Bigger or Smaller?

[Nishi]

Hi again...Im curious, as usual. Im getting a few mixed messages from many different people, students and sensies, regarding the development or evalution of cutting. Beginners are taught that cuts are big, left hand above the forhead or higher, and this starts the learning process.

Im am getting advice along the lines of "kendo should become smaller now" or "As you develop a larger spirit, your kendo should become larger".

I agree with my club mate Gareth, that it would appear that kendo starts very large, becomes somewhat smaller, and usually ends up almost as big as it started. Anybody whos watched the hachidan documentry can see an excellent display of large clean cutting,(as you'd expect :D)

I have been faithful to a large style of kendo, i'd like to hear some input on where you feel the general evalution of cutting goes....should we be getting bigger or smaller (physically) as we progress?

[JSchmidt]

Both.


Jakob

[Nishi]

Both.
Jakob

Thats more of the same advice ive been getting...lol!
(the J berfore the Schmidt dosnt stand for Jedi does it?)

Still need more input though :D

[JSchmidt]

First of all, if you notice in the Hachi-dan docu, they're only really cutting big at the grading proper..in their practices prior to that, the cuts are relativly small...in the grading, they are looking for the 'perfect' cut...it's an envious goal and while we should all strife for it, it's probably unreachable for most of us.
Now, we start out cutting big....this is to teach the right mechanics of the cut and the right use of shoulder, elbows, wrist and fingers. If we didnt do that, most of us would end up using only one or two of those.
As we progress, we can speed up our kendo by making it smaller, while still using the right mechanics.
As we progress, our movements will become more and more efficient and we can start increasing the cut size, while maintaining speed...and that is the secret to cutting big and fast...cutting with no unnecessary energy wasted.
At the same time, we're still working on basics, in order to program the body to be more efficient with the big cuts...so you are approaching the problem from both ends.
You could probably get there by just practicing big cuts, but it would take you a lot longer and people practicing both ways, would (IMO) improve faster.

""As you develop a larger spirit, your kendo should become larger"."

This one, I bet, refers to looking forward to the san-dan and beyond exam. Up to ni-dan, the panel is 'only' looking for technical ability...from san-dan, presence and control becomes the big issue and thus should increase (become larger)

Jakob (And no, not jedi)

P.S. If you really want to continue cutting big, you can always change to jodan :D

[Nishi]

P.S. If you really want to continue cutting big, you can always change to jodan :D

Ive been on the jodan thread for a few days now, and as discussed over there it would be impossible to study jodan under my present and future circumstances...got some great info though!!!

I think what i'll do now is start to mix cuts around, big and small, whatever is called for, see where that takes me.....

Any thoughts?