忍耐 + 掌握人生
Nittaidai, Katsuura & Onjuku
So many things have happened since my last post on Friday.
Kyudo
Last Friday afternoon, just before the 3pm Kendo Club training, I tagged along Miki to the Kyudo extra-curricular class. The Sensei kindly gave permission for me to film the class, and I was given the chance to try Kyudo myself too. The bow is really really long, probably some 2.5m, and we gripped the lower part of the bow to draw the arrow back.
After about 30mins of observing and waiting, I finally got the chance to try. My first shot missed the target by miles. hehe. However, the 2nd one was the closest to the target than anyone in the club I saw today. hahaha. I am so proud of myself. Kimiko taped the whole thing, so I got proof to show you guys! Mind you, no one actually landed the arrow on the target today. hahaha. But mine was still the closest. YAY!
Oct-14 Kendo Training
There were 2 Kendo training sessions on Friday - Club training 3pm - 5pm; Womens training 5pm - 7:30pm.
Shiai-geiko / Mitori-geiko went on in the first hour. This was the last chance for shiai-geiko for those representing Nittaidai in the All Japan University Championships on Sunday. After that was free club jigeiko session. I practiced with Yamamoto-San. During the practice, all I could think of was to be proactive and played as energetic as the Nittaidai students. So I just kept attacking and attacking during our geiko. After the jigeiko, Yamamoto-San kindly came forward to give me advices. Although I could not understand the full sentence of what he was saying, I could pick out the important word, and that was 'seme'. He kept repeating the word 'seme' which gave me a light-bulb moment. Oh, yes. I have totally forgot about seme and attacking for the sake of imitating the energy shown by the Nittaidai students. I was probably freaked out because I was playing against all these great players. That's not my kendo. I need to seme in.
So in my next jigeiko with Hakamada Sensei, I really concentrated on seme. I could feel there was more connection between me and Hakamada Sensei during the jigeiko. So I felt very good afterwards for taking a small improvement in my kendo today.
At 5pm, the club training ended and the womens kendo training started. We started with kirikaeshi and other kihon-uchi rotations before going into more specific waza practices.
Kote: Each round consists of 3 kote variations - 1) debana-kote; 2) Fake-men, and when the motodachi lifts her hand arm to block men, cut kote; 3) Men-debana-kote
Doh: Each round consists of 2 doh variations - 1) Nuki-doh; 2) Kaeshi-doh. Okada Sensei told me to loosen up my left hand grip when executing the doh cut, so to allow the left hand to slide up the tsuka, or even releasing the left hand if need be so that the hands wouldn't get tangle up during the doh-uchi process.
Combination: Each round consists of 3 variations - 1) Men-nuki-doh; 2) Kote-kaeshi-hiki-kote; 3) Men-debana-Men.
Tsuki: Renzoku-tsuki - each round consist of 3 quick succession of tsuki. It was here that I got a big bruise on my collar bone from numerous tsuki trauma. Oouchie!!!!
Tsubazerai #1: In this exercise, two person in normal issoku-ito-no-maai. Then the person practicing would attempt to cut the motodachi, resulting in a tsubazerai situation. There, the person practicing actively explored for hiki-men opportunity and cut when the opportunity was spotted. The motodachi has an important role to quickly follow up the person practicing and keep issoku-ito-no-maai distance. Don't stay back when the person practicing was practicing the hiki-men. Chase the person down! Connection here was very important.
Tsubazerai #2: In tsubazerai, the motodachi would try to texecute a hiki waza, either hiki-men/kote/doh. The person practicing has to try chase down the motodachi who was going backwards from hiki waza, and execute men cut on the backward-going motodachi.
After the waza training was the uchikomi and kakari-geiko practices. That was HELL!!!!
First up was uchikomi-geiko. The 4th year students would be motodachi, while the 1st, 2nd and 3rd year students would keep on doing uchikomi geiko. I was told to observe on the side for this round. Gosh, I really don't think I would survive if I was to do this uchikomi-geiko exercises. There were probably some 20 rounds of uchikomi-geiko. The sight was very gruelling and scary, almost torturous. The 4th year motodachi would knock the very tired students off with their shinai, pushing and swinging them to the floor and smashing them to the wall. Sometimes the younger students were too tired after being smashed to the wall, that they fell on the ground, and the motodachi would come and beat them up. So the younger students would get up as quickly from the floor as possible to avoid being beaten.
haha, that's how champions are made. Really tough training.
Anyway, I had the honour to join in the 3rd / 4th year student kakari-geiko that followed the torturous rounds of uchikomi geiko. We did about 7-8 rounds of ai-kakari-geiko. I was so so so out of breath at the end of the session my arms could barely lift up above my head.
We completed the training with suburi - jogeburi, men-suburi, and haya-suburi. Lots of them.
So that has to be the most tiring training session I have had in my kendo career, probably more to come later on in my next few weeks in Japan.
After getting changed to our tracksuit. We did some more strength training before finishing off with cool-down stretching.
It was good to end the tough training with a good meal that night with Miki and Hoso.
Miki, Hoso and Me
Oct-15 Kumikiri Dojo, Chiba
Michael Komoto drove me and another German-born Russian to Chiba today and was later joined by the 3 International Budo University foreign students to train at the Kumikiri Dojo in Chiba.
It was a special occasion that day, and Kawasei Sensei, 8th Dan Hanshi visited the dojo. He jigeikoed with everyone one-by-one until he geiko'ed everyone. The comment he gave me after the geiko was to extend my arms forward rather than lifting them upwards after a men-cut.
I then played many other 7th Dan Sensei, so it was a really good experience.
Onsen, Chiba Budougu & Onjuku
After the training, all 6 of us went to have Onsen - hot spring. It was so nice to have onsen overlooking the absolutely magnificent Pacific Ocean. It was such a beautiful sight.
Afterwards, we spent about an hour in Chiba Budougu in Katsuura to wait for the Russian to complete his kendogu purchase before making our way back to Michael Komoto's home in Onjuku.
Onjuku is such a pretty little town. It's like a mini Bondi with many surfers. Anyway, we spent the night watching many kendo videos before going to sleep at 12am.
Oct-16: The 53th All Japan University Kendo Championships
Kayo(L-R), Miki & Me
I caught the bus with the International Budo University students at 6am to travel to the Nippon Budokan in Tokyo where the 53th All Japan University Kendo Championships was held.
All I could say about the kendo I saw in the Championships was awesome - so fast, so powerful, so full of energy. There were 64 teams competing for the champion title.
Anyway, I was sitting with the Nittaidai gang. During the day, many famous kendoka walked into our area. One of them was Eiga Naoki. He is good friends of Shizawa Sensei, Yagizawa Sensei and Shinzato Sensei. Miki talked to Shinzato Sensei about having a photo taken between Eiga and me. So yeah, here it is... I am so lucky.
One of the 4th year student told me that my kendo idol, Suzuki Aki Sensei - one of the 2 female Sensei who visited Melbourne with Chiba Sensei in August will be coming to Nittaidai next Wednesday and the student even told me that Suzuki Sensei know me. Wow, how nice of a Sensei could remember such an insignificant Aussie Kendoka. Now I am very looking forward to geiko with my idol again.
The Nittaidai came 3rd in the Championships. In the Quarter-finals, Nittaidai beat the International Budo University. In the Semi-finals, the Nittidai team lost to the eventual winner. The winning team was really strong and they beat the runner-up really decisively. Very exciting kendo.
Kyudo
Last Friday afternoon, just before the 3pm Kendo Club training, I tagged along Miki to the Kyudo extra-curricular class. The Sensei kindly gave permission for me to film the class, and I was given the chance to try Kyudo myself too. The bow is really really long, probably some 2.5m, and we gripped the lower part of the bow to draw the arrow back.
After about 30mins of observing and waiting, I finally got the chance to try. My first shot missed the target by miles. hehe. However, the 2nd one was the closest to the target than anyone in the club I saw today. hahaha. I am so proud of myself. Kimiko taped the whole thing, so I got proof to show you guys! Mind you, no one actually landed the arrow on the target today. hahaha. But mine was still the closest. YAY!
Oct-14 Kendo Training
There were 2 Kendo training sessions on Friday - Club training 3pm - 5pm; Womens training 5pm - 7:30pm.
Shiai-geiko / Mitori-geiko went on in the first hour. This was the last chance for shiai-geiko for those representing Nittaidai in the All Japan University Championships on Sunday. After that was free club jigeiko session. I practiced with Yamamoto-San. During the practice, all I could think of was to be proactive and played as energetic as the Nittaidai students. So I just kept attacking and attacking during our geiko. After the jigeiko, Yamamoto-San kindly came forward to give me advices. Although I could not understand the full sentence of what he was saying, I could pick out the important word, and that was 'seme'. He kept repeating the word 'seme' which gave me a light-bulb moment. Oh, yes. I have totally forgot about seme and attacking for the sake of imitating the energy shown by the Nittaidai students. I was probably freaked out because I was playing against all these great players. That's not my kendo. I need to seme in.
So in my next jigeiko with Hakamada Sensei, I really concentrated on seme. I could feel there was more connection between me and Hakamada Sensei during the jigeiko. So I felt very good afterwards for taking a small improvement in my kendo today.
At 5pm, the club training ended and the womens kendo training started. We started with kirikaeshi and other kihon-uchi rotations before going into more specific waza practices.
Kote: Each round consists of 3 kote variations - 1) debana-kote; 2) Fake-men, and when the motodachi lifts her hand arm to block men, cut kote; 3) Men-debana-kote
Doh: Each round consists of 2 doh variations - 1) Nuki-doh; 2) Kaeshi-doh. Okada Sensei told me to loosen up my left hand grip when executing the doh cut, so to allow the left hand to slide up the tsuka, or even releasing the left hand if need be so that the hands wouldn't get tangle up during the doh-uchi process.
Combination: Each round consists of 3 variations - 1) Men-nuki-doh; 2) Kote-kaeshi-hiki-kote; 3) Men-debana-Men.
Tsuki: Renzoku-tsuki - each round consist of 3 quick succession of tsuki. It was here that I got a big bruise on my collar bone from numerous tsuki trauma. Oouchie!!!!
Tsubazerai #1: In this exercise, two person in normal issoku-ito-no-maai. Then the person practicing would attempt to cut the motodachi, resulting in a tsubazerai situation. There, the person practicing actively explored for hiki-men opportunity and cut when the opportunity was spotted. The motodachi has an important role to quickly follow up the person practicing and keep issoku-ito-no-maai distance. Don't stay back when the person practicing was practicing the hiki-men. Chase the person down! Connection here was very important.
Tsubazerai #2: In tsubazerai, the motodachi would try to texecute a hiki waza, either hiki-men/kote/doh. The person practicing has to try chase down the motodachi who was going backwards from hiki waza, and execute men cut on the backward-going motodachi.
After the waza training was the uchikomi and kakari-geiko practices. That was HELL!!!!
First up was uchikomi-geiko. The 4th year students would be motodachi, while the 1st, 2nd and 3rd year students would keep on doing uchikomi geiko. I was told to observe on the side for this round. Gosh, I really don't think I would survive if I was to do this uchikomi-geiko exercises. There were probably some 20 rounds of uchikomi-geiko. The sight was very gruelling and scary, almost torturous. The 4th year motodachi would knock the very tired students off with their shinai, pushing and swinging them to the floor and smashing them to the wall. Sometimes the younger students were too tired after being smashed to the wall, that they fell on the ground, and the motodachi would come and beat them up. So the younger students would get up as quickly from the floor as possible to avoid being beaten.
haha, that's how champions are made. Really tough training.
Anyway, I had the honour to join in the 3rd / 4th year student kakari-geiko that followed the torturous rounds of uchikomi geiko. We did about 7-8 rounds of ai-kakari-geiko. I was so so so out of breath at the end of the session my arms could barely lift up above my head.
We completed the training with suburi - jogeburi, men-suburi, and haya-suburi. Lots of them.
So that has to be the most tiring training session I have had in my kendo career, probably more to come later on in my next few weeks in Japan.
After getting changed to our tracksuit. We did some more strength training before finishing off with cool-down stretching.
It was good to end the tough training with a good meal that night with Miki and Hoso.
Miki, Hoso and Me
Oct-15 Kumikiri Dojo, Chiba
Michael Komoto drove me and another German-born Russian to Chiba today and was later joined by the 3 International Budo University foreign students to train at the Kumikiri Dojo in Chiba.
It was a special occasion that day, and Kawasei Sensei, 8th Dan Hanshi visited the dojo. He jigeikoed with everyone one-by-one until he geiko'ed everyone. The comment he gave me after the geiko was to extend my arms forward rather than lifting them upwards after a men-cut.
I then played many other 7th Dan Sensei, so it was a really good experience.
Onsen, Chiba Budougu & Onjuku
After the training, all 6 of us went to have Onsen - hot spring. It was so nice to have onsen overlooking the absolutely magnificent Pacific Ocean. It was such a beautiful sight.
Afterwards, we spent about an hour in Chiba Budougu in Katsuura to wait for the Russian to complete his kendogu purchase before making our way back to Michael Komoto's home in Onjuku.
Onjuku is such a pretty little town. It's like a mini Bondi with many surfers. Anyway, we spent the night watching many kendo videos before going to sleep at 12am.
Oct-16: The 53th All Japan University Kendo Championships
Kayo(L-R), Miki & Me
I caught the bus with the International Budo University students at 6am to travel to the Nippon Budokan in Tokyo where the 53th All Japan University Kendo Championships was held.
All I could say about the kendo I saw in the Championships was awesome - so fast, so powerful, so full of energy. There were 64 teams competing for the champion title.
Anyway, I was sitting with the Nittaidai gang. During the day, many famous kendoka walked into our area. One of them was Eiga Naoki. He is good friends of Shizawa Sensei, Yagizawa Sensei and Shinzato Sensei. Miki talked to Shinzato Sensei about having a photo taken between Eiga and me. So yeah, here it is... I am so lucky.
One of the 4th year student told me that my kendo idol, Suzuki Aki Sensei - one of the 2 female Sensei who visited Melbourne with Chiba Sensei in August will be coming to Nittaidai next Wednesday and the student even told me that Suzuki Sensei know me. Wow, how nice of a Sensei could remember such an insignificant Aussie Kendoka. Now I am very looking forward to geiko with my idol again.
The Nittaidai came 3rd in the Championships. In the Quarter-finals, Nittaidai beat the International Budo University. In the Semi-finals, the Nittidai team lost to the eventual winner. The winning team was really strong and they beat the runner-up really decisively. Very exciting kendo.
posted by Vivian Yung at
3:18 PM
Name: Vivian Yung
10 Comments:
Heya!
Lolz..first again to comment..just shows I've got too much time on my hands. =P
I was reading about the fake men-kote cut. Good to know I'm not the only one faking all kinds of things..=P
The uchikomi and kakari geiko sounds torturous!!I feel tired just reading it! =P Now I feel like Thursday's uchikomi, kakari and ai-kakari geiko is nothing. Or maybe, a lil bit more and it'll be similar without the smashing the students bit (I'd LOVE to do that!! hahaa...sorry..~~)
Ah, I just heard about Eiga from a friend of mine. He's an awesome player!! He was just watching was he?You are so lucky to be able to take photo with him!!
Kyudo..Isn't that the cool thing with the bow and arrow?I so want to try that out. It's really awesome when they demostrated it at the Nittadai performance at the beginning of this year~ Wonder if they offer it here? hmm..~~will go check it out~
By
Unknown, at Monday, October 17, 2005 4:49:00 PM
Hey Nurlin,
Do you really want to try the torturous uchikomi-geiko in Nittaidai? Are you sure you'd LOVE to do that? I am not quite sure myself. Girls cry after the training. I was told that the training on Friday was easy.
I was told by Miki, my home-stay buddy, that they had to do 8000 haya-suburi every day for a month at the training camp one month before the Taikai. Gosh!!!!
By
Vivian Yung, at Monday, October 17, 2005 5:12:00 PM
Woah....Hahahaha...Sounds like a war zone during that training...8000 a day? :( Geez...hahahaha......I dunno how long it will take to finish that much in a single day...Post some more Vivian!!
By
Scientive, at Monday, October 17, 2005 7:00:00 PM
LoLz =P
I meant I'd love to be motodachi for uchikomi geiko. Then can hit hit hit...=P..I dun wanna be the one doing it (shidachi?)But it would be an experience which I'd never forget!
8000 haya suburi?*fainted*
By
Unknown, at Tuesday, October 18, 2005 1:11:00 PM
It was raining in Tokyo for the past couple of days. Riding the bicycle to and from training with all the gears under the storm wasn't much fun at all. I was soaking wet when I get to the dojo.
There was a typhoon in Tokyo on Monday night and Tuesday. So the Tuesday morning training was called off. Today we had the usual morning training (jogging, strength training and stretching). During the jogging session, Shinzato Chikano Sensei came to watch us train. Unfortunately she wasn't happen about the spirit shown this morning, so we got scolded off. Hmmm...
By
Vivian Yung, at Wednesday, October 19, 2005 10:36:00 AM
Yes, it's a total war zone at kendo training. You will see pushing, wrestling on the ground during kakari-geiko.
Guys, these bunch of girls are definitely the ones to mess with. They are TOUGH!!!!
By
Vivian Yung, at Wednesday, October 19, 2005 10:37:00 AM
Sounds like my type of girl lol
I wanna go japan!!!
you mentioned that the training was harsh, but are the people considered nice when they don't have the Bogu on?
are they arrogant of their levels?
By
Anonymous, at Thursday, October 20, 2005 1:16:00 PM
haha, I just re-read my own previous message. Gosh! I wrote the exact opposite thing I was trying to say. These girls are NOT the one to mess with.
By
Vivian Yung, at Friday, October 21, 2005 10:10:00 AM
Eddie,
Btw, they are super nice when they don't have their bogu on. So kind and gentle.
There is a big hierarchical treatment here. The 4th year students would have everything their way. The 3rd year students, which I mostly hang around with had pretty good treatment too. The worst is the 1st and 2nd year students. They have to pack all the bogu up for the 3rd and 4th year students. Be the earliest in the dojo, and the last group out of the dojo. When the senior comes in, they have to be standing at the dojo entrance ready to greet them and bow to them. Same for when the sempai are leaving.
I am lucky I am with the 3rd year students. Everyday after the training finishes, I could take off my bogu and put it at the side of the dojo. The next day, I will find my bogu packed nicely and placed in the bogu pigeon hole ready for me to use again.
By
Vivian Yung, at Friday, October 21, 2005 10:15:00 AM
Err..that sounds scarily like how we treat juniors at high school. LoLz. Cept for the bowing part. We don't expect them to bow to us though. Funny bout the keeping the bogu part, I used to be able to leave my folder and manuscripts on the table and let my juniors keep it. *Sigh* the good life..LoLz..Still, I had a cultural schock coming to Australia. Was expecting that we had to kow-tow to seniors again but it's soo relaxed. I kinda like it here but I'm dreading to go back to Malaysia...DIE~~~
By
Unknown, at Friday, October 21, 2005 2:24:00 PM
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