Stand with both of your knees slightly bent.
Push your right kneecap with your right leg while the balance shft forward (with the upright posture maintained), only when your posture no longer can sustain your forward-shifted balance, your right foot should 'take off' forward and quickly land on the floor again, immediately followed by your old friend the left foot. The 'flight duration' of the right foot should be kept minimum.
Nice Fumi-komi noise happens when you learn to subtly adjust the angle of your ankle on landing. You should feel that the front-half of the right-foot sole captures a packet of air and squash it without putting any pressure on the heel.
Never kick up the right foot like French can-can. Not only the landing noise will be dull but also you are risking to injure your heel bone by landing on it in high velocity with your full weight. Bad idea.
The sole of your right foot and the floor should be as parallel as possible all the time. Even if you can adjust the angle before landing, adjusting a wide angle takes more effort and time than keep the angle always optimum.
If the arch of your right foot can be seen by the people around you, the angle of your sole is too open. To get the optimum angle, the adjustment has to happen in your ankle.
Under any circumstance, including Fumi-komi, you should never land with your heel. Take your heels as the 'little resting stools' to place your weight from time to time, but not something you can land with it at full power.
Compared to the discipline of swordsmanship itself, fumi-komi is a relatively young technique, apparently. And this is one of the reason why there's no effective, fool-proof way to teach fumi-komi - so I was told.
Said that, it is an effective technique and was developed in order to achieve sharper and quicker footwork with the minimum impact on the body at landing.
To my understanding, fumi-komi should work as a shock absorber with minimum interference to the overall body movement necessary.
Importantly, never forget your old friend the left foot. Fumi-komi is complete only when your old friend catches up with you. Don't leave it alone. I could get very lonely and spoil your kendo.
This article is just for basic technique. Once you become able to make the noise consistently, there are a lot more subtleties to work on to make the sound surprisingly loud. But people who can do fumi-komi consistently should know what to work on, so I won't talk about it now.
12 August 2015
7 August 2015
Kiri-kaeshi common misconceptions
Receiving role = set the pace but not the distance.
Attacker role = decide the distance but otherwise follow the receiver's pace.
The receiver set the pace (rhythm), attacker decide the distance.
This must be strictly adhered, importantly, regardless of the relative rank between the pair.
Frustratingly, it is very common (and very wrong) to see a senior attacker just cutting like a mad, completely overriding a (junior) receiver's pace.
If the attacker override the receiver's pace, the receiver will never become a good receiver and they will only pick up a bad habit from the misguided attacker, and they will do equally questionable Kiri-kaeshi to other people in their dojo and beyond.
Such indifference will pollute the overall quality of Kendo. Those people are not helping anyone.
And if a practice partner were happened to be trained in a more traditional environment, such Kiri-kaeshi style can be considered as an ignorant and poor behaviour.
Your Kendo credential will be instantly judged by those who know & care.
If the receiver's skill is not up to scratch, the experienced attacker must help the receiver to do better.
Being a receiver also requires a good skill and it comes with practice. The experienced attacker must help the receiver to make that happen.
Overriding the receiver's pace is practically stealing a leaning opportunity from the receiver, and the attacker might wonder why their receiver is always such a pain to practice Kiri-kaeshi with. Well, duh.
Likewise, it is none of the receiver's business to decide the distance.
Unless practising with a 4 year-old beginner as an attacker, the receiver never adjust the distance for the attacker.
Simply because the receiver cannot know the length of the attacker's limbs and how far they can jump. Two individuals with the same height will have different swing range and jumping ability. So, distance is strictly the responsibility of the attacker.
When cuts are done the receiver simply slows down and stop in the position so that the attacker can turn around and adjust the distance for themselves (while the receiver is STATIONARY). Don't even fidget in the slightest. Moving 2cm makes difference.
If the receiver kept moving about, the attacker is just chasing the receiver and cannot decide the correct distance until the receiver eventually stops moving.
The receiver never should waste attacker's time like that.
Kiri-kaeshi sequence is carefully constructed for the maximum effectiveness and efficiency. Being 'creative' doesn't help under such circumstance.
Attacker role = decide the distance but otherwise follow the receiver's pace.
The receiver set the pace (rhythm), attacker decide the distance.
This must be strictly adhered, importantly, regardless of the relative rank between the pair.
Frustratingly, it is very common (and very wrong) to see a senior attacker just cutting like a mad, completely overriding a (junior) receiver's pace.
If the attacker override the receiver's pace, the receiver will never become a good receiver and they will only pick up a bad habit from the misguided attacker, and they will do equally questionable Kiri-kaeshi to other people in their dojo and beyond.
Such indifference will pollute the overall quality of Kendo. Those people are not helping anyone.
And if a practice partner were happened to be trained in a more traditional environment, such Kiri-kaeshi style can be considered as an ignorant and poor behaviour.
Your Kendo credential will be instantly judged by those who know & care.
If the receiver's skill is not up to scratch, the experienced attacker must help the receiver to do better.
Being a receiver also requires a good skill and it comes with practice. The experienced attacker must help the receiver to make that happen.
Overriding the receiver's pace is practically stealing a leaning opportunity from the receiver, and the attacker might wonder why their receiver is always such a pain to practice Kiri-kaeshi with. Well, duh.
Likewise, it is none of the receiver's business to decide the distance.
Unless practising with a 4 year-old beginner as an attacker, the receiver never adjust the distance for the attacker.
Simply because the receiver cannot know the length of the attacker's limbs and how far they can jump. Two individuals with the same height will have different swing range and jumping ability. So, distance is strictly the responsibility of the attacker.
When cuts are done the receiver simply slows down and stop in the position so that the attacker can turn around and adjust the distance for themselves (while the receiver is STATIONARY). Don't even fidget in the slightest. Moving 2cm makes difference.
If the receiver kept moving about, the attacker is just chasing the receiver and cannot decide the correct distance until the receiver eventually stops moving.
The receiver never should waste attacker's time like that.
Kiri-kaeshi sequence is carefully constructed for the maximum effectiveness and efficiency. Being 'creative' doesn't help under such circumstance.
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