Busted thumbs

[Abe Froman]

While I was doing jigeiko the other day, I got popped once on each thumb. When I took of my kote, both thumbnails were bleeding, and they are pretty bruised(not too sore though). I BELIEVE both times I was blocking men, but one of them might have been kote.

Both thumbs were hit by the same person(I'm looking at you Dobedog :), but I was wondering if I am blocking wrong or maybe my wrists are at a funny angle....I don't know. For the sake of my thumbs, help!

[Confound]

Your thumbs should be protected by the tsuba, could you describe how it happened a little more clearly? I've never, ever been hit on the thumb. Also,if you were hit to the point where you bled, through a set of kote, your partner needs a sharp reprimand. No beginner should hit that hard, and if they are, there's something wrong with their technique. Seriously wrong.

Did you turn your wrists to the right? That's the only way, short of lowering the tip of the shinai, that I could think of immediately to explain what happened. One more thing, when you were blocking men, did you raise your hands directly in front of you?

In all seriousness, the fault may lie 50-50, but I'm more inclined to think, unless you're a total putz and exposed your thumbs comlpetely, that someone needs to look at your partner's technique before he hurts someone more seriously.

c

[JSchmidt]

The fault is all yours:). (I've been there, done that, etc:D).

First of all, if you block in a way where you are unable to attempt a counter attack, you have already lost and might as well accept the hit. The reason you are getting hit on your thumbs is that you are using your hands/tsuka to block above your head..this means that your thumbs are pointing upwards and they will get hit. Instead, use the shinai to deflect or parry the cut in front of you.
Often, just moving your arms forward and slight up, will be enough to deflect most cuts, as long as you keep the center.
(Note that even with kaeshi-waza, you catch the opponents shinai in front of you)

When it happened to me (and it happened on consecutive sessions) I quickly learned from it:). I reckon it's something everybody goes through.

Jakob

[AlexM]

The fault is probably neither persons (nobody's said that yet :D ). This stuff happens. It happens when you block. It happens when doing aiuchi men. It just happens. Exploding thumbs are a part of kendo (that is to say they're a part of my kendo). Blocking probably increases the risk of getting hit on the thumb but it sometimes happens to me regardless (actually this happens less frequently than it used to). Not every hit you make or receive will be perfect so this kind of thing seems rather inevitable (sort of like my overly long posts).

Some people say you should keep the thumb firmly under the tsuba, others not to (I personnaly shift the "height" of my right hand on the hilt/tsuka depending on what I'm doing).

Just my 0.04$ CDN (that's about 2 cents in real money).

[stinkyKote]

hmmm... seems like someone is hitting a bit too hard.. especially if it happened to BOTH thumbs... people get hit all over their kote all the time ... and while sometimes things bruise, I've never seen someone with bleeding fingernails ...?

[Matthew Lagden]

no but i have had a big black thumb on occasions - i figured it was just part of the deal as it were.

my kendo is nowhere near good enough to avoid bruises anywhere even vaguely near the target area.

the better i get the less bruises i pick up though...

[James]

I don't think anyone needs to be reprimanded; the blood is probably not from violent force but from catching you square on the top of your nail? Anything that catches you there is going to cause some blood from under the nail.

As Jakob says you are going to learn quick, try to change your blocking habits (and maybe cut your nails).

j

[Abe Froman]

Confound, I don't think it's his fault. I know he wasn't hitting too hard(I've recieved quite a few men cuts from him), and I know that when hit correctly, fingers bleed fairly eaisily. I also know that we aren't trying to kiss each other with our shinai, we are trying to strike. I don't mind at all that it happened. I would just like some pointers on how I can prevent it from happening again.

I think you and Schmidt got the blocking aprt right right; I do believe I raise my hands straight up and I end up blocking with the tsuka, or in 2 cases, my thumbs. Nobody has shown me blocking techniques yet(I am only 4 1/2 months into kendo, they want me attacking attacking attacking). I will ask for instruction tomorrow. Thanks for the suggestions.

[Confound]

I've been hit really hard in my short tie studying kendou, in places as varied as my arse, fingers, back, shoulders, almost anywhere you'd care to name, and I've never bled. Ever. Even when I had conjunctivitis and my eyes were bleeding anyway.

c

ps -i've never seen anyone else bleed either, except when a blister on someone's foot breaks.

[Abe Froman]

Mabe I'm a wuss and I bleed easy

[nodachi]

One of my sensei is rokudan. The others are up there with him, but I don't know exactly where. They usually have at least a few bandages on their hands and feet. I have seen them bleeding from time to time too. Bleeding happens, we're only human, ne?

[cklin]

If you're getting mashed thumbs from blocking, don't block, just attack. It's what you're supposed to be doing anyway. :)

[Ares2907]

Confound obviously isn't training hard enough ;)

In a perfect world, we would all block properly and bleeding thumbs etc would be a non-occurance. Take what people have said on board and realise that stuff like this will happen from time to time.
Could be worse, you could have had your thumbs actually broken. Had mine broken in a shiai from an overzealously attempted kote. No one's fault, these things happen. It's kendo.

[Matthew Lagden]

doing jigeiko last night while tired towards the end of the session got blatted all over my hands -

although i wasn't blocking as such -

but people aren't always accurate especially when doing something less formal like jigeiko -

anyway, i noticed when i took my right kote off that there is lots of dried blood under the thumbnail, and this morning it bloody hurts.

so there you go.

i have also pulled a muscle in my right leg, so i suppose you will all tell me that that shows my footwork is terrible?

[alexpollijr]

Nope, i'll tell you that maybe you slacked off the stretching part :)

[Matthew Lagden]

yes i arrived slightly late and so missed much of a chance to stretch and warm up. and sensei was in a 'lively' mood so we were working hard as well. lots of good kendo though, and a distinct improvement to my tenuchi, which is worth some aching muscles any day.

[Antonin]

Hie
i used to have the same problem and got my thmbs blasted on several occasions. The botom line is, ans jakob said: your thumbs should never have been in that place to start with, stop just blocking on the top of your head and the problem will go away !
BTW, I do think it is possible to get some cuts and bleeding from other reasons, and it happens to eveyone. Exept people who don't train hard enough :-P
Antonin

[olaf]

In addition to unnecessary blocking, improper holding/griping of the shinai can also lead to smashed thumbs - if you hold your shinai with the palm of your hand almost parallel to the ground, you'll get your thumbs hit when you do, say, ai-uchi men, and your opponent's shinai lands directly on top of your thumb. If you hold your shinia more like squeezing a towel, so your right hand is positioned more like a handshake, this problem will go away. I used to have this problem, too - your're more susceptible to bad shinai grip when wearing kote, so pay extra attention to it then, in addition to when you're doing suburi and what not, without kote.

[Tato]

The times when it happened to me I was doing what Olaf has described. I also recived a couple of really painful cuts on the right hand knuckles, for the same reason.

Pain was a good instructor, since I try really hard to "squeeze" the shinai. Besides that this improves tenouchi.

Rei

[munenmuso]

Don't forget to wear your kote before keiko.:)

[Tato]

Well...

Right, that helps too!! :p

[saki_wooah]

it never happen to me, but my foot nail bled once. I guess someone stum his foot on mine, but nothing too serious. Do sometimes your hands gets squashed between you and your opponent? Happens to me once in a while... how can I prevent this pain?

[olaf]

saki_wooah: I think you must be doing your tai-atari wrong somehow. If done right (beats me, I still can't do it!) you shouldn't hurt your hands at all; after all, the push/shove comes from your body, and is not a "punch"...