#76: Suriage Kote

Paul Rixon Sensei visited the other week during Womens Training, and took us fellows left.  We worked on Suriage kote.

The principle of the suriage is to deflect the opponents shinai away from the center, opening the kote for a cut.  This is achieved using a circular movement while maintaining your own center.

The break-down of the steps, as I understand it from the exercises we practiced were:

1. Seme into striking distance on your ura side
2. Duck your shinai underneath to your omote side and re-establish shinai-shinai contact
3. Sweep your monouchi in a clock wise direction a full circle
4. Strike the kote

Points to note

• When seme is applied, you must move in firmly/decisively, like any other cut
• It is vital to maintain the shinai-shinai contact in 2.  If this contact is not present when you make the sweep action of 3. it is easier for someone who has a soft chudan no kamae to return to center as you end up "hitting" their shinai away from center rather than sweeping it.
• The circle in 3. is a small controlled circle, it is not maki-waza as you are only brushing aside instead of binding up the opponents shinai.  The circular action generates an increased angle for the kote to cut
• After the cut in 4. ensure your footwork continues forward by rushing either into the opponent or through to display proper zanshin.  Should your footwork stop on the strike, it indicates incorrect application of footwork and followthrough for the cut.

#72: Kirikaeshi comments

Master Choi visited our training yesterday and watched us train before providing some input to our training.  After watching our kirikaeshi, he made some comments.

For kirikaeshi, we do it because it has all of the elements of Kendo.  Kihon cuts, footwork, sayu-men, ki-ken-tai and so on.  But, what can you learn from it?  It is important to get distance.  If you can master distance during kirikaeshi, it makes a huge difference since you can cut any opponent height at the right distances.

In addition to this you do not have to go fast, but have good posture.  The key point to making the cuts is keeping center with your left hand.  Young people are more energetic, and you must control the left hand to retain center.  In correct application of the sayu-men, the kensen should not leave the width of your shoulders on the backswing.  The swing should be big, so that the kensen also has a wide arc.

Other than that, Master Choi mentioned that he likes the training at our club because we always train hard.

#71: Post kote/mune-tsuki action

I played against a Sensei today visiting from another club, and a situation happened which I sometimes often have occur from my style of play and chudan no kamae, which is where they self-tsuki on the kote or on their chest/shoulder because I maintain my center.

I did this twice to the Sensei, and asked him what I should do, because in both situations, I hesitated and got struck by him. Usually, in this situation, I should have the upper hand and advantage to the situation since I have halted their momentum and attack.

What he told me was, close the distance by going into tsubazeriai distance immediately in both situations to prevent them from making an attack if I do not have the ability to make my own.

If I am able to make an attack, I should observe briefly if I can by their reaction, if they come back to guard position immediately then pressing an attack would put me into their space, where as if they also hesitate, then press the attack, but striking their shinai out of the way as I make a cut to ensure that I still dominate their center.

I understand the theory, and I tried it later on when I had jigeiko against someone else, but I find that I was ending up too close and cutting too deep on the shinai, but now that I know how it is possible to action afterwards I will try to use it more often.

I also managed to score a cut on the Sensei where he acknowledged the cut, so I was pretty happy with that. Post training when I went to thank him, his further advice to me was to slow down and not rush into my attacks. Hmm.

#66: Hiki-men footwork

I've had some people who asked me about hiki-men recently after seeing my hiki-men cuts at the Founders Cup event. I went through the video from it, and chopped out the other bits, and slowed the video down some before uploading it here to youtube:



The thing about hiki-men is, there is a lot of different styles to it. For me, how I do it is that I move my left foot back a little, then push off my opponent with my arms, as I go backwards from the push I lift my arms simultaneously as I lift my right foot, and make the cut. At the point of fumikomi with the right foot, my left foot comes off the ground which allows the right foot push to push my body backwards before the left foot comes down to continue my footwork/bounce away from my opponent.

This is how I do it, it isn't neccessarily how it has to be done and even I am not sure on if this is the best way to do it.

#64: Bokuto Waza

With recent study vacation and exam period at my club, we have also not had training due to our regular venue being used for said exams. This has meant that there has not been much going on. One of our members asked me if I would practice bokuto waza with him, so I agreed.

I had not learnt bokuto waza previously but I was aware it existed. It is a series of set moves, that bridges the gap between Kendo Kata, and regular Kendo Waza. It has a set of nine Waza in it, and the sets are all applicable waza derived from Kata for regular Kendo use.

I dug around and a solid description of the waza actions for both people can be found at the Halifax Kendo Club webpage regarding Bokuto Waza. The direct link to it is here at

http://www.halifaxkendo.org/index_files/bokuto.htm

It is a little challenging to learn them all in one go, but if you have been doing regular Kendo, or Kendo Kata, it is easier since the actions are familiar. It is just the issue of remembering the sequence. One thing I have realised from two sessions of doing Bokuto Waza is that Maai is very important since in Kata you use the Bokken, and in regular Kendo you use the Shinai where there is a significant difference between the two. The more you do however, it becomes easier to judge.

I think we should do more of this as part of our training somehow, but it really should be done with bokken and not many people besides the more senior players own them. All in due course I guess.

#63: Tsubazeriai "Punch"

This is a waza (could it be called waza?) to create openings for Hiki-waza when in Tsubazeriai.

Quite simply, when you are in kote-kote contact, you can use your left kote to "punch" the right kote of your opponent quickly and hard.

This action causes two things:
-It brings your arms up quickly to do a hiki-waza regardless of which one.
-It opens your opponent for any cut because if the action is sudden and fast/hard, it pushes the arms up and outwards.

The punch doesn't have to be straight upwards only, but you can also angle it so the action will push sideways etc.

#62: Kote Nuki-Waza

For this waza, the objective is to entice your opponent into attacking your kote first. If you are fast enough you can also do this when a kote cut is made against you without planning it.

As per the diagram, as the kote cut comes in but before it lands you have the choice of:

- stepping back and lift kote upwards out of the way before unleashing a devastating kihon men cutor

- dropping the height of the kote downwards out of the way (assuming their tenouchi stops the cut above your lowered kote before making either a small kote cut or small men cut forwards.

The key point to this waza I feel is the timing that you have to initiate your movement as your opponent has committed to the cut so you can avoid the cut without giving away the point that you are attempting the nuki-waza.

#60: Aiuchi Kote-Men

We were shown this waza today, which was more of a timing related than speed/skill related waza because it really is just a well timed kote-men waza combination.

How the chain of events for this waza goes is like this:
1. Apply seme and pressure to your motodachi/opponent and slightly entice a kote cut by opening/exposing kote.
2. As they cut for kote, you cut kote-men.
3. Zanshin.

In the situation of simultaneous kote cuts, no-one wins, but because you follow the kote up with men cut immediately, you may be awarded the men ippon. So the theory goes.

Like I mentioned, it is more of a timing based waza thank speed or skill because kote-men (small cuts in this situation since you can't really do this with kihon cuts) is very fundamental. If you have overwhelming speed, then it just turns into debana kote and you do not need to follow up with the men cut.

#59: Keeping the Triangle

We were practicing Men, Hiki-waza in training yesterday when I was taught something from a sempai during the rotations. We have never really been taught in our club to my recollection on how to do Taiatari properly before since it is actually one of the more advanced waza things. I don't know if it really is classified as waza but I shall label it that anyway for ease.

What I did wrong was that upon impacting to my motodachi, I was collapsing my arms inwards so that I could push off backwards to do the Hiki-waza cut. I was then corrected, to keep my triangle.

The triangle is always present, but different in different people. When you stand at Chudan no Kamae, you have formed a triangle with your body and arms. This is the triangle being referenced. After you perform a cut and enter the stage for Taiatari, keep the triangle upon impact. You can have you arms bent to absorb the impact but do not collapse inwards and lose the triangle. The pushing off comes from momentum/inertia rebound and the return force from the motodachi, but having the triangle provides you with the right distance and maintains your kamae center to do the hiki-waza cut.

I need to do more practice on this. This of of course different to if you Taiatari into Tsubazeria because you don't use the return force of the Taiatari for the Hiki-waza.

#58: Two-Step Cuts - Foundation for all cuts

Our instructor today made an interesting statement today that I thought I should share.

The action of the two step cut is the foundation for every cut.

When you think about it, is is very true. All kihon waza is based off the same movement as a two step cut. Even one-step cuts are the same, but without the return to kamae.

So, how should we be practising this all important cut action?

His answer is, slowly.

Speed and power comes with muscles and practice. Getting the right cut action, and the application of tenouchi properly is more important. If you can not stop the cut at the end of the swing, you are wasting energy, and if used in a proper setting, if you miss, it leaves you open and exposed. By gripping tightly at the end of the cut, you strengthen both your cut and your muscles, and they in turn improve your speed and power.

It was hammered into us today in that the way the cut should be practiced was, make the cut and hold, with arms out in position, so that we slow down the process and it allows the judgement of if the cut was done properly and if tenouchi was applied properly before returning to kamae. So, in the example of two-step men cut, it would go with the cry of "Men" ~hold and check~ "Chudan", "Men" ~hold and check~ "Chudan" and so forth.

I think that this is very true and should be a way used with improving my cuts.

#44: Tsuki

tsuki

#38: Debana Kote

Debana kote

#35: Gyaku-Dou Cut

gyuaku do, gyakudo, gyakudou gyaku-do, dou

#25: Maai

Maai, distance, chikama, tooma, issoku itto no maai

#15: Teaching from Chiba Sensei - Part 4

do cut, doh cut, chiba sensei, waza

#10: Hiki Waza

hiki waza, hiki men, hiki kote, hiki do

#3: Breaking Seme

Seme