without any partners and you move on to a pair work. And finally, you will start hitting other students in bōgu.

You do everything you have learned and execute strikes on people in bōgu. And there’s one thing that you don’t know.

You Strike HARD!!

Quite often you are striking very hard. You don’t know how painful it is to receive your strikes.

People who are receiving your strikes don’t tell you that you are striking them very hard.

That is because we know everyone strikes very hard at the very beginning. And gradually we will fix you so you don’t strike too hard.

But in the next phase you will realize that you have to do something about it.

Feel How Others Feel

The second phase is to put yourself in receiver’s shoes. Now you put your own armor on.

It’s time for you to receive strikes on your head (men), on your right wrist (kote) and on your waist (dō).

Now you know how painful it is. You probably thought that these protections would protect you from the impact of these strikes.

They said it would not hurt!!

Well, it is true that the armor protects you but you still feel pain.

At this point, many beginners blame strikers, “They are striking too hard!” Actually they are not striking too hard.

This is the moment that you should realize YOUR strikes have been giving the receivers pains too. And it is probably more painful that you have felt when received for the first time.

So you know now. It hurts. And I want you to know that “our improvement is based upon the pains that we give to receivers”.  And that is why we should appreciate our receivers for taking pains for our progress.

So Giving Pains To Receivers Are OK?

Well, it is OK at the beginning. But as you progress, you should know how to strike without putting unnecessary strength in your strikes. You should learn proper tenouchi. Proper tenouchi will remove unnecessary strength and make your strikes sharper.

If you have unnecessary strength in your strike, say striking the right kote, it gives pain right into the bones. If striking men, it feels like someone hits you with a fat dictionary right in the head.

Who wants to get that all that time???

So everyone should strive to learn good tenouchi if you want to improve quickly and that will prevent you from hurting your kendō friends!!

So the teachings of this phase is…

“Put yourself in other’s shoes.  Learn perspectives of both sides. Before blaming others, step back and think if you are doing the same thing”.

Help Each Other!

The third phase is to realize that kendō is a team work. This is a very hard for many to realize right away. It is because we do not fight as a team like baseball or basketball. We have a team fight but the match is always one on one.

But when training kendō, you cannot possibly train on your own. Sure, you can do many things alone but without a training partner, we do not know how your techniques work on others and also you cannot know how the state of your mind changes during a fight.

It sounds like that we need only one partner to train kendō. Well, that is just to train techniques.

A Variety of Techniques on Variety of People

Even you and your mates learn from the same teacher, your kendō and your mates’ kendō will be different. Just like every single human is different.

So by training with different types of kendō, you can learn what to do against certain types of kendō.

This will force you to learn many different techniques and many different ways to deal with them.

They’ll Help You. You Help Them.

There is a time that the whole group becomes one during training. When do you think that is?

When receiving a very tough and hard training.

You cannot possibly push through this hard training alone. The reason is very simple. It is too hard for you to go through alone.

You kendō mates are trying hard around you. Some might be crying and some might be barely stranding. But they are trying to push through the hardest time of the training.

You feel the energy around you. You feel the spirit of “never-give-up”.  You just cannot stop because you are “tired”.

Special Training ONLY for You?

Sometimes you might be the only person receiving very hard training. You want to quit and walk away. But you know you cannot do it. Then you hear chanting around you…

“Go! Keep Striking! Com’on! Let’s go!!!”

The whole dōjō is cheering you. Just you. Your kendō mates are also tired but they are squeezing their energy out to cheer you.

Appreciate that. Don’t think, “Why only me?”.

They cannot do it for you but they know how hard it is. They know how hard training is. So they cheer you from the bottom of their heart.

Now you do the same for them. So they can push through their hard training. They will appreciate you.

This will build great team work for your dōjō. And you realize that even though we live alone we are always helped by others to keep going.

Yes, we are the ones who decide what we do with our lives. But others will be there to help you directly or indirectly. They might not be able to do it for you like our kendō training, but they are there for you to cheer you.

I think these are three phases of human development we can gain through kendō.

I have been telling my students that fumikomi is not necessary. And recently I have read an article by Geoff Salmon sensei, the author of Kendo. It is called Fumikomi-ashi – not the only way. You should read this if you have not.

And many people think that ki ken tai icchi is about striking a target and with the right foot stomp at the same time along with kiai.

I do not disagree with it but I think ki ken tai icchi has more to it. And many kendoists know about it but not through being taught; through experience.

As it is written, tai means body. Not only the right foot. So I see this as a warning; “Do not execute a strike only with your arms‘.

No “Hit and Away” in Kendo

You can “hit” a target with your arms extended and keep your body away from your opponent. This is not what we learn in kendo.

We learn sutemi or commitment. We must commit ourselves into our cut without thinking about “escaping/running away“.

The Difference from the Basics

Kendo basic movements seen in suburi such as joge buri and so forth, we do not do fumikomi. We slide forward and as the back foot, usually the left foot, comes forward, we strike.

But when we put a set of armor on, this changes.

As the right foot lands your shinai hits a target.

Hmmm…

What do you think?

Two Different Things But Based on The Same Purpose

Since it is said that kendo is “oshi-giri (push to cut)“, we must deliver our body forward. That is why the back foot should follow the front foot. Let’s remember this and have it as the core of this argument.

Our body starts shifting forward and finally the front foot takes off in the air. We can say that it is a shift from the stable status to unbalanced status.

When we cut our opponent, we want to be in

• balance and
• stable

as much as possible.

And most importantly we want to maximize the 

• power and
• effectiveness

of our techniques.

This video (Japanese Only) shows that the strike with the right foot and striking at the same time is more powerful than a strike with off-timing.

The difference is with or without fumikomi.

So the footwork is different in strikes with and without fumikomi is probably that is to strike our opponent most powerfully and effectively keeping the balance of the body with the oshi-giri.

On the other hand, with a real sword, it is used “hiki-giri (pull to cut)” so it does not make sense if the left foot comes forward like kendo unless they are applying a technique of oshi-giri.

Ki Ken Tai Icchi = Energy, Sword and Body Must Become One

This is only an interpretation to make sense out of what I have seen since I started kendo. I have seen many techniques in kendo so there are many types of ki ken tai icchi.

If you execute kote suriage kote (seen in Kata No.6) in kendo, which way do you go, forward or backward after you execute kote suriage kote?

It always depends on how close your opponent gets to you but quite likely you would stay where executed kote suriage kote or you would go backward as a result of trying to get a proper distance to strike.

Of course you can take use a fumikomi here but it is not necessary. You can strike as you do in Kata No.6. And to maximize the power you sink your body a little bit. Only a little bit like using iai-goshi (bend your knees slightly to lower and stabilize your body with zenshin like the image on the left).

You take a step forward onto the right or left foot to execute a cut. Sometimes you don’t even take a step forward as you can see in some iaido.

So the point is that all the three elements should be executed as one to maximize the power of the weapon you are using. Thus, your cut will be as effective as it could be.

Fumikomi (Stomping) Is Not a Goal But A Result

We strike men from issoku itto no ma (or a bit closer) that is probably a distance that we cannot reach without jumping in.

So we kick the floor with the back foot to give us a little push to reach our target.

That is ALL.

Many think that the stomping is important but not really. If you can execute the powerful cut without fumikomi by putting all the three elements (Ki Ken Tai) together followed by zanshin, then you are good.

So it does not matter if you strike with the right foot forward or the left foot forward (in my opinion) as long as you are executing a technique and its power is maximized by ki, ken tai.

This is what I think at the moment. This is subject to change 🙂

Click Here to Enter Kendo For Life Study Group Page Dedicated to Fumikomi

 

The kendō I have been wanting or searching is that tsuyoi kendo. What is tsuyoi kendō?

One day when I was 12 years old, at my dōjō back in Japan, the late Tsurumaru sensei called me and asked me, out of nowhere, this question.

Which One Is Better, Tsuyoi Kendō and Umai Kendō?

Tsuyoi means strong. And umai means skillful.

What do you think?

His explanation…

Tsuyoi kendō is like this. You can strike a target, for example, men while showing that you are going to strike men. So your opponent knows what you are going to strike.

Umai Kendō is like this. You strike a target, for example, kote while showing that you are going to strike men.

My answer was tsuyoi kendō would be better and I did not know why until he told me an answer for this question.

Almost 30 years later, I talked to Masayoshi Miyazaki (7-dan) about it. He was in charge of kids’ kendō back then and have been my sensei for as long as I have been doing kendō.

He said, “The former one is martial arts and the latter one is sports”.

Martial Arts vs. Sports

I do not think there is a vivid line between the two (at this very moment) and I am still figuring that out but I know what he meant.

In training, we should not focus about hitting targets, even though that is what we do in kendō. In training, we should focus on the process rather than results.

It is always important to have a good result (sports aspect) but more importantly we should focus on “how” to get a good result (the way part of kendō).

Tsuyoi kendō is more like the core of our life. Live and fight fair and square. Live right. Fight without cheating. That is why the late Tsurumaru sensei said, you should practice kendō like “I am going to strike men and strike and get men”.

Umai kendō is also necessary. Mind you, umai does not mean cheat.  We need to know a lot of different techniques to fight with righteousness and support the tsuyoi kendō.

Kamiizumi Isenokami Nobutsuna

Here is an example of Umai. I am telling this story from my memory that is very poor so please forgive me if this is not very accurate.

The founder of Shinkage-Ryū, Kamiizumi Isenokami Nobutsuna was passing through a village.

The villagers were gathering looking very worried. And as he passed by, one of the villagers asked him to save a girl from a kidnapper hiding in a shed (or a house) because Nobutsuna looked like a great samurai.

Nobutsuna agreed to help the girl. But he started shaving his hair off and dressed up like monk. He also prepared some rice balls.

He walked toward the shed and said to the kidnapper,  “You (and/or the girl) must be hungry. I have some rice balls for you (and the girl). Let me in”.

The kidnapper let him in and then Nobutsuna pinned the kidnapper down and rescued the girl.

No one died or got hurt by Nobutsuna getting into the shed to rescue. He just chose one technique out of other possible solution and executed it very well.

He could confront the kidnapper as a samurai. He could try to persuade the kidnapper like a negotiator. He could use other villagers to attract the kidnapper’s attention.

To accomplish a goal, he probably had a lot of techniques but he chose the best technique at that time under that circumstance.

Become a Strong Person with a Lot of Techniques

Up until recently, I was aiming to do tsuyoi kendō but now I am trying to add more techniques to my kendō.

The core of my ideal kendō is tsuyoi  kendō but I absolutely need more techniques to expand and improve my kendō.

Life is the same, don’t you think? People who live their life seriously and with righteousness are not always treated correctly. People need some skills so they can be treated right and also the right things can be seen “right”.

What do you think?

Video: Difference Between Tsuyoi And Umai: Part I available for KFL Newsletter Subscribers

Video: Difference Between Tsuyoi And Umai: Part II available at Kendo For Life Club