Waikato Kendo Club

Photo taken from 2015 Novice Champ Today’s important message from Sensei in Keigo (20/02/2016): Today’s training focus on how to control our timing when we tried to achieve Ippon. Having sense of timing is definitely one of the most important qualities a Kendoka need to have to become a champion in Shiai. What does this mean?  By definition, timing can cover quite a few things in Kendo terms. Firstly, the most important thing we need to understand what is the best strike distance between you and your opponen t before we initiate a cut or be ready to act as soon as your opponent moved. Being able to consciously make judgment of your strike distance will improve the accuracy of your cut in Shiai. Secondly, after we adjusted to our best strike distance we should be in Kamai and be ready to strike and always try to read what your opponent is trying to do either by “pushing “ Shinai to fight for centerline or observing body language etc. To make us understand this,...

Shia Keiko, 3 Oct 2015 Hi guys, I am in Sydney Airport and waiting my flight to China now.  Sorry for leaving without saying goodbye, cause it is hard for me to do that. Our dojo is like a big family for me. Sam sensei and Marleen sensei is father and mother, Kai senpai, Leo senpai Jordan senpai and all the senpai like big brother who take care of me and help me grow up.  Now I am leaving one family to come back to another family. It's a difficult decision.  Anyway, see u in April and looking forward to my Master studying life in Waikato.  Fighto！

Today's important message from Senpai during training (13/02/2016): We mainly did Kihon Waza today and the main focus is footwork. The better we can utilised the footwork we practised during conditioning session, the faster we can to adjust to all kinds of scenarios during Shiai. Big, normal and small Tsuri-ashi are foremost important for executing a good Seme and thus create a good distance to strike the target for a valid point during Shiai. To demonstrate this, we were pra ctising to hit the Shinai that was held up with uneven distance and different height by Mododatchi along the straight line continuously. A valid strike means that Kakarite have to hit the target by the Mono-uchi of their Shinai so Kakarite will need to Seme with big Tsuri-ashi or a few normal Tsuri-ashi rapidly before hitting if the distance between target is too far. If the target is too close, Kakarite will need Seme with a small Tsuri-ashi and sometime Kakarite will have to hit straight away w...