Sonkyo between drills?

[dcarney]

Just curious if it's fairly standard to sonkyo to every partner you have for each drill (i.e., sonkyo, 5 men cuts, rotate partners, sonkyo, 5 men cuts...). The dojo I've been training at for summer does it and it still seems pretty foreign to me, as my "home" dojo doesn't have this practice.

[Neil Gendzwill]

I've seen 2 variations - either simply drop the shinai to the side and bow, or do like sonkyo-rei but without the sonkyo. Our dojo does the former. I haven't seen the full sonkyo-rei on each partner switch, seems excessive but when in Rome...

[samurai999]

To start off practice, we sonkyo.. After that we just rei... Shinai down to the side and bow. But, when you do jigeiko, we sonkyo too..

Tim

[Sentunim]

Same here.

[sminki]

Same as samurai999

[streetcleaner]

we did full sonkyo before and after each partner rotation. so, we did sonkyo many many times during training

[jmarsten]

You should be developing really good sonkyo skills someday. My classes do not do such as our goals are different. I haven't practice too many places where that sort of reigi is done but I have seen a few like that. In Korea when I practiced there they didn't do sonkyo at all. In my classes if we are doing mowari (rotational) keiko or drills we do not sonkyo. If we are doing motodachi keiko we do. If we are doing motodachi drills we do not.

[streetcleaner]

You should be developing really good sonkyo skills someday. My classes do not do such as our goals are different.

forgive me, but you are really 7th dan or this is a joke?
and back to the topic - tell me please, what do you mean "our goals are different"? i allways think that people do not do sonkyo becouse they are lazy and its bad to see people with ikkyu or even shodan who cant do sonkyo at all in shiai or seminars, and i think is doing more sonkyo is good. but you as 7th dan can tell more. please

[Musha]

I think if you are in Kamae with a Katana pointed at your opponent in real life. You could not show respect by bowing before the fight. So Sonkyo is like the full kneeling bow but with the intention to fight.

In practice you should,

Bow and say "Onegaishimasu" (Please start) to show thanks to your parterre for practising with you, bring the Shinai up to your hip take 3 steps. Sonkyo to show you are both ready and show respect if you kill your opponent in real life later. You then practice. If you finish early wait for you sensei to say "Yame" or some English word. You should not put away your shinai because the drill is not finished.

When the sensei says move on I think you bow and put your Shinai away saying "Arigatou gozaimasu" Thanks for the practice/Your time/Help. You then repeat to your next partner.

When the form practice is finished you some times Sonkyo and move on to some thing else like Jigeiko or Kata.

[Neil Gendzwill]

Musha, it's strictly a matter of time constraints. We all do sonkyo-rei at the beginning and end of the session, but in-between it's just taking up too much time to do it at each rotation. You lose the momentum of the practice. Even sometimes instruction after each rotation is too much - our sensei will simply say "kiri-kaeshi, 5 rounds" or something like that and we'll all just try to keep it going as quickly as we can.

I trained in aikido for a little under a year. In that club, after every technique we would bow out with our partner, then line up, bow with sensei, then he would demonstrate the next waza, then bow out with sensei, then bow in with partner - all kneeling bows. All very nice and formal, but it sucked up huge quantities of time that would be better spent actually practising.

[jmarsten]

forgive me, but you are really 7th dan or this is a joke?
and back to the topic - tell me please, what do you mean "our goals are different"? i allways think that people do not do sonkyo becouse they are lazy and its bad to see people with ikkyu or even shodan who cant do sonkyo at all in shiai or seminars, and i think is doing more sonkyo is good. but you as 7th dan can tell more. please
Firstly sonkyo is a rather archaic convention left over from kobudo and there has been an ongoing debate in Japan for several years on whether or not to eliminate it completely from kendo.
Secondly if you have seen people who can't do it then I can only wonder at there examination boards that passed them to ikkyu or shodan. I wasn't one of their examiners. Sonkyo is already performed several times in a normal practice session what with warmups etc. If after a few years individuals still cannot perform this than speak to their sensei. Obviously something is wrong at the fundamental instruction level.
Thirdly, my time is limited with the students and I have no intention of wasting time doing non-value added tasks. My goal is to produce individuals who have strong kendo skills. 3 of my students have reached 6 Dan and I can't begin to tell you how many have reached shodan to sandan.
Forthly, I passed the All Japan Kendo Federation national examination for nanadan on May 3, 2001 at the Kyoto exam. 216 out of 1266 passed that exam. In the world there are about 17 non-asian nanadans.
Lastly for those who bemoan their age. I did not start kendo until just before my 30th birthday. Asai sensei one of my role models did not start kendo until he was 50 and received nanadan after he turned 80 (83 I think).

[Andoru]

Off-topic: streetcleaner you should read one of the back issue of KW magazine. Marsten sensei wrote about his experience going for nanadan in Japan.

Ok back on topic: we do sonkyo-rei at the start and at the end, and of course in jigeiko. At the end of each round of mowari drills it'd be proper osame-to and rei but without sonkyo.

[Kirin]

forgive me, but you are really 7th dan or this is a joke?
and back to the topic - tell me please, what do you mean "our goals are different"? i allways think that people do not do sonkyo becouse they are lazy and its bad to see people with ikkyu or even shodan who cant do sonkyo at all in shiai or seminars, and i think is doing more sonkyo is good. but you as 7th dan can tell more. please

Sonkyo is one of main factor of Kendo. (this is one bigdistinction from kumdo)
and Sonkyo is nothing but reihou (etiquete or manner)

To me reihou is 90% of kendo. -techniques and speed will come to you as you practice-
Starting with rei when you come in to dojo, how you dress up, how you rei, how you SONKYO, how you treat seinsei, senpai, fellow kenshi.... especialy visiting kenshi and sensei!
This is my common goal in outside kendo. My ooold sensei told me that his main purpose for to teach kendo is "to teach proper manner and etiquete in one's daily life"

So when you say "]forgive me, but you are really 7th dan or this is a joke?"
it really saddens me when i see post like this. :redface: Even we are on this internet community, you should have respect.
How many 5 dan up senseis do we have in KW community?
.... probably less than 1%.....
They are such a precious resource to all of us, and they are taking their precious time to post and guiding us in kendo.
(sorry maybe you were joking about your comment, but Marsten sensei is one of my favorite sensei ! :devious: )


i think is doing more sonkyo is good
'more' is not the word... 'proper' maybe?
...and question for you what are they doing wrong?

Back to topic,
-before warm up suburi, first time we draw our shinai, we do sonkyo
-sonkyo after warm-up practice
-first time you draw shinai after men on, we do sonkyo
-then mawari-keiko (rotation basic practice) no sonkyo
-ji-geiko, sonkyo before and after.
-last kiri-kaeshi (we end practice with kirikaeshi, sonkyo yes)

[streetcleaner]

jmarsten
Kirin

i feel sorry if my post looks like i don't have respect to all of you, especially to high dans holder. i didn't mean any disrespect. i think that kind of misunderstanding occurs becouse i'm _not_ native english speaker and maybe sometimes can't say what i mean in a good way. please, forgive me.
in my question "forgive me, but you are really 7th dan or this is a joke?" i mean that its offen to somebody in internet to write in their profile something unbeliveble, like Hai Hai wrote one time he is 99th dan. i didn't want to show any misrespect.

and big thank you for you comments!

[streetcleaner]

...and question for you what are they doing wrong?
the main problem i see - people cant maintain equilibrium in sonkyo, strarting bend and tilt side to side and even sometimes help to stay center with one hand on the floor.

[emitbrownne]

In practice you should,

Bow and say "Onegaishimasu" (Please start) to show thanks to your parterre for practising with you, bring the Shinai up to your hip take 3 steps. Sonkyo to show you are both ready and show respect if you kill your opponent in real life later. You then practice. If you finish early wait for you sensei to say "Yame" or some English word. You should not put away your shinai because the drill is not finished.

When the sensei says move on I think you bow and put your Shinai away saying "Arigatou gozaimasu" Thanks for the practice/Your time/Help. You then repeat to your next partner.

When the form practice is finished you some times Sonkyo and move on to some thing else like Jigeiko or Kata.Being the northern lad that I am I show respect in my own way. Sonkyo as jmarsten.
There are occaisons where we focus on Sonkyo, to ensure that it fresh in our minds, and introduced to beginners that you must be ready in sokyo. Sonkyo is a ready position, do not sit on your heels.. etc

As to the respect I say cheers or thanks after a bout. Japanese words confuse my pea-brain :)

[Kirin]

the main problem i see - people cant maintain equilibrium in sonkyo, strarting bend and tilt side to side and even sometimes help to stay center with one hand on the floor.

Oooooops
I see myself doing that after hard keiko with sensei or senpai.
So embarassing :(

Again, reihou, etiqute and manner, is so important to kendo (maybe 70% of kendo and 30% is your technique), My motto is to start pretty and finish pretty.
Most of all, if you are at shiai, seminar, or shinsa(testing), you are representing your dojo.

[Musha]

I think when you do kendo your manner gradually gets better. In Japan any way you can some times guess who does Kendo and who doesn’t. Maybe in England you can tell by how sensible your hair cut is :P.

So I think if you can do a good Sonkyo, your Hakama and Gi are typed correctly it gives the impression you are good, or at least try hard with your kendo :D.
See what I can do this Sunday's Ikkyu grading :normal.

[jmarsten]

Oooooops
I see myself doing that after hard keiko with sensei or senpai.
So embarassing :(

Again, reihou, etiqute and manner, is so important to kendo (maybe 70% of kendo and 30% is your technique), My motto is to start pretty and finish pretty.
Most of all, if you are at shiai, seminar, or shinsa(testing), you are representing your dojo.
On one hand this has gone far afield of the original question which is what I was responding to. That was the practice of doing sonkyo after every drill when you are rotating. That is not a common practice because as Neil stated as it uses up a lot of time.
The rest of the discussion about sonkyo I think is very correct. Kendo begins and ends with manners as you bow when you enter and leave the dojo. It is considered a moral failure to have bad manners. The good manners learned in kendo should carry over into your daily life with family and job. Kendo is not separate from these.
I do not consider someone who fails to have a ramrod sonkyo posture a failure at kendo but rather one who is at that stage of their training and hopefully their posture and sonkyo will improve. Your kendo is what it is and the goal is to improve every aspect of it. We are all at different points on the same path. I would go even further then Kirin has about representing your dojo. Everytime you go to a seminar/shinsa/shiai or visit another dojo you are your dojo. If you have bad manners that means your dojo has bad manners. It means your sensei does a lousy job because no one is outside of their dojo. You reflect on everyone in your group.
So if you are a jerk at the tournament and whine and complain about the shinpan if makes your dojo look bad. So each of you as a sempai has the responsiblity to see that your dojo doesn't produce jerks. If the kohai are bad it is the sempai's shame.

[Nanbanjin]

At our club we sonkyo at the start and end of a block of exercises. Each rotation is accompanied by a standing bow. We also do sonkyo for each round of jigeiko/motodachi geiko.

Interesting thing was that our sonkyo and rei actually got simpler when a seventh dan Japanese instructor started running the club. For example, before kirikaeshi we used to wait in sonkyo befor kirikaeshi was called. Now at the call "rei" we bow, walk in, go into sonkyo, standup and wait in kamae until kirikaeshi is called.
In the past at each rotation from kamae we would take about five steps back, do a stylish rotation of the shinai to taitoh, do a formal bow, change, bow again, take however many steps in, do a stylish rotation of the shinai to chudan no kamae and wait for the call. Our Japanese instructor was of the opinion that we were wasting too much time with all this formality. No the process has been abbreviated to: no step back, go to taito and bow quickly, move to the side, bow, no need to step in, go straight to chudan no kamae.
When going into sonkyo at the end of a block of exercises the call is "osame-to". We go into sonkyo and rotate the shinai to the hip on "osame" and we have pretty well finished rotating with shinai to the hip once "to" is called and we simply stand up after that.


One thing that I have never been able to get used to at our club is that we count to ten during warm up exercises. Everywhere I have trained until now the count has been to eight. Counting to eight you can count wit four beat timing so you get a feeling of rhythm. Counting to ten just doesn't seem natural. Our Japanese instructor prefers counting to eight too (I have asked him about it) but he has left the count for warm ups in its original state.
I am talking about the warm up and stretches, not suburi. For suburi I like counting to ten.

I was wondering if other people's clubs generally count to ten or to eight.

[Kirin]

We count 1-8 on warm-ups(stretch) and 1-10 on suburi.

on 8 count, some sensei/dojo prefer counting;
ichi, ni, san, shi, go, roku, shici, hachi
ni, ni, san, shi, go......hachi
san, ni, san, shi......hachi