#51: 2009 Picton Grading + Grading Considerations

Today was a pretty hot day with temperatures out in Liverpool about 35°C, and when I got home my room was a nice toasty 37°C with 21% relative humidity which made it bearable by not being so humid. I travelled down to Picton for grading, which was held at Picton High School, along with a carload of other grading hopefuls.

Having been injured, and slightly frustrated with how things were going, and then also not enjoying my Kendo as much as I would have liked to lately, I was a bit apprehensive on if I would be successful in passing Ni-kyu (2nd kyu) today, and while yesterday in regular Friday training we went through the basics, I was still a bit iffy in regards to the stamina issue. There was a seminar today that covered what we needed to know, and it was taken by Takashi Itakura Sensei, and Martino Ellero. We went through the important parts of our attire, equipment, kirikaeshi, uchigomikeiko, kakarigeiko and then jigeiko. For those who were doing Ikkyu (1st kyu), they also went and had five minutes practice of kata. The candidates for ikkyu and nikyu were lumped together because our requirements were virtually the same with the exception of kata.

The pointers for attire/equipment:

• Uniform: The colour must not be faded. The colour should be white or the dark navy brown. If you have discoloured or badly faded uniform, you can be failed.
• Uniform: Do not show chest. The gi should be closed up.
  
• Uniform: Make sure there are no creases or folds on the back of the gi, and all the folds are visible in the hakama.
• Uniform:Clean any stains off the uniform before grading such as salt stains.
• Uniform:Pull the hakama firmly down onto the hips so that it looks proper incase it has ridden up while sitting in seiza and putting tare/dou on.
• Shinai: Make sure the nakayui leather is tied at approximately 1/4 of the entire shinai lenght from the sakigawa.
• Shinai: Make sure that the tsuru and nakayui is neat and appropriately cut to length and not sticking out bits.
• Shinai: Make sure that the tsuba is as far flush up to the tsuka as possible with no gap visible if possible.
• Shinai: If you use a carbon shinai, you must also be careful more than normal to ensure that the sakigawa is not damaged.
• Bogu: Men himo the right length and when tied, the loops/tails match.
• Bogu: Men himo flat and together on the sides of the men when tied.
• Bogu: Dou himo tied firmly (front and back), and knots tucked away.
• Bogu: Tare knot hidden.

For kirikaeshi:

• Take your time, accuracy, good posture, good kendo is more important than rushing it.
• Stop at each stage of kirikaeshi briefly to make the best effort.
• One kiai if possible for sayumen cuts, if you chose to use kiai of men men men, make it flowing, so MenMenMen instead of Men Men Men.
• Zanshin of the cut finishes after you turn around from the last kihon men cut with kiai.
• As motodachi for kirikaeshi, receive the cuts properly with your shinai to allow your shidachi to give their best kendo.

For uchigomigeiko:

• Pause and wait until you are ready to make the cut before making the cut. Rushing will not produce your best and most accurate cut.
• Turn around quickly at proper distance (ittomai or chikama at closest) to enable your motodachi to open once you are ready.
• Slow down and show your intent of cut, determination and confidence of cut.

For kakarigeiko:

• You do not always have to hit the motodachi's shinai away from center to create attackable openings. If you control center, suriyashi footwork into distance automatically creates an opening.
• Take your time to make good cuts, rushing does not help.
• Turn around at right distance to make a cut from where you turn
• Zanshin that you meant to make that cut from the opening

For jigeiko:

• With the limited time frame, do not spam cuts. Make good cuts that show your kendo.
• Do not block unless it is an obviously bad cut that has been thrown.
• Work together as a team to both show your kendo
• In a one minute jigeiko, making five good cuts is all you need.

Commonality between them:

• All is that you should be using kihon cuts.
• Kiai strongly to show your determination and confidence.
• Work with your partner. If you know their skill level, you can do ni-dan or san-dan waza (kote men, kote dou, men me/kote men dou etc) for uchigomigeiko. If they wish to use it in kakarigeiko and you can see it, work with them to allow it to happen.
• Take your time with every cut. Set up the cut so you can show ultimately your best kendo.

I think that with all of that being delivered to us in the space of just under an hour, and also getting rotational practice for those exercises was very good for me. With the heat, we took it easy somewhat and only had half the time for the seminar than was planned, which turned out to be not such a bad thing at all.

When it came to the actual grading, I was still a bit nervous, but with kirikaeshi first up, I let it just happen, taking time with the cuts and making the cuts solid with continous kiai as best I could. The uchigomigeiko and kakarigeiko went reasonably I thought and then we had jigeiko at the end.

I was also a little apprehensive of that, as the two people I had to play were also from my club. The odd one out was someone who I had also graded with at Founders Cup weekend in 2008. Anyway, with my first jigeiko opponent, everything was fine, we started off with an aiyuchimen cut before cutting at each other with kihon cuts (which felt really weird considering that we normally practice jigeiko with small cuts), and then with the second person, I had height advantage, but it wasn't that great an advantage because they could move faster and had excellent timing. I missed three kihon kote cuts but I don't think it mattered because I showed my intent and determination for the cut, regardless if they moved away with timing for me to cut air.

The waiting wasn't too bad afterwards as everyone had some lunch and chilled out, and then we lined up to wait for the results to be read out. Almost everyone passed except for the Dan levels where it is a bit different. All four of us in nikyu passed so that was great.

I'm quite happy with the result since I've trained three or four times since I've injured my wrist back in November last year, and I think I did okay. The next grading if I am still in the country is at Founders Cup in August, and I will now have to start learning my kata for ipponme to sanbonme. I already know the first two, but I am not a hundred percent certain about the third, but I have now plenty of time to get that done.

^_^