A Beginner's Point of View 18-19

Day 18:

Today we learned something new. We learned the doh strike, which attacks the side of the belly. First, you take chudan. Then, when your opponant tries for a big men strike, you move forward and to the right just a little bit. You raise up your shinai overhead high, then bring down in a slight curve to the left and bring it down on the side of the waist. You want to strike the side of the body, where the armor wraps around the body. Once you strike, you move quickly past your opponant while dragging your shinai across the front of their belly. This emulates the act of splitting your opponant's belly open, which is a fatal strike.

The doh strike is easy enough to do, but only if you start out right. The difficult part is the first part, which is striking in the right place. It is tempting to strike too high or too low. If you strike too high, you risk hurting your opponant. Considering that Kendo competition is treated as an honorable sporting event, this is a bad thing. You do not wish to cause harm to anyone. (After all, we all wear armor for a reason, right?) If you strike too low, then you hit the hip. The tare should protect the hip, but it is not considered a clean strike. You need to hit the right target for it to count as a point. Also, it is considered bad form if when dragging the shinai across the belly, your hand drop down lower than the point of impact. Your hands should be level with the point of impact.

Class ran late today because we wanted to practice the doh strike as much as possible. At first, we practiced doh strike on Sensei. Then we practiced kote-doh. Finally, we practiced the combination of men/kote-men/kote-doh/men/men/men a few times before class let out. I had to leave a little early because class ran very late. I have to be in for work early, so my schedule is very tight.

Day 19:

Today was a lot of work. We started out with warm-ups and then did some simple footwork to sharpen our posture. After that, we practiced left and right men strikes in preparation for kiri-kaeshi. I’m sure I kept my sword-swinging well during the men strikes, but maybe I let my footwork slip a little (just a little).

Once those were done, some of the advanced students put on their bogu and let us practice kiri-kaeshi on them over and over. It was a lot of fun and it was a LOT of hard work. To keep up your energy at a high, steady rate all throughout the drill is taxing on your endurance, especially when you do it over and over with different instructors every time. Even Sempai and the Head Sensei of our school suited up in bogu and let us swing at them.

Practice seemed to last forever, but in a good way. This is possibly the most fun I’ve had since joining Kendo, even though I had to stop halfway through to catch my breath and rest for a few minutes before getting back to it.

At the end of practice, our Head Sensei stayed after to give advice and lessons on some things that are more difficult to understand in Kendo. He explained an example of “zanshin”. He said, “When you finish kiri-kaeshi with the men strike, do not slow down at the end. When you finish, you finish with speed and energy. You come right back to the starting position (chudan) and face your opponent, ready to start again if need be. That is zanshin”.

I think Head Sensei was trying to say that by finishing your actions by returning to the ready position, with confidence that you could do it all over again without regretting it, then you have good Kendo spirit. If you slack off at the end, you think you are done. If you are not done, then your opponent could walk up and strike you when you are not ready. That is not good Kendo spirit. He makes a lot of sense.