Know your place

Wherever you practice kendo, you need to be aware of the dojo layout, especially the notion of the 'cardinal side' within any given practice space.

The cardinal side serves as a reference point to determine who does motodachi first, and this is the side you should never invade to wear/correct your armour.

This is the side exclusively for sensei/leading senior/dojo flag etc. Consider this in the same context as the altar in a church, only without physical features.

You should treat the cardinal side in the same way as a church altar and do not leave your bags or prepare yourself on that side - unless you are a sensei or the leading senior who sits facing everyone else during the line up (and I believe those senior people are already familiar with this spatial concept).

*Note that kendo doesn't push religion. It's only a reminiscence of it and modern kendo regard such notions only as custom/tradition.

The general criteria for deciding the cardinal side & where the line up starts:

1. the most detached (usually long) side of the hall from the entrance
2. line up starts from the furthest corner from the entrance

So, the position of the cardinal side & lining up order senior --> junior is not fixed, it's totally depending on the position of the entrance and the furtherest long side of a given space.

Snr->Jnr line up criteria example (some house rules apply): Higher grade in armour > if same grade = older first > people in dougi > people with plain clothes > people came late (regardless of grade)

Now you know your place.

Picky about partner

When you practice in a carousel format, intentionally skipping your turn in order to avoid / select who you practice with, is blatant cheating & extremely rude.

If you are ready to go but stand around by the carousel when there's a spare person standing in the waiting corner, it's the equivalent of telling them 'you are not good enough for me' in their face. That's arrogance.

It's not just rude to the person who wasted their time and disadvantaged by your act, but this sort of selfish behaviour is hindering the club's growth as a whole, and to a large extent detrimental to the development of the entire kendo community.

It should not be too difficult to realise that you take your senior's experience to improve yourself, likewise you are RESPONSIBLE for the development of your junior - in the same way as your senior spent time & effort practising with you, no matter how boring it might've been to them.

If you wilfully break this cycle and only practice with your seniors, the whole system will collapse.

What if your senior had the same idea and refused to practice with you? If you think it's OK for you, you cannot condemn others for behaving in the same way.

There's a very good reason why kendo practise has various formations & formats. These are developed over time to ensure that the skills are passed onto the next generation effectively.

When a carousel format is in place, refusing to practice with whoever standing in front of you is a clear indication that you are ignorant, greedy, irresponsible & undisciplined. You are telling everyone that you have failed to grasp the core value in kendo.

Some may regard such behaviour pathetic, but they won't tell you that because they don't want to waste their breath.

Zanshin explained

Zan-shin: literal translation is "remaining mind" which means "undivided alertness".

No cut will be considered complete unless a correct Zanshin is implemented. Always.

Zanshin is not a physical attaching technique but it's a way to exhibit the move required in real sword fighting.

It does not require physical strength hence omitting Zanshin / doing it wrong is just a proof that you have not understood the basic kendo protocol, or even the meaning of kendo.

In short, failing to do the correct Zanshin makes your kendo superficial.

Zanshin, originally, was meant to be done towards the person who fell down by receiving a fatal injury from you.

The purpose of Zanshin is not to be complacent about your victory and keep alerted even after your opponent has fall down. (Because they might just be faking it.)

So, Zanshin in olden days was often done towards a dead body, but in case the opponent is faking their death, you still stand a chance with a correct Zanshin.

Failing to do Zanshin could lead you to your demise. If you can't be asked to follow such key protocol, you might just not bother kendo altogether, because there are lots of other protocols that seem pointless unless you understood its history.

You don't need to know everything but when something is required for a correct cut like a Zanshin, you'd better do it properly. Doesn't matter if it's in a match or basic practice, when you cut, do Zanshin, always.

It's more important to do Zanshin in non-competitive set up because unless you makes it a habit, it won't come up during a match, and no Zanshin almost inevitably means no Ippon in a match. No matter how deadly your actual cut is.

Once you cut and gone through, turn around asap and back to cyuudan with a readiness to launch another strike.

Only then, it counts as the end of a cut sequence.

In the spirit of Kendo

"Be prepared."

Someone said this as an ending note of a keiko.

It's a nice thought but that's a scouts' motto, I thought.

I guess what he meant was to value precision and foresightedness, but it came out in slightly scout-y wordings.

His suggestion was not wrong but made me giggle inwardly.

Quality before quantity

As the same concept in manufacturing, if your form is incorrect, doing the quantity will only mass-produce faulty products.

Quantity will never compensate the lack of quality. Rather, it'll only accentuate the problem.

By repeating the wrong thing, you are teaching your body to remember the wrong movement and built up the wrong muscles at the expense of your time and effort.

In kendo, quantity matters only if the quality is right.

When you cannot do the right movement slowly, trying it harder & faster won't help.

Doing x amount of repetitive practice doesn't guarantee a thing, unless the form is correct.


Get the form right or you might as well not to bother at all.

Shinai has sides

The 'sides' on a shinai - think it like the sides of a coin. The Japanese term Ura (reverse) / Omote (front) collates nicely with such concept.

You need to be able to distinguish each side when you do below techniques:

1. 'Harai' (knock away)
Self-initiated, straight-line horizontal slap (to create an opportunity)

2. 'Suri-age' (slide up)
Reactive, upward curvature slap (to counteract already-happening attack)

Understanding the meaning 'Front (Men-side)' and 'Reverse (Kote-side)' may become relevant when you apply these techniques with subtly, such as the opponent's built & habit.

If you know the meaning 'front' or 'reverse', you can reason your tactics better because the muscle required for the 'front' side and 'reverse' side action are different.

Ideally you should be able to perform above techniques from both sides, but the Men-side tend to work better in certain circumstance and the Kote-side in another, and you need to figure out by yourself what works best for you, because aside the opponent's habit, you have your own habit/strength for each side and you need to know your own forte in order to make split-second decision for the best possible outcome.

Some opponents hold shinai tilted towards Kote (to guard), then slapping from the reverse (Kote-side) is easier as the distance to catch the opponent's shinai with yours is shorter, whereas if the opponent is holding the centre very strong, slapping from the front is effective to 'break' the defense and get that ippon with Men.

So, be aware of the both side and try to figure out which combination (opponent's attributes + your own habit/ability) works best, the strategy is effective only for you.

Basic cuts order 'wrist-face-body'

Often you would practice basic cuts in a certain way.

It's: Kote - Men - Dou

In English it's: wrist - face - body

And this order normally stays as is because of the simple fact that each target gets progressively further from the attacker.

Wrist - nearest, compact footwork
Face - median, normal footwork
Body - furthest, deepest footwork

This is the reason why we practice these 3 cuts in a particular order and it rarely changes, now you know why.

Aim

Wrist (kote):
the forearm near the wrist where the cylindrical protector is, never hit the hand (risk of injury)

Face (men):
the upper boundary of the forehead or the hairline, not the top of the skull

Body (dou):
just below the right ribcage (from the opponent's view), not the waist on the side

Alternated cut (Kiri-kaeshi) basics

Tips for beginners:

The quickest way to learn Kiri-kaeshi is to memorise the sequence by saying the steps out loud while doing Kiri-kaeshi i.e.

Big Men - cross - 1-2-3-4 (back) 1-2-3-4-5 [continue]
Big Men - cross - 1-2-3-4 (back) 1-2-3-4-5...Men going through + sign-off (zan-shin)

As you see, a standard Kiri-kaeshi comes in two identical units, just the finale at the end of the 2nd unit requires going through & sign-off (zan-shin).

The reason for the backward steps being one extra from the forward steps is because the forward steps is natural to human body by design, whereas doing back steps is awkward and tend to be narrower compared to the forward steps, therefore the back step requires one extra step to compensate this tendency in order to come back to the same spot where you started.

Context:

The alternated cut sequence called 'Kiri-kaeshi' is bread and butter (as well as the Holy Grail) of Kendo practice.

ki.ri = cut
ka.e.shi = flip / alternate (in other context 'kaeshi' could mean 'returning')

There is a saying that "when you mastered Kiri-kaeshi, you mastered Kendo".

Virtually every session at any club in the world come with Kiri-kaeshi exercise, and yet mastering Kiri-kaeshi elude most of us throughout our lifetime.

You should not kid yourself by getting complements from others on your Kiri-kaeshi (consider they're just being polite), as it takes a long time to achieve even a vaguely acceptable Kiri-kaeshi, and you should definitely be suspicious of someone who is overly confident about their Kiri-kaeshi quality.


Importance:

Once you learnt the basic Kiri-kaeshi sequence, in theory you could practice with anyone regardless of their grade, be it a beginner or a 8th-dan sensei.

And not only you can practice your own Kiri-kaeshi, for the first time you can mutually benefit other people by taking the lead (receiver) role during Kiri-kaeshi practice.

Although there are myriad of variations of Kiri-kaeshi, these still retain more or less the same structure. Learn the one your club uses first and be flexible when you practice Kiri-kaeshi with people from other club.

Valid score (Ippon) - without hitting the target?

Yes.

Is the short answer.

Of course it is absolutely ideal if the shinai hit bang on the target and the flags go up, but it is also quite common that a player is awarded an Ippon even though their shinai is clearly not hitting the target.

Why?

It is down to "how convincing" their Spirit-Sword-Posture (Ki-Ken-Tai) was in the right moment of a given combating narrative.

The referee will award an Ippon for the demonstration of the prowess in the tactical judgement & execution of the technique, (crucially) in the *given* combating context.

The idea is that, the player don't need to provide a physical evidence (hitting) in a close match, but the one who can demonstrate their prowess better than their opponent will get an Ippon.

If a strike is launched in the right context with convincing enough power and form, that counts as an Ippon, even if the shinai is not physically touching the target.

Hence the same strike with different opponent - or even with the same opponent in a different combating scenario - may not bring the same result.

And remember, this criteria applies to everyone; this may benefit your opponent one time but it might benefit you in another.

The best (and perhaps the only) strategy to avoid such a 'phantom-Ippon' taken from you, is to make your Kendo totally convincing.

The phantom-Ippon occurs only when your performance is not convincing enough in contrast to your opponent. Maybe it's the strategy or the timing, or poor Zan-shin. So never take it out on the referee.

Yes, there are inexperienced referees, but they have to start from somewhere, also you might be refereeing one day and other people may not agree with you. What goes around, comes around. We're all leaning.

If you cannot convince inexperienced referees, you just got to make your Kendo totally unarguable even for the inexperienced referees, that's all.

So, no "booing" please during the up coming 16th World Kendo Championship.

Such unsophisticated behaviour should remain inside you. It's OK to feel the high spirit, but you really don't need to share it with people around you as Kendo is not a spectator sports (though often misunderstood so).

If a match developed in a certain way, players and the audience should calmly take it as is. That's part of self-control.

If simply 'hitting' is paramount, that's a stick fight which is nothing to do with the swordmanship that Kendo is aiming to promote.

Yes, it might feel unfair sometimes, but you need to be disciplined to take it on the chin and focus on making your Kendo totally convincing.

Meaning of shinai

When it's written in kanji, the literal translation of shinai is 'bamboo sword' (竹刀) however in Japanese, there's a word 'shina-u' (撓う) which means supple/bendy and that's where the word shinai seems to originate.

It's quite interesting to discover that in fact its writing 'bamboo sword' has nothing to do with its pronunciation 'shinai' which indicates its suppleness.

Somehow I assumed it's one of those exceptions (there are so many in Japanese) to read the 'bamboo' (竹) bit as 'shi', then the sword (刀) as 'nai' but it's turned out be completely false.

I guess a similar word play structure in English also exists, i.e. pigeon = flying rat ...but perhaps you'd never actually pronounce a written word 'pigeon' as 'flying rat' whereas that's what happening in the case of shinai.

Write 'bamboo sword', pronounced 'supple'.

Son-kyo

Son-kyo is an elevated form of kneeling to indicate the highest respect to each other just before crossing the sword.

Symbolically speaking, elevated kneeling is to show respect to each other's swordsmanship and the life that will inevitably be lost in the combat. This should be an intense as well as sobering moment.

Requirements:
- straight & stable posture
- when kneel the both heels are lifted off the floor
- knees 90 degrees apart
- standing up with stable posture

Sumo son-kyo. Other than the hands position, everything is the same in kendo.

Kendo son-kyo posture practice. Stand up-down with hands stretched.

Stand -> kneel: as if a vertical stick slide into a calm water without a ripple
Kneel -> stand: as if a streak of thin incense smoke rising in still air
= movement on either direction must be performed in a steady pace with straight posture

Son-kyo is derived from a way to greet/worship gods in Shintoism which was indeed a proper kneeling with both knees on the ground (ki-kyo) however, the method was altered to avoid the soil getting on the knees later on.

Moto-dachi

Moto-dachi (the cardinal role):

Albeit it is pronounced like a motorised Dutch, in kendo, it's the cardinal role in certain exercise patterns who sets the pace or tell the other side what type of cut they should strike.

It might seem boring to do moto-dachi, but it is an equally important part of kendo practice and good moto-dachi skill need to be acquired through good technical understanding and execution. When you are doing moto-dachi, you are still practising kendo.

Usually moto-dachi role is not attached to the grade of a player hence the role is interchangeable even if a no-grade is pairing up with an 8th-dan, except for a moto-dachi-geiko (a fixed cardinal exercise 1:1 to a queue of people - the same system as supermarket till).

In a pair formation, each side performs moto-dachi role in turn.

In a carousel formation, the side standing close to the club flag would assume the cardinal role. As the people rotate, everyone will get an even opportunity to perform the cardinal role.

Why Dragonfly?

Dragonfly is prevalent and much-loved insect in Japan, also it's sometimes called a 'victory fly' because of its forward-going flying pattern. In olden days it was believed that the dragonfly never flies backwards (in fact it can) and that was attributed to its brave nature.

In medieval Japan the dragonfly was considered as lucky symbol amongst warrior-aristocrat class due to this belief.

Kendo equipments are still carrying this tradition today and often bear dragonfly pattern for the same reason.

Men-string holder

Tsuba

Dou

Tenugui

Don't "Just Do It"

Kendo is a life-long learning activity. Just "doing it" is not enough.

Explore it, study it, be puzzled by it, be amazed by it.