BAD BLOCKING?

[mingshi]

My only book on Kendo (by Hidekatsu Inoue from Ichini Kai) explicitly states that this is a BAD BLOCK.

What do you think?

[Will]

yeah, looks like there are a bunch of things open...

[Shiro]

oh you don't need a book for that, it's just common sense, lol :D

my sensei would kill me, I guess...... :)

[Neil Gendzwill]

Actually that one was fairly common in high school kendo a while back, I think they may have banned it - Colin probably has more info than I on this. Very tough to get a shiai point against that defence. Of course it's pretty silly from a real sword perspective but then high school kendo in Japan is somewhat skewed towards competition.

[Shiro]

Very tough to get a shiai point against that defence.

On second thought you're right.... I don't know if you're allowed to hit kote when the oponent is like this.

Plus, the do is open, but it's the 'wrong' side. The do is commonly hit on the other side, because if you had a real katanna, it would be the side where the scabbards are.

[Neil Gendzwill]

The scabbard explanation doesn't wash with me. The real reason we don't hit doh much on that side is that it isn't open very much. If your opponent is in chudan, naturally his right elbow is higher than his left elbow. So gyaku-doh is naturally covered by his elbow. To open the normal doh target, all we have to do is get him to raise his hands a little bit. If you step in strong and he defends men, for example, you can then hit the normal doh. For gyaku-doh, you really have to get him to open up and say ahhh. It's why you see it used against jodan and nito more often - for the simple reason that when the aite uses those kamae, gyaku-doh is more open.

[tango]

I suppose I can understand why the excuse might be used that gyaku-do cannot be scored because the saya would be in the way, but.. I don't think I buy that excuse either. I think a real sword would go right through a wooden saya.. But I don't know enough about to pretend to be some kind of authority..

Anyway, here's a question (hopefully, Neil-sensei will see this!), and I'm sorry to get a little off-subject here..

I don't know if this is considered gyaku-do or not, but there was a visiting Japanese guy to our dojo a few years ago who had a really nice little technique from tsubazeriai to hit higi-do..

I hope this description makes sense:

From tsubazeriai, you shove the opponent's kote to your right VERY hard.. hard enough to cause him to slightly twist his torso in that direction, too. At the same time that he's in the motion of twisting sideways, you come slicing back on the do (slicing "against the grain" so to say). I used to get nailed with this a lot by him and by the time I realized he was forcing my body to turn to the side, he had already hit do and was moving back already.

He was never hitting the side of my do, though, rather, actually across the very front of my do (while I was turned slightly to the side)...

Would this classify as gyaku-do? I've never tried it in a tournament, so I don't know if anybody would actually 'score' with it...

Thoughts?

thanks

[emitbrownne]

I don't know if you're allowed to hit kote when the oponent is like this.
Is the strike to the Kote allowed in this situation?

I have pulled my cuts when this has happened in keiko for fear of doing damage....

Is this one of those times where it is your opponents fault for opening, or should we just steer clear?

[Neil Gendzwill]

Tango, if he's hitting from (his) right to left, I'd call it gyaku doh. As far as whether it would score, I'd have to see it. He already has a big component of what it takes to score gyaku-doh - he created the opportunity, rather than just wailing away and hoping your arms won't get in the way.

[tango]

Thanks, sensei!

It is actually quite a nice move and I "stole" it from him, adding it to my own kendo..

If you haven't tried it before, I hope my description might be enough to encourage you to try it out for kicks and giggles... It can be very fast and it works very similarly to suriage-waza in that the process of shoving the opponent's kote to the side acts as a semi/quasi move that starts the complete swing of striking the do (hope that makes some kind of sense).. accomplishing three things with two movements, as it were...

Thanks again..

[mingshi]

I asked because a new Senpai actually uses this trick quite a lot. In the book it is something "Warui", but that Senpai was a Tokyo high school champ a few years back... And I become pretty drawn into that because he can do an amazingly-big hiki-men from that position.

If it appear in a flash of a sec it doesn't look too bad. Although some slower versions done by the others just look crap... they all become hitting dummies for Gyaku-do...

[Neil Gendzwill]

Thanks, sensei!
Please, just Neil.

[olaf]

Folks,

Forgive me for playing the devil's advocate, but take a look at this excerpt from the All-Japan Kendo Federation's book on Kendo Fundamentals, regarding blocking:

Note the picture on the bottom right.

[Neil Gendzwill]

Folks,

Forgive me for playing the devil's advocate, but take a look at this excerpt from the All-Japan Kendo Federation's book on Kendo Fundamentals, regarding blocking:

That's fine. You can probably also find sections in that book on blocking men and kote too. But a beginner just wearing bogu shouldn't be using any of those waza. Just attack, that's it.