Waikato Kendo Club

  Saturday 3rd September 2022 Keiko Reflection - Janet Today we had another fruitful keiko led by Marleen Sensei. Again started off with double Shinai warm up & Suburi which not only helped to condition our body & muscles to adapt to the increased weight but also made us more aware of using our left hand, arm & shoulder more dominantly & more aware of using our finger grips more precisely to achieve proper Tenouchi. We increased double Shinai Haya-Suburi to x30. For some Kyu grades like myself it’s still a tough challenge to keep up with everyone else & made our arms feel very heavy.  Sam Sensei reminded us that in order to perform effective & efficient Haya-Suburi, it’s extremely important for the body & arm to not be too tense for the entire time but rather we need to semi-relax some muscles during the Shinai swinging motion to allow the natural weight of the Shinai to help us to swing downwards & forwards then only tense up the muscles when n...

Wednesday 31st August 2022 Keiko Reflection - Janet Tonight’s keiko was once again led by our wonderful Marleen Sensei.  We began with double Shinai warm up drills, suburis & 30 Haya-Suburis followed by single Shinai 30 Haya-Suburis. Tonight’s Kihon & Uchikomi-geiko menu: Kirikaeshi x3 Big Men x3 Big Men 10 times rensoku continuous x3 Big Kote x3 Big Kote 10 times rensoku continuous x3 Big Dō x3 Big/ Small (for higher grades) Kote-Men x3 Followed by Ji-geiko then Kakari-geiko with Sam sensei.         Tonight’s focus was: 1. To better feel & use our fingers underneath the Kote correctly to continue working on getting proper Tenouchi during each strikes.  2. Concentrate on using our Shoulders more to raise the Shinai overhead & take care not to use too much right hand to manipulate the Shinai movements as this would produce unintended & unwanted forces & reduce accuracy. 3. In order to reduce time lag & to speed up strikes, try to ...

Saturday 27th August 2022 Keiko Reflection - Janet For the past few weeks as well as during todays Keiko, Marleen sensei’s plan was to help us develop better body strength (in the core, arm & shoulder muscles) through double Shinai warm up drills & Suburis, in particular, by gradually increasing the amount of Haya-Suburis to challenge & condition our bodies to become stronger. Even though it’s still rather difficult for me to keep up with everyone else’s pace, as my upper body strength is still weak, but I can definitely feel myself improving little-by-little each week, with my body feeling less sore afterwards, so that’s definitely something to be happy about❤️ Main focus for todays Keiko was Kihon (basics), which is the basics or foundation of kendo. It includes sets of kendo technique drills such as Men, Kote, Dō, and Kirikaeshi which gets repeated during almost every keiko. While it may sounds repetitive, but it’s way more complicated with many things to consider espe...

Wisdom is never an instruction, but a guide for your journey. Wednesday 6th July 2022 Keiko Reflection - Janet Tonight’s training focus was on: 1. Kihon footwork : both forwards & backwards & swiftly follow up with left foot. 2. Small Men : Remember the striking force on contact with target should be exactly the same as when doing Big-Men, however, we do not need to rotate our shoulders fully over the head, but rather only need to rotate the shoulders to about shoulder height then extend the left arm & wrist & perform Tenouchi. 3. Hiki Waza ( Hiki-Men, Hiki-Dō ): these are techniques made while stepping backwards usually from Tsubazeriai position & are executed with smaller shoulder rotations like Small Men or Dō while the body’s centre of gravity is going backwards on to the left foot first before performing Fumikomi with the right foot at same time as the Shinai strikes the target. It is crucial for Kyu grades to start getting use to backwards foot work & pra...

Say “onegaishimasu” loudly from your heart to show your gratitude. 💕 It is more than just an etiquette. Saturday 2nd July 2022 Keiko Reflection - Janet This winter, Sense's goal for us was to help us develop good fitness & physical resilience through repeated Kihon training: Warm up drills, Good Kamae, Footwork (Suriashi, Fumikomi), strong continuous Kiai, Kirikaeshi, Uchikomi-geiko (Big Men, Kote-Men, Dō, Rensoku Men) & Kakari-geiko. It is very important to develop good physical fitness overtime so that our body can be conditioned to perform more delicate & advanced manoeuvres with faster speed, accurate precision & correct power in due course. Remember, all good things takes time! Therefore, for beginners & Kyu grades, we must remember to not rush when doing our drill practices, as we must start by developing muscle memory with the correct Kihon movements in order to not develop bad habits. Make sure we take our time to execute each strike with precision, Ich...

Wednesday 22nd June 2022 Keiko Reflection - Janet Kendo does not discriminate. It doesn’t matter who we are, once we put on bōgu facing our opponents our intentions are all the same, do our best to deliver our best Ippon or Yūkō-datotsu (valid strike). In order to achieve that goal, kendokas constantly return to train Kihon basics to refine & perfect their kendo. We need to work on developing good, smooth, swift Suri-ashi (sliding footwork) while maintaining good straight upper body posture with same height & a stable centre of gravity to keep balanced. Okuri-ashi , is a type of sliding footwork where you push off with your left foot & advance with the right then quickly follow up with the left foot again but the left toe is always in line with the heel of the right foot. It is crucial for the left foot not to pass more than half of the length of the right foot in order to be in a position to quickly get back into good kamae to be ready to defend or attack.  Having go...

Saturday 18th June 2022 Keiko Reflection by Janet Kendo is a way to discipline human character which helps to mould our mind & body, & encourage lifelong personal growth & improvement. No one in the world can stop us from improving & become a better person apart from ourselves. Therefore, let’s continue to do our best to refine our kendo together. In Kendo, the ultimate goal for all kendokas is to strive for Ippon (or Yuko-Datotsu, a valid strike, at least). In order to achieve Ippon, we need to execute a strike with Ki-Ken-Tai-Itchi.  That is why we need to show our strong spirit through strong Kiai . Kiai helps to bring our mind & body together so that we can deliver a good meaningful strike with intent . Handle the Shinai to correctly land a strike with Tenouchi on the Datotsu-bui of the opponent (striking targets) using the correct Datotsu-bu (striking area) on our Shinai. Strike with correct foot work, good body posture from Issoku-Ittou-no-Maai, then main...