Subori with limited room...

[Hattori Hanzo]

low cielings, ceiling fan and crowded space.....

Any suggestions for prison subori (haha)....it gets really annoying constantly hitting stuff I even use a smaller 20 inch bokken and hit stuff from time to time.

Suggestions besides practicing outside that is.

[mingshi]

A sensei just taught me last week. Use an EXTRA wide stance! If you over stretch on one side, switch to stand left foot forward. That way you can also train your thigh muscles and flexibility.

(Damn, she should have told me earlier... I used to buy more light bulbs than shinai!!)

[Hattori Hanzo]

So do you kinda squat down as well?

[Khabbi]

just do them in seiza ( spelling ?) , works fine for me




Khabbi

[Hattori Hanzo]

I guess that would help to get used to sitting in saiza since I just started, haha right now saiza is quite uncomfortable..haha

[Katana]

I guess that would help to get used to sitting in saiza since I just started, haha right now saiza is quite uncomfortable..haha
If you find seiza unconfortable, sit and watch your favorite show or read a book in seiza. It helps.

[Hattori Hanzo]

Oh good advice help to distract from discomfort.

[Caleb]

What works really well is buying a heavy metal bar about 3 feet long, and swinging that around in suburi motion. It wont let you visualize the hit very well, but It will get you all the right muscles for suburi speed- plus you can still do foot work. The squating thing works as well. Weve been doing that to get ready for a seminar- and whooo........it works needless to say

[Hattori Hanzo]

maybe about a foot would work, the cieling is pretty low...I am ready for spring...so I can do suburi outside. Somebody mentioned wrist weights to, but I do like idea about a steel bar.

[orryn]

I sawed the ends off an old shinai and duct taped a bunch of pennies to the end to give it weight...it simulates the strike quite well, although you don't get the swish when you cut. It works well for doing footwork. Otherwise doing it from seiza is good

[JimB]

I have a limited amount of room in my apartment as well. But I am blessed to have a kitchen with a pretty high ceiling and I do my workouts there. (although I have occasionly hit the light fixture and caused a minor blackout :)) Doing subori in my kitchen has one other good thing going for it too, after my workout I don't have far to go to cook dinner.

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Also having a "low ceiling - high reach" problem, I decided to try Caleb's advice on this, got a piece of 1 inch round steel stock a little longer than the grip of my favorite shinai at the welding shop, cost me about 3 bucks. It's smaller diameter then my shinai and not too heavy to handle relatively easily, so if I was going to do it again I would probably go for something bigger diameter. Only had it for a few days, but it seems to be working so far, one bit of advice, it is a lot heavier than a shinai, start out slowly doing suburi since that extra weight whipping back and forth over your head can throw off your balance, at least it did mine, that change of balance may be a drawback, but then again, if you can keep your balance while swinging a big chunk of steel over your head, a shinai should be no problem.