Do you practice randouri?

[munenmuso]

Do you practice randouri in your dojo?

I hope my term is correct.Several months ago it became a part of of our training where a kendoka is surrounded by several guys who at one at a time attacks spontaneously the one at the middle.If the guy in the middle hits the attacker at the usual target points, any guy around him attacks next at any direction and if this attacker hits the player in the middle he will set aside to give way to the new "king of the hill" and it goes on until you get hit.Confusing?sorry i'm not good with this japanese terms.Doumo sumimasen.Though it's very fun and similar to chanbara.At first, I thought it was only an innovation in our dojo?

How's about in your dojo?:p :p

[KhawMengLee]

Yeah, you see a bit of it in the movie The Hunted. We did it a couple of times and its pretty good fun. If there is a small group then we usually do it. Our classes have usually 20 kendoka so this excercise is not done often.

[Confound]

This was done regularly at one of my dojos, unfortunately it's done in the practices I don't attend (afternoon ones while I'm still at work). Is it particularly popular? At the time, I wasn't able to understand the directions in Japanese, so I only watched, but it looked quite challenging.

c

[munenmuso]

Well it's basically fun and you can test your skills from different kendokas in random. Reminds me of chambara. With so many opponents around you and coming from different directions, it's hard to tell where your opponent's next shot will strike.

And if you're good at it, you can stay in the middle for the longest time and declare yourself as the "king of the hill".

Ego anyone?

[munenmuso]

BTW, this drill is shown in the movie "the hunted" as mentioned by Meng. Saw this also and it's great.But I'm just wandering what this drill is for other than being fun?

munenmuso

[ben]

I think in kendo it's generally called something other than "randori", although randori is not incorrect. Randori tends to be a judo term I think. Judo and aikido use this kind of training a lot. I think it's a little more suited to those arts because once you throw someone it takes them a moment to recover, so it flows a bit better. I've done it from time to time but I find that in kendo it can turn into a bit of a slugfest because a successful attack really does nothing to slow your opponent down.

Having said that, a few guys in my dojo have been getting into it recently and having a lto of fun. Whatever turns you on...

b

[stinkyKote]

We do this drill sometimes at our dojo, although it's a little bit different, we split into groups of five, one person stands in the middle, and the other four are two on each side.

The first person attacks the guy in the middle passing him completely as he attacks, then the guy in the middle has to turn around and the guy in front of him attacks again. As you perform your attack, you move to the back of the opposite line.

When sensei blows the whistle, we rotate the person in the middle. Usually, we do this repeating the same attack, (like a men kaeshi do or, or a debana kote or something) -- so that the motodachi are always doing the same strike.

I find this is a great exercise to learn some distance issues with particular waza, and it's slightly competitive aspect seems to get everybody's blood flowing pretty well- the only bad thing is after a few minutes of spinning around like that I start to get a bit dizzy-

[kendokamax]

i think it<s a very funny exercice. we do it sometimes.. ya kinda dizzy

[saki_wooah]

Huh? We did that kendokamax? Are you talking about that thing when there is you at the middle and two lines that keeps on attacking on you one at the time and you do all the dojo like this??? That was cool! ^-^

[munenmuso]

Saki-san

Two lines? In our randori drill, we are surrounded 360 degrees by other players and they attack one at a time but spontaneously at all direction.How do you execute individual attacks.

They can attack even on the sides but primarily they can't do that when they are at the back unless they signal their challenge by shouting their kiai so that the one at the middle can prepare at least the offender at the back. So all attcks within the field of vision(left, right front,up?) are considered sudden attacks.This trains the kendoka to enhance his reflex within peripheral vision.

munenmuso

[Kenshi]

its called "enjin-shiai"