Random #44: Even more Kote repairs

So, another friend needed kote patching.

This time, it was only on the left kote, and it was a large tear and a small hole that was forming. So I used one long line of double thread, and stitched dual layers on both spots with the result looking like this:

This time however, I managed to do better stitching I think, a bit neater, though I don't know how well it'll hold up. In any case, hopefully it'll make their kote last longer.

Random #43: Tsukagawa Art

I got a new shinai a little while back to replace one that was broken beyond repair. When I received it I thought to myself, the tsukagawa is nice and clean and white. I should do something funky with it.

So I did.

Masking tape. Training.

While I realise that the effect won't last (and have two training sessions with the masking tape taken off, it has already started to colour again), it was still really cool to have the effect visible to start with.

I guess this is sort of a minor customisation, not as glaringly obvious or flashy as like a bright coloured patterned dou or a plexi-faceplate with the Hasegawa Mengane..... Either way, anyone can do this with practically no cost if you have masking tape and a clean/new shinai/tsukagawa ^_^v

#52: Repairing Kote

It is always important to look after your equipment because neglect leads to faster wear and tear, and may cost you more in the long run not only in terms of money, but also time waiting for repairs or shipping etc if you need new gear.

For me, I've had two holes appear, one in each kote of mine, on the thumb region. While I don't know the exact problem on why they appeared except perhaps for gripping wrongly during tenouchi, I wasn't too concerned because the speed of their enlargement wasn't great. I decided to finally patch them up today.

I didn't have any other leather around, but I did have the tsukagawa from an old shinai of mine, so I picked it apart and cut the leather for the patches. What I did was double patching, i.e. one inside the kote, and then one on the outside of the kote. Why? Well, if you only patch the outside, your thumb will wear the kote leather from the inside, and if you only patch the inside, the shinai will wear the kote leather from the outside. If you patch both sides, then you're wearing the patches only.

The leather is pretty hard and my fingers got pretty sore in the end, even ending up using pliers to push and pull the needle through the leather. Not to mention that I've also bent the needle and left all these plier marks on the needle. In any case, I used a quad-ply lot of thread for strength in navy blue to make the colour not stand out too much. The whiter leather of the patch will hopefully colour in and also not stand out so much.

This is what the final appearance is, with my right kote on the left, and left kote on the right of the image.

#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.

^_^

#42: Shinki Silver - Impressions

I used the Shinki Silver today at training.

I like.

The weight is solid, cut weight feels like a bokken, which is really good. My cut speed is about the same if not a little slower perhaps, but it makes my cut focus greater, waiting or generating openings more than just trying to force cuts into places.

The sound it makes is very strong, the men cut sounds awesome. I like very much.

The down side though is that the grip is thin, and while I had good grip on it, it probably wasn't as tight as I could have had on it. I got disarmed during jigeiko, but I don't know if that is due to being tired, or the thinness of the grip.

The people at my club who saw it and held it all said it was like an anorexic shinai, and were surprised by the weight of it considering how thin it was. ^_^

#41: DIY Kendo Dummy v2.0

All good inventions go through product development, and urban poor man's Kendo Dummy is no exception. Although it was rainy today, I still decided to do some R&D on the project and the new version is below.

As you can see, the original Coca-Cola box is still in use, and is nearing the end of its life after being beaten quite severely in testing phases from v1.0 and v2.0. The crate is still in use, but the overall design now does not rely upon the wheelie bin for men or dou cuts. Yes, it can do dou cuts~!

In this version, I aquired 4x cardboard boxes of good quality from my local mass hardware superstore (read Bunnings Villawood) and a roll of blue cloth tape (a 50mmx50m roll for $4.20). The base box was taped to the box above it so the open sides were opposite, and the third box was slid over the second box until the open flaps hit the base of the second box, meaning that the middle section of the visible box three (over box two) was double boxed/layered. This is the section marked as the dou cut region, as it is much stiffer and responsive like a hard dou. As you can see on the right side, it has a dent already in it from my gyaku-dou testing. The last box was taped on sideways to provide flex bounce on the top incase the men cut went too deep through the men box.

I put four bricks inside (2x regular, 2x paving) and it provided quite solid ballast for my dou cuts and men cuts. You can obviously put more or less as you desire. If you don't have bricks, fill some old milk or softdrink bottles with water and sit them inside instead.

This verion is a little more space consuming than the previous one, but it means you can practice even when your bin is waiting on the curb for emptying, and you can practice dou cuts on it. For kote cuts, you will have to still use the bin as before.

Edite: Update on the dummy. The coca-cola box has packed it in after about 20 minutes of solid hitting. Then I continued with hitting the cardboard box without the coca-cola box, and it's doing ok. It's cardboard, what do you expect?... The dou cut region is handling it quite well so far. I've beat it pretty good with my cuts, and it's softened up some, and has a permanent dented shape now. The tape is holding well, so it will last for at least for another session. In terms of cost effectiveness, considering I still have tape left, and it costs me $5.20 at the cheapest (offpeak) to travel to training, I think I'm still doing alright by building one of these every training day LOL

#40: DIY Kendo Dummy

Since I am still quite poor in terms of financial freedom, I am unable to purchase a kendo practice dummy for my personal use at home. Though, if I had the money, I would probably still not purchase it for the lack of proper space and storage...

So, I present to you, the urban poor man's Kendo Dummy.

What you need is:

1) 30x375mL Coca-Cola Can box, in as mint condition as possible, preferably with cans removed.
2) Two standard size cereal boxes, preferably with cereal removed.
3) Packing tape, the fat width kind, or Duct/Gaff tape if you have it for maximum grip.

4) A paving brick or heavyish object that will fit inside a standard cereal box flat.

5) A milk crate of some description.

6) A Bankstown City Council General Waster Wheelie Bin. This may be substituted with your own local council bin, or other object of the appropriate height. If your bins are higher or lower, then you may need to find appropriately sized cardboard boxes and/or remove the use of the crate as required.

Stick the boxes together like so in the picture below. Insert the paving brick for weight and stability purposes. Your base unit is ready to roll. Click on the image for the full size if you need to read the green text.

For me, having the base unit on top of the wheelie bin was too low for my own men cut height, though it was suitable to represent some of the shorter persons in our club. I found by adding the milk crate, the height was perfect for me.

By turning the base unit sideways without the crate, the Coca-Cola box was a natural height for a kote cut, and having the paving brick in the other box which was not being hit meant that I ran no risk of damaging the shinai. Just ensure the weighted box is firmly on the wheelie bin lid.

The use of this practical and cheap Kendo dummy is that when you make the cut, you can practice your power and tenouchi. As the cut lands, it will collapse the boxes in slightly and you can see how deep your cut is, and how effective/controlled your tenouchi is. If you have poor control and tenouchi, your cut will crumple the boxes quite severely, where as if you do not have enough power and depth of cut, you will not crumple the boxes enough. If you feel inclined, you can draw a men on the box to see how far your cut goes.

The cardboard from the Coca-Cola box is slightly reinforced to take the weight of the cans, so it can stand a bit of punishment, while the other boxes can also be easy pushed back into shape or replaced when needs be. Store the base unit out of wet conditions for best use life. You can use this to practice your basic suburi without straight forward zanshin movement, as well as basic hiki-waza practice. Once I figure out how to attach a dou cut segment, I'll be sure to let you all know.

I know it looks very ghetto, but it seems to be effective, and your cuts will make noise on box contact. Soft cuts are not as loud sounding as hard cuts. Oh, and you will have to judge maai from not shinai distances but actual body distance, which I think is also quite useful.

#39: Shinki Silver

I got a new shinai from Sankei Australia to replace my Bishomen (Kotou style), and it finally arrived today. I got the Shinki Silver, which is also a Kotou style of shinai. So far, I really enjoy using this style of shinai, and feel more strength and power in my cuts. Speed is something I need to develop, but I am currently not too worried about being a speed demon.

First impressions, Sankei have once again done a beautiful job in their shinai making. I am not at all bothered by the price tag because quite frankly, it's an awesome looking shinai, and the feel of it is quite nice. The shinai itself has quite a thin grip, and the entire body is very thin. Although I am slow, it makes me feel almost like I could cut faster with it LOL.

Putting it on the scales, straight out of the wrap with the binding strings (black and gold, pretty..) taken off and no tsuba/tsubadome on, it weighed in at a respectable 530g. All good for competition use. I am concerned about the tip though because it needs to be fat enough not to pass through a certain width, which I will look up, 26mm supposedly. Taking measurements, it appears to be nearly 30mm, so this shinai is competition legal, which is excellent.

When I took a few light swings, it felt good, responsive. When I did a full power swing with tenouchi, I heard this almighty crack sound, and I quickly checked it. It seems fine and I think it was just the binding in the tsukagawa section of the shinai opening, and it didn't produce any more of the cracking in subsequent swings.

Measurements: Most smallest part (utmost bottom of tsukagawa) of grip is 20mm diameter. Hashiburi (bulge above tsuba region) is 35mm diameter max, and the Kensen just below the sakigawa is 20mm. Like I said, it's thin. The weight is very much out along the blade, around the monouchi of the shinai. Excellent for powerful driven cuts.

I have some pictures of it taken with my webcam:

I really look forward to using this shinai, though I fear it may increase my power and hurt more on the cut, if it does, I'll have to make sure I tenouchi well with it.

#28: Having proper condition Kote

kote, kote-bu