haya suburi and hikimen

[mark]

When doing suburi a frequent comment is that each suburi should be similar to a strike and that you should "own the cut" before setting up for the next one.
For example shomen suburi you make your best shomen cut with tenuchi, before going back up to prime the next shomen cut.

It is my current understanding that in shomen suburi when you cut your hips/abs are in play much more than when you return to the starting position. You are exploding into a forward cut and then smoothly returning to the start position.

When discussing this in second practice yesterday it was pretty clear that "owning the cut" applies to all suburi including haya suburi. Much later on it dawned on me that we use haya suburi to help train the direction shift and fumikomi in hiki men.

In haya suburi the forward motion is a shomen cut, is the backward motion a hikimen?

If it is, owning the point of impact of shomen/ hikimen men should not be explosive to full stop forward smoothly returning backward to the start position but rather an unending succession of explosive forward cuts and explosive backward cuts.

Does this make sense or have I had too many beers :)

[Fudo-Shin]

You kinda lost me towards the end but in other areas you helped me to have an epiphany with your line of thinking in hiki waza....thanks for deep thinking this area.

Thank-you...you made somthing click in my mind.

[bobdonny]

i know what you are saying, but i dont think the reverse action of bringing up your shinai is meant to reflect hiki waza. I think its just priming for the next strike.

With hiki waza you push back, raise shinai, and strike going backwards... with haya suburi you only strike on the forward motion....

[bullet08]

i would think the backward movement help more with nuki waza then hiki waza. and with hiki waza, the right foot does the fumikomi with strike right before you take off to the back. where in haya suburi, the backward movement is left foot first then right foot.

pete

[剣、ビールおよび女の子]

i would think the backward movement help more with nuki waza then hiki waza. and with hiki waza, the right foot does the fumikomi with strike right before you take off to the back. where in haya suburi, the backward movement is left foot first then right foot.

pete

Yeah - I would go along with this - I think of haya suburi in relation to nuki-waza and also oji-waza suriage - like in the fifth kihon no kata kote-suriage-men where the feeling for kakarite is like haya suburi

But then I also like the bit in Twilight Samurai when he is getting ready for his duel and starts doing haya suburi - only to stop after a few and complain "I am too old for this"

[mark]

.thanks for deep thinking this area.

It is called beer:) Don't you just love those second practices?

[mark]

i would think the backward movement help more with nuki waza then hiki waza. and with hiki waza, the right foot does the fumikomi with strike right before you take off to the back. where in haya suburi, the backward movement is left foot first then right foot.
pete

That was what I was wondering.

I aways took it for granted that the second part of the movement is the left foot stepping back first, to prime the next shomen strike.

However, we already have fumikomi, the first part of hiki-men, can't we use it to push back with the right (abs and hips). The movement ressembles the second part of men tare-tare hiki-men.

[bullet08]

That was what I was wondering.

I aways took it for granted that the second part of the movement is the left foot stepping back first, to prime the next shomen strike.

However, we already have fumikomi, the first part of hiki-men, can't we use it to push back with the right (abs and hips). The movement ressembles the second part of men tare-tare hiki-men.

we don't do much hiki waza at our dojo. and i'm really bad with hiki waza. however, from what i understand from the things i have read and seen, the hiki waza involves strong and percise ki-ken-tai-ichi involving fumikomi and the strike before taking off to the back. and than you really take off.

haya suburi is rather different in foot work.. which is right, left then left, right.. rigth, left, then left right.

so if you try to do haya suburi foot work in hiki waza.. it will be like fumikomi with right foot, then left.. left.. i don't think that works out. but like i said.. i don't use hiki waza at all unless i'm front of sensei and he expect me to use it.

pete

[mark]

the hiki waza involves strong and percise ki-ken-tai-ichi involving fumikomi and the strike before taking off to the back.

Cannot "the strike before taking off" be the shomen strike part of haya-suburi?

BTW, I have been trying to see if it can be done and so far I end up with something pretty clunky. I have not quite figured out how to avoid doing a second weight transfer when landing on the right foot. I think it has to do with learning how to get out of the habit of stepping back.

[bullet08]

Cannot "the strike before taking off" be the shomen strike part of haya-suburi?

BTW, I have been trying to see if it can be done and so far I end up with something pretty clunky. I have not quite figured out how to avoid doing a second weight transfer when landing on the right foot. I think it has to do with learning how to get out of the habit of stepping back.

my sempai has this dvd. it shows how to do hiki waza very clearly.

http://www.budovideos.com/shop/customer/product.php?productid=20459&cat=367&page=2

pete

[Kuma]

Thanks for the fascinating discussion. This is helping me to better understand on what I should focus during suburi.


Does this make sense or have I had too many beers :)

Is this really and either/or situation?

[Charlie]

You know, since everything in kendo has double or treble purposes in training, this is not a bad direction of thought to follow, but I tend to think haya suburi is simply what it is on its face, a drill for involving the entire body, loosening up, maybe helping develop nuki.

I think, too, what's being discussed is hiki waza, and I'd like to add that I think there are two ways of doing hiki waza, big and small. The small version is the one you see where attacker flicks straight from tsuba-zeriai and gos screaming backward with shinai in the air. The larger, fuller version, not so.

[emitbrownne]

If it is, owning the point of impact of shomen/ hikimen men should not be explosive to full stop forward smoothly returning backward to the start position but rather an unending succession of explosive forward cuts and explosive backward cuts.

Does this make sense or have I had too many beers :)


We train that Haya suburi should be one cut.
Stand in front of a line in chudan.
Step back over the line pushing with your front foot and pull with your right hip once the left foot has landed to bring the right foot back into "chudan" stance.
you raise your shinai to Jodan.
Once there step forward and cut shomen,
from the cut position step back and raise, then step forward and cut.

The step back is just that and the lift to jodan is the transitional phase. the only point the shinai should stop is the cut when you have stepped forward.

think kendo kata number 1 shidachi side.

Evade and cut as one movement.

its what we do, but as some wiser people here have stated, suburi can be used and applied in many ways, it is up to you (or your sensei) as to how you use it.

[mark]

The larger, fuller version, not so.
I was thinking along the lines of the large hiki men in my initial post.
As an update, I've discussed it with my sensei's over the last few weeks and they've indicated that the movement should be almost all hips and that there is basically no "stepping" back rather a "leaping" back similar to the "leap" forward. They also mentioned that almost all movements in kendo are linked to the hips. It appears that is one of the reasons sensei's can litterally run us mortals into the ground and not work up a sweat :). As to whether the upward swing is a large hiki component they had not thought of it that way, but have not ruled it out. They did however warn me that the focus was on the men cut. That said, they sugested that I follow the path to see where it would leed.

[Charlie]

Keep us posted on your insights!

[Kuma]

Yes, please!

[kenwakokoro]

You know, since everything in kendo has double or treble purposes in training, this is not a bad direction of thought to follow, but I tend to think haya suburi is simply what it is on its face, a drill for involving the entire body, loosening up, maybe helping develop nuki.


I agree that haya suburi is a whole body drill and it is often used for loosening up, but it is not simply that. IMO, haya suburi is a plyometric drill. Plyometric exercises involve the storage of energy in the elastic component of a muscle (connective tissue, tendons) before using the stored elastic energy along with the contraction of the muscle to produce an explosive action. This is often done with an eccentric (lengthening the muscle) contraction followed rapidly by a concentric (shortening the muscle) contraction. This occurs in haya suburi. Breaking it down:

On the backwards leap:
1) Left calf (gastrocnemius & soleus muscles) contracts while lengthening to stop the backwards motion.
2) Right hip flexors (psoas & rectus femoris) contract while lengthening to prevent the right leg from overshooting the left.
3) Shoulder extensors (latissimus dorsi, teres major, triceps, posterior deltoid) all contract while lengthening to stop the upswing of the shiai.

On the forwards leap & strike:
1) Left calf contracts while shortening to plantar flex the foot and drive the body forward
2) Right hip flexors contract while shortening to drive the right leg out in front
3) Shoulder extensors contract while shortening to bring the arms down.

If the time between the upswing/backwards leap & downswing/forwards leap is minimized, then the elastic energy store in the first is used in the strike.

Plyometric drills can increase explosiveness, but they can be very dangerous if there is not proper preparation. The contractile component (muscle fibers) of muscle has an abundant blood supply and can adapt quickly (~days) in response to applied stresses. The elastic component (tendon, etc) has much less blood supply and thus adapts more slowly (~weeks-months) in response to applied stresses. Achilles problems can occur when the calf muscle is developed quickly and plyometrics are attempted before the corresponding strength of the Achilles tendon has been developed.

To summarize, haya suburi is a plyometric drill which develops explosiveness in all of the major muscle groups involved in a forward strike with fumikomi. Some of the injury questions by beginners on the forum related to hayasuburi might be due to the development of the calf muscle outpacing the development of the Achilles tendon.

It is interesting and impressive that this traditional, staple training drill shows a pretty sophisticated understanding of modern exercise science since I believe plyometrics were originally developed in the 70's by Soviet/Eastern bloc coaches and exercise scientists. It would be interesting to see if there have been any research studies comparing different times of exposing beginners to haya suburi in order to determine rates (and probabilities) of injury.

Michael

[mark]

It would be interesting to see if there have been any research studies comparing different times of exposing beginners to haya suburi in order to determine rates (and probabilities) of injury.
Michael

In a similar vein, it is interesting to compare the smoothness and lack of effort of higher dans breezing through haya suburi vs lower grades. Is it breathing, coordination, the use of hips, the ability to isolate the active muscle groups or something else?
If haya suburi stressed the achilles to a great degree over time as a result of differential growth in the strengh of muscles vs tendons, I would expect frequent achilles injuries in the kyu group. Although my sample pool is relatively recent and small, I tend to see achilles injuries in the lower dans. I have not seen a single achilles among kyus. Their main injuries stems from blisters, minor tears (calf, arms or shoulders not stretched properly) or sprains (thumbs (tare tare) and big toes (stuck in hakama)).
Most achilles injuries I have seen occur when people start learning to attack from the hips rather than from the shoulders or the feet. I wonder if other people have the same experience?