Another 1000 suburi for 1000 days journal

[Mukdo_Centered]

Well, i've read about this in the past, that 1000 suburi for 1000 days will bring you some insight and understanding into the art of the sword. 1000 suburi isnt exceptionally hard or anything, so starting tonight i'm going to try for it. There's nothing to lose right??

anywho, here's the link
http://xxssaurabixx.livejournal.com/

If some of you guys could comment and show your support that'd be nice ^__^
as of 12:28 november 24th i havent posted yet, i still have about 800 suburi to go, but i'll post before I go to bed, thanks ^_^

[Mukdo_Centered]

alright, i've posted as of 1:47, i'd appreciate some support ^_^
thanks guys

[rottunpunk]

good luck in getting to 1000
im sure you will do fine
then 5000 will be a snip
surely its quality of suburi not quantity that counts though?
:p

[Genya]

Good luck! Sometimes I find it very hard to find some time and place to do it... I hope to start doing from jodan soon and maybe I should also start doing suburis. Lots of them... Katate...

[bobdonny]

Hey Muko,

Whats your level/grade in kendo.
1000 suburi a day could be damaging if your not nidan/sandan and above.

[SmellsLikeBogu]

If you're still pretty new at kendo, this would be a baaaaad idea. you could develop bad habbits that get rooted in pretty deep.
Dont just do your 1000 to do a thousand. do every single suburi focusing on technique and footwork. be critical about yourself and try to improve with every swing. doing it on your knees, I dunno. you would miss half the exercise. no way of practicing your footwork/swing timing etc.

btw what kind of suburis are you doing?

[Bailemor]

I have to agree with everyone else here, if you are new to Kendo then this would be a very bad idea as it would just strengthen bad technique.

This would have to be done under supervision of your sensei who can correct any faults. Music/tv is also not good as it will distract you from the reason you are doing it in the first place - reinforcing good technique.

Ideally this should be done in the dojo with correct technique being used and correct instruction.

David

[rottunpunk]

and then at the end of all that instruction and practice you will be nearly unstoppabubble :D
:p

[mark]

I agree with the concerns voiced by others. Talk to your sensei and get his/her perspective.

In addition, from what I read on your site you are doing the suburi with two shinais tied toguether. Why the extra weight? 1000 on a daily basis for 1000 days is already quite a challenge.

A colleague of mine started something similar with a suburito. After a few months of 1000 per day he partially tore a tendon/muscle in his elbow and has had problems ever since. Google "Tanren Bo" by Taylor sensei for a description of various workouts you can ease into and their challenges.

[Mukdo_Centered]

wow, I didnt think so many people would reply, thanks ^__^
Thank you for all the information and concerns i'm taking them very seriously and I see your points. The only reason I did it in seiza was it was about 1 in the morning and I cant exactly go outside and do it, and there isnt enough head room for me to do it standing. I'll do it earlier today and go outside.
Anywho, to answer Bobdonny's question, I practice Kumdo and I just earned my green belt, I know kendo doesnt have a belt system so I dont know what the equivalent of a green belt is. I've been doing this for about 6 months, so yeah, i'm still very much a noob.
I usually do suburi in the dojang as I spend alot of time there, 2 to 3 hours monday through friday, i'm usually the last to leave, so I'll be doing most of it under supervision, there just isnt any more class this week due to thanksgiving. Since I am there so much, if I developed any bad habits wouldnt they be noticed before they could be deeply rooted?
Anywho, i've gotten alot just since last night thanks to all of you. No music, no distractions, no two shinai (I figured more weight more work-out, I didnt think it would be damaging, thanks for telling me), and to focus on every swing. Thanks alot ^__^

Oh! For SmellsLikeBogu's question, I would tell you what kind of suburi I'm doing, but, since I practice kumdo I dont have a strong knowledge of kendo vocab, so I dont know what kind of suburi there are, i'd appreciate it if you'd tell me though ^_^

[Alan Molstad]

What is the point?

do a 1000 for a 1000 days....and then?

I once came to this site and read about this 1000 days stuff and went to the link and read of this long path this guy took to do the 1000/1000...

right away the story of this guy was not about kendo, it was about himself..
The fact is that this is a personal story I was reading about the challenge he had put to himself.

did it make him better at kendo?....I dont know. I saw in his writing that he had changed from the beginning to the end.
There was a lot of frustration in his words that he wrote about himself some days.
Perhaps that is good, perhaps that is not so good, again I dont know.

I just keep thinking that if the 1000/1000 was just about kendo that more guys would do it just to get better.
But it's not really about kendo at all.

It's about personal challenges, the ability of the body to match the spirit.

If someone I knew started this path, Im not sure I would be calling over to their house for a while. I would not want to get in the way or break the count.


There also was this one comment I read on this forum.
A guy was talking about his finishing the 1000/1000 and another person said that he had told his sensei the story and the sensei had responded, " Not enough"

I guess when a person starts to do this task, they always have to keep in mind that at the end, the victory is an inner-personal one.

I wish you good luck, and I will watch for updates with interest...
But, are we sure this road leads anywhere we want to end up at?

[Neil Gendzwill]

At your level, 1000 suburi is just going to make your arms tired. Try doing just 100, but make each one as perfect as you can.

[tgsfg]

What are suburis? Anyone know the Korean term for it? Is it that one excericse where you "jump" (I cant think of a better word) back and forth while doing men? 1000 of those seems like a really hard thing to do.

[Masahiro]

against the contrary, i say do 1000 suburi everyday. Regardless of what level you are, if you are in the kyu grade, your arms will get tired and that means you are using certain parts of your arms too much. doing 1000 of them as many as you can at one time, (provide with rest in between "sets") you will get rid of your bad habbits and in time you will learn the proper way of striking.

if someone were to tell you when you take your first step as an infant .."don't walk just yet, because u might develop bad habbit" are you going to listen to that shit? Not me. so good luck,

[Mukdo_Centered]

well, y'know, i hear what you all are saying about it being a bad idea since i'm so early on, but, i've already made this commitment to myself and i'm not going to quit after one day. I'm not too worried about bad habits since i'm literally in class everyday, so if I develope a bad habit it will be caught before there's time for it to become a major defect in my form.

[Karaken]

against the contrary, i say do 1000 suburi everyday. Regardless of what level you are, if you are in the kyu grade, your arms will get tired and that means you are using certain parts of your arms too much. doing 1000 of them as many as you can at one time, (provide with rest in between "sets") you will get rid of your bad habbits and in time you will learn the proper way of striking.

if someone were to tell you when you take your first step as an infant .."don't walk just yet, because u might develop bad habbit" are you going to listen to that shit? Not me. so good luck,

Yeah, just don't ask the infant to walk a mile a day from day one.. Bad habbit or not, he may not be able to walk at all soon..

[Karaken]

well, y'know, i hear what you all are saying about it being a bad idea since i'm so early on, but, i've already made this commitment to myself and i'm not going to quit after one day. I'm not too worried about bad habits since i'm literally in class everyday, so if I develope a bad habit it will be caught before there's time for it to become a major defect in my form. If you go to dojang everyday,you don't have to worry about the bad habbit. But you still need to worry about the injury it might cause.. Elbow and Shoulder injuries are typically very complicated and hard to recover. Listen to your body when it start screaming.. You might be able to develop strong mind from 1000/1000 but the physical body has its limits..

[Masahiro]

sashiburi dana! karaken,

[Denzo]

Hallo Mukdo Centered, as I am new to these forum maybe is not good idea to giving advices. But, from the New year 2005. next 204 days I was doing 1000 suburi per day. So I would like to share some of my experience with you.
It would be too long to explain in details and reasons, so just few thing.
Do not do suburi with suborito untill you really develop good technique and muscles. Very important is ashi sabaki, and tai sabaki. Go very slowly, with 100x than 10 - 20 sec rest/stretch your arms and continue. It is great advice from Mr. Neil, but alsow from Masahiro in the way that you should keep on. These practice is not much about technique as is about kendo commitment.What you can technically achieve is difficul to predict. It depends do you have a sensei who can correct you or not. For sure you will improve your technique but only after you start and finnish your suburi with focus on suburi and not on what you will do after practice. I guess that after two months you will develop such level of concentration wich will allow you to be focused all 45-60 minutes to suburi.

The fact that you practice even 100 suburi every day is great commitment in todays society. I finnish my practice after 204 days because of so called "tennis elbow" injury. I did too much haya suburi with suburi bokuto. Now aftter 4 months I still have pain in my elbow but thanks to iaido practice and pigs fat-wich is great to treat such injuries, I am better. I tried lot of expencive gels and greases but nothing has worked like pigs fat-ehehehe.

[Mukdo_Centered]

O.o.....uhm...thanks...er...pig fat...yeah....i'll remember that....

[yohed55]

Good luck!!


I think I'm going to go for the 1000/1000 once i get shodan.

[waiwilly]

I did it once for around 6 months but not everyday, i mixed it with attacking practice.
masahiro is right : 1000 suburi one time
What i have done is do it in 10 session (100 each) with 3 minutes rest between each session. though after 5 session i rest abit longer though:)

but this kind, works for me. A lot

ps:oya i mix suburi men, suburi kote, suburi do and saiyumen.about 200 each

have fun mukdo

[mark]

I did it once for around 6 months but not everyday, i mixed it with attacking practice.


What do you mean by attacking practice?

[Karaken]

OK, for those of you who must do this 1000/1000. I have a suggested method of doing this ( I just remembered how my teacher used to train us - it was a long time ago ).

1. Try 10 first, then 20, 30 till you reach 100. Then 90, 80, 70 till back to 10. By this, you'd suburi exactly 1,000 times but with short a break in between and are gradually warming up your arms and shoulders instead of shocking them into a possible injury.
2. If at all acceptable, make this every other day instead of everyday. Any exercise expert will agree that your body needs a rest to become stronger. Continuos fatique without rest in between may not be the best way to achieve what you want ( become stronger )..

Relaxed Center

[cesarekim]

Inoue sensei was over in Italy last week. One of the things he mentioned at the seminar was that you should do suburi every day. He was doing 1000 a day while preparing hachidan. From what I could understand at the seminar, the idea with suburi had very little to do with strength per se. The objective was to crystallize one's technique. He is a very strong believer in delivering each blow as THE winning blow. It should be as close to a perfect kihon strike as possible regardless of whether one is practicing in jigeiko or competing in shiai.

[waiwilly]

Attacking Practice means you dont do just suburi, but doing full men attack. Complete with kiai, kensen, Men/Kote/Do, and Ashi Sabaiki and Zanshin.

Hope you get what i mean.Forgive my lack of term:P what is the term anyway?

The objective was to crystallize one's technique. He is a very strong believer in delivering each blow as THE winning blow. It should be as close to a perfect kihon strike as possible regardless of whether one is practicing in jigeiko or competing in shiai.
i can't agree more

[Denzo]

In the beggining of such suburi practice, only what is important is not to quit. It would be wise to do less than 1000,in order like Karaken suggested. After few months when suburi become part of normal life than kenshi is ready to practice "for real". That means 1000 suburi + practice, 1000 suburi+sickness, 1000 suburi+normall day duties at job and at home. But it is not good if such practice become burdon . For that reason and the fact that high level kenshi said that it is good to crystalize own technique, it would be good doing that excersize under supervision of the sensei, or do it with good understanding of kihon.
I learned a lot about myself and mine mistakes. The fact that I am injured reveal the truth about my bad technique and wrong approach to these excersize.

[JSchmidt]

What is the point?

right away the story of this guy was not about kendo, it was about himself..


Which is why it *was* about kendo.

[kurisu]

Sorry to read you had to stop. 1000 days is no easy task, that's nearly 3 years. I wouldn't worry about doing 1000 consecutive days, you can just keep track of the days you do them, and try to reach 1000 days. It may take you a little longer, but it's a more realistic goal for you now. Or you can just set your goals to keep on practicing for the next 1000 days, even that will be a bigger accomplishment than most beginners. When you do set out to do 1000, try to do as many of them as you can before you have to stop. I can usually knock out 1000 in about 15-20 minutes. This way you will find more time to work on other things in your life. Good luck with this in 2007.

[Hisham]

You're saying he stoped because he stoped posting here or am i missing something?

[lucy]

You're saying he stoped because he stoped posting here or am i missing something?

No, he said so in his journal.

[Lucien]

As the author of the Kendo Suburi Diary I wanted to give some advice on this exercise.

If I was a school or university student considering starting, then I would't do it. I think at this stage of life your time is better spent disciplining yourself with study.

If I was just starting out in kendo [first 10 years], I wouldn't do it. The time is better spent following your instructors and picking up their good habits.

I doubt if anyone who has done kendo for more than 10 years would benefit from my advice.

I agree substantially with the comments Alan Molstad made, with one exception. You are always welcome at my house for beer.

[ben]

I have been doing 1000 suburi/day recently. I don't do it for personal development or technical development but simply to 'stay in touch'. As I've become used to the amount physically I have changed how I do the sequence. For instance in the beginning I did 10 x 100 suburi. Now I do 1000 non-stop, including 400-600 katate suburi. If I'm feeling energetic or masochistic or both I'll finish off with hayasuburi.

The hardest part is the counting. After that, the hardest part is getting over the hump betwen 300 and 400.

This is what I've found makes counting easier. I always do 100 x straight + 100 x diagonal, or 100 x left + 100 x right in whatever technique I have chosen. That means in essence I only have to count 5 sets of 200, e.g. 1st set (100 x jogeburi + 100 x nanameburi) + 2nd set (100 x shomen + 100 x sayumen) + 3rd set (100 x hidari katate shomen + 100 x migi katate sho men) + 4th set (100 x hidari katate sayumen + 100 x migi katate sayumen) + 5th set (100 x hayasuburi shomen + 100 x hayasuburi sayumen) = 1000. Broken up this way I find I get to the end quite quickly. The more often and regularly I do it, the more internalised the counting becomes. If I get lost I have a rule that I add 20 suburi onto where I thought I was in the count.

I don't feel it's any big deal. I do it as regularly as I can, but I also try not to beat myself up about it if I miss a day or two. At bottom, I feel like this is the least I must do if I am to get anywhere near where I want to go in kendo.

b

[Masahiro]

200 katate men, in a row? goodness ben, how big is your fore arm?

[Neil Gendzwill]

200 katate men, in a row? goodness ben, how big is your fore arm?
When I was a considering switching to jodan, I spent some time doing everything in class katate, or as much as I could. So a standard warmup of maybe 250 or so including jogeburi, shomenuchi, sayumen. It varies from class to class - I think one time I ended up doing around 500 in a row. The hard bit was hayasuburi, I found I had to choke up on the tsuka and even then I had to slow down.

Single-handed kirikaeshi is a good way to let you know how much control you have. If you can keep it crisp and not let your partner's blocks screw you up, you're doing OK.

Last time I tried to do a session like that, my forearm was sore for a week or two afterward - probably some minor muscle tears. So be careful out there!

[ben]

Yes you do have to be careful. I have built up to this, I haven't gone into it trying to be a he-man. That's the way to get sidelined by injury. As I get older injury has become one of my main opponents. Injuries and time.

I don't have huge forearms at all. I'm genetically endomorphic, which means short of going on the juice, I'll always be weedy. But I'll let you in on a secret: doing katate men is a great way to pace yourself during 1000 suburi. If my technnique is suffering badly from lactic acid build-up, I switch to katate with the other hand for 10, 20 or 50. Also, then going back to morote suburi the shinai feels incredibly light.

This is how I do, as they say.

b

[Kenzan]

If my technnique is suffering badly from lactic acid build-up, I switch to katate

b
A bit off topic, but
probably like many active people, It was always drilled into my head regarding physical training of the whole lactic acid buildup thing.
This is an interesting article that talks about what is now perceived in some circles as the "myth" of lactic acid buildup., in that it is actually fuel, rather than waste.
Very interesting.

Lactic acid buildup myth? (http://www.devinesports.com/Article.7+M55377df11c5.0.html?&cHash=9733b1b9e7)

Additional link (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/16/health/nutrition/16run.html?ex=1305432000&en=2778e99d7eab85a6&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss)

[Masahiro]

to Neil: see, I always thought that in order to do a lot (say 100 and more) of katate strikes, you'll invariably have to have good forearm and delts muscle tone. I remember watching a korean documentary posted by one of the members (i think it was bullet) on here about a one handed kendo player that played hidari katate jodan. The guy's forearm was the size of my calve. hahahaha. I was unaware that you had spend time seriously contemplating in becoming a full time jodan player. Why didn't you? Do you still play in jodan once in a while? I guess it's just not your cup of tea? I've been trying to do katate kirikaeshi for sometime now, and I am ashamed to say it's very hard for me to do it with a shinai with the kote on. in any case, I am glad to hear your experience. Thank you.

to Ben, I've recently started doing the whole 1000 suburi bits as well. and the way I do it is I start with 100 joge with my regular bokken, (medium weight) and then switch to suburito somewhere around 400 to 600 and then i'll continue with the suburito till 800 or so and then switch to shinai. That way i can make sure i have the right grip, and not excessive stength in my strikes.(well that's my theory at least).

to Kenzan, actually the article is a bit misleading. I wont go into the details,and i am not saying the author or you is wrong. But, in short the muscle ache you may experience after a partculary tough work out is still the result of lactate build up. Maybe the lactid acid isn't what's making your muscle sore, u get my point.

[Masahiro]

(i think it was bullet).

correction, it was rainmaker who posted the vid. thanks rainmaker.

[Neil Gendzwill]

Masahiro, while I don't have huge forearms, I am a reasonably strong guy and I do believe that you need some muscle for katate-waza.

I do still occasionally play from jodan. I gave up full-time practice for a few reasons. First, my sensei is a pure chudan player, and so although he has been helpful, I think I need a more specialist teacher. Second, I am pretty isolated here and have a lot of teaching responsibilities. Playing jodan isn't too helpful to my club, other than occasionally letting them have some experience against it. Finally, and most importantly, I still feel I have a long way to go yet with my chudan kendo.

[Anime12478]

I've thought about doing the 1000 suburi thing many times, but when I find that I set a goal of a certain number of suburi, I find myself just doing them to get to the goal and not to improve on my flaws.

[SmellsLikeBogu]

When I was a considering switching to jodan, I spent some time doing everything in class katate, or as much as I could. So a standard warmup of maybe 250 or so including jogeburi, shomenuchi, sayumen. It varies from class to class - I think one time I ended up doing around 500 in a row. The hard bit was hayasuburi, I found I had to choke up on the tsuka and even then I had to slow down.

Single-handed kirikaeshi is a good way to let you know how much control you have. If you can keep it crisp and not let your partner's blocks screw you up, you're doing OK.

Last time I tried to do a session like that, my forearm was sore for a week or two afterward - probably some minor muscle tears. So be careful out there!

not feeling ready to take on the 1000 suburi for a thousand days challenge, I still do a couple of hunderd suburi when ever I can, its not daily, but whenever I find time. Ive been doing alot of katate suburi lately and Im starting to feel my left hand is getting stronger, my strikes become more crisp, and Im starting to feel like Im controlling my shinai,
I notice it especialy when I go for debana kote

so katate suburi isnt just for jodan players, strengthening your left hand/wrist/forearm improves alot on your control, speed. once you are able to use the strength in your forarm to stop the shinai, I think your shoulders become more relaxed as wel, as you dont need the extra force to stop it anymore.

Its been said before, but Ill say it again, because I feel this is most important: dont rush your suburi. focus on propper form and technique rather then speed. speed comes naturaly when your technique improves