Kendo Progress Blog

[dobyn98]

First  Ji-geiko!

So today we had a pretty special practice; some students from japan were visiting, and so they came to practise with us. On top of that, Hiyama-sensei (team GB coach) was leading today’s practice, a pretty big affair! I’d only ever been to one of Hiyama-sensei’s practises before this, and it was very intense. I find that he leaves a lot less time between suburi exercises, and he focuses on the basics a lot (which is great for me). Normally at practice we warm up, do some suburi, and then suit up before going to cutting exercises. However, Hiyama-sensi will typically do a lot more  non-bogu exercises, such as making us fumikomi and cut from one end of the hall to the other.

After that, we suited up and went into bogu practice, focusing on men and kote cuts if I remember correctly. It’s after this that the significance begins: free sparring! This normally happens at the end of practice sessions, but this was the first time that I’d been able to join in on the practice.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t very good at tying my men, and so I had to keep stopping in order to go and retie it, which sort of shot my confidence, and so I was a little nervous to ask people to spar with me. Luckily for me, one of my senpai came over to get me and basically forced me to go and spar with someone, and it went uphill from there. I didn’t really know what I was doing, but the thrill of actually being able to spar with someone was great! After the first match, I had two more sparring sessions before the training was over. My senpai came up to em afterwards and tried to encourage me to train with stronger opponents in order to improve, especially senpai. 

I can definately see where he’s coming from; the people I had chosen to spar with were lower level kendoka (by no means bad!), and I had done this on purpose because tbh I was a little intimidated by the higher level people, I think I was thinking that they wouldn’t enjoy sparring with me because of my low level. But what he said makes sense, it’s always the people who are the best that are the best at teaching and explaining, and so I think from now on I’m gonna’ try and fight stronger opponents in order to improve!

[dobyn98]

Wearing bogu for the first time

So the university club that I practice at is partnered with a university in Japan, and about a month ago, one of my senpai had told me that the university would be sending us some second-hand bogu as a gift. Fast forward to Sunday before practice, and we get an email saying that the bogu has arrived, and all of us (beginners) would be able to try bogu on, and get some experience practising in it.

So I rock up to practice about half an hour early, since we’ll need a bit of extra time to be taught how to put on the armour before practice. So practice proceeds as normal at first, we do our warm ups and suburi, and then after the bows to each other and the shrine, we beginners split off and started to put our armour on.

The armour was a little beaten up (holes in the kote, etc), but tbh it kind of added to it, giving it a little personality and a feel of usage to it, plus I was happy to be wearing any bogu! At the sunday session the day before, I’d been told by one the sensei’s that I was ready for bogu, and had been measured up after the session so that I could order my own bogu, so I was still riding on the high from that! Anyway, the women’s captain helped us put our armour on, and it was a little embarrassing actually, as she had to tie the men and doh up for us (I kind of think of her as an older sister since she mothers us sometimes). 

Once we had bogu on properly we were allowed to join the rotating practice with the more experienced members, and it was really something. At this point we were practising men cuts, and I was up against one of the other beginner first - a nice ease in I think. After that, I practiced with one of the really good senpais (I think he’s nidan?), and this might sound cheesy, but it felt incredible! You see, one aspect of practises that has always made me a little uncomfortable is training with people wearing bogu when i’m not wearing bogu, since they’re a great practice target for me, but i’m not so great for them. In kendo, when you;’re doing practice hits with someone without armour, they use the bamboo training sword (shinai) as a target, and this can make things a little difficult. Now that I had armour, I felt that I could really contribute to the practice, and being hit by the senpai was amazing - he rang me like a church bell!

We’d been told previously by senpais that wearing bogu helps your training improve - for example you’re hands will just naturally assume the correct position on the sword when you’re wearing kote (wrist guards), and I did feel pretty cool having the armour on. Although, it took me a few minutes to get used to having the men on, as the weight threw my balance off ever so slightly (the faceguard is made of metal so whilst not heavy per se it can alter your centre of gravity).

Until next time : )

[dobyn98]

Hakama and Gi

So the next big step was when I got hakama and gi from the club (original title, i know), or more specifically from nine circles - before this point I’d just been practising in gym clothes. For those of you who don’t know, kendo is traditionally practiced wearing a gi (sort of like a fancy dressing gown) and riding hakama (a pleated “dress” that separates into 2 legs). The senpais just refer to it as a hakama, but I know that some hakama are just one big thing as opposed to having 2 legs.

Anyway, this was the next big step, both financially (they cost about £60?) and mentally, as now wearing the gear made me feel like a proper kendo practitioner, as opposed to someone just doing it casually. Now, a big part of kendo is ettiquette; you have specific bows before and after the session, as well as when you practice with a specific person. However, neat appearance is another very important aspect, as I’ve been discovering over the past few weeks! Also, it’s important to keep the pleats in your hakama, and there are a few ways to do this. I try to fold it up after practice without getting crap from the floor on it, my senpai puts it on a clothes hanger in his bag. Who’s the real winner?

Anyway, there isn’t much to say about the hakama and gi besides the fact that I had to be shown several times how to wear it and tie all the bows (and still am sometimes, neatness isn’t one of my fortes). I try not to look at myself in the mirror when I’m wearing it so as not to ruin the cool image I have of myself in my head, but I really do feel psyched up when I wear it, it helps me to get in the zone for kendo.

Plus, looking round and seeing everyone else in their kendo attire makes me feel really part of it!

[dobyn98]

The concept of Seme, and inspiration

So the next memorable session I had was one where we focused on the concept of “seme”, which you can think of as the presence/pressure you exert on your opponent to force them to act in a way favourable to you. I’ll go over the interpretations of this in a little bit.

So at the kendo club I go to, we have sessions on a few times a week (Mon, Wed and Sun for all levels, Fri for more advanced), and at this point I was only going to the Monday session. I wasn’t really super invested in kendo at this point. I’d made a few friends, and I was enjoying it, but I was still not quite at the level where I was willing to make a greater time commitment - at this point it was more about having fun. At this point all we had as beginners was a shinai and a bokuto, no armour or even hakama and gi! It’s a little weird to think about it now!

But anyway, we would split the Monday group into Bogu (armour) and non-bogu, which at this point was equivalent to the more experienced members, and the beginners, respectively. Depending on the week, we would either be lead by the sensei while one of the senpais lead the bogi session, or vice versa. The senpai we had was really nice (she was the women’s captain), but as is usually the case, the people who are the best at something are those who can explain it best, and so I really enjoyed training with the sensei. He always watched all of us intently to correct mistakes we made, and he would typically explain things in a very inspirational or interesting way.

This brings me to the session where we were being trained by him, and instead of focusing on men cuts or footwork, this section was about one of the (arguably) more spiritual aspects of kendo - seme. So, kendo is a deeply spiritual martial art, and is focused quite heavily in improving oneself, as well as just getting better at kendo. Seme was described to us as the presence you exert on your opponent in order to control their mind, and make them attack when they think they’re ready, but actually you’re ready, and then you strike! Practically, I can understand this; the ability to read you opponent and feint them, sort of controlling their actions, but not necessarily equivalent to mind control.

Anyway, the sensei was quite keen on talking about how kendo blends into your everyday life and helps you become better as a person, and so in addition to the combat aspect of seme, he talked about confidence.The “presence” that you exert on your opponent, he thought that he big part of it is confidence. He said that seme is “being able to give a presentation, and being confident that you can give a great presentation, and if someone asks you a question, you can give a great answer”. Something about this really resonated with me. I think this was the point at which I started getting a little more serious about kendo, the point at which it started to blend into my life. 

I actually had to give a presentation a few days later, and I was trying to channel my seme!

[dobyn98]

First getting into Kendo

Okay so, as I said in my last post, I’m gonna be backlogging for a while since its snowing and i’m stuck in the library (I can hear snowball fights going on outside so I think I’ll stay safe here for now).

So for a little background, I’m a second year university student, and I live in a house with some of my friends on the outskirts of the town. Last year I lived in the centre of town and so it was easy to mingle and meet new people, but this year that’s a little tricky. Anyway, last year I told myself that I was gonna’ join a sports club (partially to keep fit, partially to meet new people, and partially because I’d spent most of the summer before uni playing Persona 3). 

Long story short, I’ve never been into the mainstream sports (rugby football, tennis, cricket) because the former were associated with people I didn’t like in highschool, and the latter were never really offered to me. And especially at university, most people who tend to do mainstream sports like that are pretty good at them, so I figured trying to compete with them wouldn’t be much fun (I was probably being overly negative about that but whatever). I considered doing a non-sporting social activity, but being at university meant I really had to make time for exercise, so I stuck with the sports club idea and eventually got on to the less conventional sport of archery (I swear i’m gonna’ get to kendo eventually!) Sufficed to say, that was fun but I didn’t go for a while due to being snowed in with work, then I sucked and got demotivated, and eventually stopped going all together.

So, this year, I wanted to do a sports club again for the fitness, but also with more focus on meeting new people this time around. After experimenting with a few clubs, I heard about kendo through a friend and then ended up going to a practice session (sufficed to say i’m a bit of a weeb so the idea of kendo appealed to me at least). 

Those of you who practice kendo will know that it’s not really something you can do halfheartedly, and part of this is because it involves a LOT of shouting. No really. You shout for almost everything you do in kendo, so at first I was a little embarrassed. I could see that there were a lot of beginners there though, and it felt like on the embarrassment front we were all in the same boat, so that helped to ease my nerves. The thing from the first session that left a mark on me was the Jigeko, or free sparring. I’m not sure how it works at other kendo clubs, but at the club I go to, every session ends with the people in Bogu (kendo armour) sparring with each other, and the beginners get to watch. It might sound a little self-serving (we move to the side to let them use the full hall space), but it’s actually really inspiring, and you can learn a lot by watching the movements of the more experienced players. Seeing them move like lightning, and watching them have what looked to be a lot of fun cemented in my mind that I wanted to keep doing kendo.

And then after that session we went to the pub!

[dobyn98]

Kendo Progress Blog

So, I’ve been thinking about making this for a while now, but the other day I had a really tough session and wasn’t feeling particularly great about my kendo. When I came home and told my girlfriend, she said that I should make some sort of progress log to look at when I’m feeling like this, so that I can see how I’ve improved. 

At first I didn’t really like the idea, because I figured (like most other “progress” things that I’ve tried) I wouldn’t be able to keep it up. But then I thought “Hey, maybe an audience would give me a reason to keep going”. That and the fact that as someone fairly new to kendo, I think other people in my position may benefit from seeing my struggles and successes, and being able to apply it to their own kendo (or life in general, idk, kendo is a “way” afterall).

Anyway, that’s it for this post. The first couple of posts here are gonna be backlogging my training sessions and experiences (I’ve been doing kendo for about 4 months now), and then after that I’ll talk about things a bit more in the present.

From one kendoka to another, train hard!