What a good Men looks like?

[B-Ginner]

Can anyone help a beginner with how a good, effective Men strike looks? For all the input I've gotten from my instructor and my classmates, I just can't get it. I have a very slow and fragmented Men (you can see it going up and then coming down, as oppose to one continuous motion). I'm especially interested in the upper body portion of the strike. I'll try and describe what I do here.

From kamae, I swing my shinai up focusing on using my left hand. I bring my left hand all the way up, about one fist length up and away from my forehead. As I bring it up, my shinai tends to end up almost horizontal above my head. Also, I try and keep my elbows close to my sides to eliminate shoulder movement. I bring my shinai down and forward, flicking my wrist to generate the power, and end striking Men. It feels very heavy, and it's as if I really have to crank it to get it going (I don't know if this is from lack of practice or poor form). As hard as I try, I can't get that continuous feeling I'm told I should be having.

I've been told not to bring my shinai back so far, but I've also been told to swing big. Also, when I watch others swing, they seem to have their shinai end up almost back there sometimes too. Can anyone help me here? I know I'm doing it wrong, but for the life of me I just can't see the right way.

By the way, this seems like a great board, and I appreciate any feedback that I get.

B-Ginner

[Neil Gendzwill]

This sort of thing is hard to do without seeing you. My first advice is just practice more and listen to your sensei - ignore conflicting advice from sempai and fellow students. Especially don't listen to the advice about making your swing smaller. Your description of the size of the movement sounds right for a basic (big) men.

But two things caught my eye from your post. The first is where you keep your elbows close - don't do that. Let your elbows swing out naturally, a little wider than your shoulders. Both arms should be bent equally, about the same amount they are in chudan or a little more. Your wrist doesn't generate the power - the straightening of your arm from a bent position helps generate power.

The second point was where you said you move your arms down and out. If you are doing a large technique, you should get more of a round movement. Do this by thinking out and down, not the other way around. Pulling down tends to result in bent arms at the end of the cut, a small motion, and a lot of contact with the men-gane (face mask).

Last advice - relax through the majority of your swing. No tension in your arms all the way through the backswing and partway through the forward motion. As your hands get in front of your face, straighten your arms and then at contact "wring the towel".

[saki_wooah]

Hmm... I've seen some of our beginners striking men and their main problem is that when they put their shinai down, they return to chudan.
I mean, unlike having straight arms when the tip of the shinai touches the men, they have the chudan position while the tip of their shinai touches the men. Do you understand? It's hard to explain without showing it... Try to get the men's top, not the mengane, especially when your oponent is taller than you.

[™˜“¹]

Hi all,

i am new here and this is my first post.

my username suppose to be ™˜“¹(kendo)... i guess the forum software isn't very unicode friendly.

http://www.sinc.sunysb.edu/Clubs/Kumdo/men_hitting.gif

hth

David

[Phorest]

Hey great pic! Thanks.

Also, welcome to the forum!

[Neil Gendzwill]

If I was criticising that men from a beginner's point of view, I would say that it's not big enough. The attached image shows the smallest backswing I'd be happy with in a beginner's men.

[™˜“¹]

interesting.

i do find in kendo there is more of backswing; that's a pretty good form from kumdo stand point of view.

i by mean no expert; feel free to correct me.

david

[saki_wooah]

Yeah, I agree with Neil, even if I do a smaller men-uchi than that (once I started small men, it looks so much easier for me, I kind of forgot how to do nice men-uchi >_<) I think the best men-uchi should be between neil's picture and ™˜“¹'s gif.

BTW ™˜“¹, I still can't see your name correctly. What is your encoding?

[™˜“¹]

in men(or muri)
there is a full men(muri)(where u raise ur shani way above your head), and there is a short/quick muri(where u raise shani to a little above shoulder height). Most of the power is generated @ the squeez and not by bring your shani all the way back and swing it wildly correct? at least that's what i was told. My guess is what ever u feel is best. as long as the body/shani/chi move in harmony then it's a good men.

inquire minds want to know.

well it suppose to say:
see attach image. i though i was so slick.

btw it's in big5 encode, but i think the software convert it to somthing else when store in the database. Therefore now it read bunch of nonesense.


David

[Kendoka]

The description of your technique sounds OK and Neils advice is good.

Keep training - you'll get it.

[Steve]

I'll add my two cents. But in the end the only way to learn Men is by practicing it endlessly, and listening to your sensei.

Be sure to stretch your arms forward as you attack. As somebody posted above, many beginners maintain the a chudan position with their arms as they strike men. When your strike hits men, your left hand should be in the centre of your body at "about" chest level, and your right hand should be at "about" shoulder level. Arms straight, but not locked and rigid. You should be able to fit your fist between your right fore-arm and the tsuka.

Keep you motion circular, big, and relaxed. Some say to raise as your shinai so that its horizontal above your head. Some say to raise it farther than that. Some say to never raise it past a point where your opponent can't see "the blade". They're all fine depending on who is teaching you.

Don't push your shiani forward with your right hand, and keep the grip of your right hand loose. All of your power comes from your left, your right hand is there only to act as a "steering wheel" and a "brake' of sorts.

Keep your arms loose and relaxed. Don't force yourself to hold them in an uncomfortable position. When you swing correctly it should feel natural.

Speed will come once you learn technique. Focus on doing suburi slowly and correctly. 1 correct swing is better than 100 incorrect ones.

[M.K. Kawai]

I'll toss my hat in here about this. The advice from previous posts is sound. It is difficult to really give you the advice that can really help you without actually seeing you in action.

There are many things that can go wrong when you are trying to hit men. It not uncommon that you have multiple things that are going wrong. I went through the same thing myself when I started in Kendo.

My best advice is to have your sensei look at your kamae first. Is your form good? Are your shoulders relaxed? Are your feet in the correct position?

Then have your sensei look at how you are striking men from both the front and side view. Is your form correct? Are you using too much right hand? Are you tense in the shoulders? Is the timing between your feet and when you hit men off?

Hopefully, these questions should help you and your sensei zero in on your problem.

But, the best advice of all is practice, practice, practice.

Good luck in your quest to hit the perfect men!

MKK

[kendokamax]

okay I will add my 53 cents!

My advice would be to.....not to try to get too technical about how you do men uchi at the beginning! It is not only about how big or how small you do it. But it is more about being able to hit the men with a correct distance...I think the most important thing is to figure by yourself how you can actually hit the men with the "good" part of the shinai.

Personaly I think distance is the most important thing when doing men uchi. When you get that right....then you can shape it up so it can become more effective. Focus on being able to hit it...that's how I practiced my men uchi and it worked ok :D except for the lifting foot hehe

[Neil Gendzwill]

Distance is of course important. However one of the things I often see with beginners is making the men smaller to make the timing and distance easier. If you just do sashi-men, it's easy to get the fumikomi timing. However we would like to be able to hit men from a variety of distances and with various sizes of swing. Best to start with one distance, one size (the biggest and hardest) and learn that. After laying that groundwork, other distances and swing sizes become possible.

In short, compromising the technique at the start is a short-term benefit but a long-term disadvantage.

[Phorest]

I have a question regarding Men form as well.

When I make the actual strike (when my shinai should be hitting the Men), I have a pronounced STOP motion in my shoulders. It is kinda hard to describe, but it hurts my shoulders a lot and is causing them to be the most in pain as I practice. This occurs right before I return to chudan position.

Should it be more of a flowing motion as my arms straighten out? I know that I shouldn't bounce back up once the strike is made, so I try to just stop my arms in the air, pause for a second, then move back to chudan.

Is this correct? If so, I guess I just need to work on my shoulder strength.

[Ares2907]

Sounds like potentially a couple of things.
A) you're probably too tense when striking. Relax all the muscles in your upper back and arms for the entirety of the cut, leading me to point
B) you're probably not doing tenouchi correctly. Have someone at your club check it to see. Chances are you're tensing up before point of impact. Don't try and stop your arms in the air, use tenouchi to stop them, then let them relax once more.

[iwatekenshi]

Learning the mechanics is very important as a beginner and then adjusting them as you excel. However look at other people in your dojo and see how they do their men (MITORIGEIKO). Mitorigeiko is just as important as the physical aspects of kendo. Enough mitorigeiko will allow you to use imagery and see how the mechanics of kendo work. Then you can apply those techniques into your men.

A teacher of mine always describes drawing a half-circle in the air from the ken-saki when swinging. The up motion and the down motion is exactly the same. Whether it is a large-men or sashi-men (small-men) that motion is always made. This motion can be prefected in suburi many times over. Always be concious of it and then you will see it become automatic. Take care not to bend your elbows too much and put more emphasis in your wrist action.

[mark]

I had a similar challenge with men hits a few months ago.

I tended to hold the shinai firmly with the back fingers of the left hand, securely with the back fingers of my right hand, focussing the hit at the last moment by "wringing a towel" as in karate.

This provided a strongly focussed somewhat slow wobbly men, some callus at the bottom of the left hand, and very sloppy second hits such as kote-men.

During our Gashuku last September, our visiting sensei explained that I should hold the shinai as if it were an egg and that the expression "wringing a towel" at the end of the movement was in reference to a wet Japaneese tea towel, a very fragile towel.

I still slip into my old bad habits, but every so often....

I hope this helps!

[Haowen]

Phorest, if your downswing is suddenly stopped by something other than a conscious muscular contraction of your MAJOR muscle groups (e.g. biceps), something structural might be stopping them (tendon? cartilage? ligaments?). Anyway pain is your body's way of telling you that you're getting injured. Yes, even if it goes away after practice. Don't confuse pain with tiredness/muscle soreness!

Try doing your swing veeeeery slow and relaxed (or try going through the motion without holding the shinai). If you can still feel pain then something's damaged - stop practice at once and see a doctor. If not, then your form is wrong or you're being too tense - consult your instructors at the next session.

By the way, your hypothesis of "I just need to work on my shoulder strength" is NEVER the right thing to think if there is pain. The mythos of equating pain with a good workout or thinking that pain is something that can be "worked through" or just "endured" is one of my most hated ideologies. I bought into that rubbish and it got me chronically injured. Don't let it happen to you....

[Neil Gendzwill]

Phorest, didn't you just start, like two days ago? At this point you shouldn't be trying tenouchi or anything fancy other than getting your range of motion and stopping in approximately the right place. Sounds to me like you're too tense and you're hunching your shoulders. Try to relax your shoulders, keep your back straight and swing big and easy. Don't swing fast or hard at this point, and don't worry too much yet about a crisp stop.

[Phorest]

Yeah I started last week. Next class is tomorrow night. When I first did men (suburi) I was kind of popping the shinai tip back up after the "strike" and was told not to do that, but to make a more crisp stop on the strike. So...I guess just starting out I shouldn't focus so much on the stop, but on the general swing motion at first?

[Phorest]

And Haowen....my arms aren't physically stopped by something. I mean that when I stop them so quickly, it hurts my shoulder.

I'm thinking that when you do this move in an actual match with someone, their men will stop your shinai....so that wouldn't be a problem. But how do you deal with it when just practicing?

[KhawMengLee]

When you do a cut, you should be squeezing on the impact(ten uichi. The cut should stop just before the target, not all the way down.

Ask your sensei about it. Imagine a nail on your opponent's and you are using the shinai to tap it(not hammer).

[Dwayne P.]

There had been some good explanations, pictures, and a little animation describing the perfect men strike. However, once you have learned the mechanics, techniques, and proper execution of a men strike. You will simply know when you have delivered the proper sho-men by the popping sound it makes.

[Steve]

phorest: ask your sensei to show you Joge/Naname suburi. (Joe-gay, nah-nah-may). its a great exercise that will help you learn to relax, and teach how to make nice, big, smooth swings. We do these regulary at our club for part of the warm-up and the cool-down. No matter what we do during class, we always do this most fundamental of exercises at the begining and end to help remind us of where all of the other stuff we do comes from.

[PKALL]

I think this is good one.

[Steve]

ouch! that pic linked by PKALL looks like it hurts!

[Phorest]

I took the animation from the Toronto Kendo Club website and broke it down into a diagram for you guys...Check it out.

[Kent Enfield]

Originally posted by Phorest
I took the animation from the Toronto Kendo Club website and broke it down into a diagram for you guys...Check it out. Odd. That looks exactly like "Kendo: The Definitive Guide" by Ozawa.

Just a coincidence, I'm sure.

[Phorest]

If it is, thats what the Toronto Kendo Club had on their site.
I'm not claiming that I made this! I just took the frames of animation and broke them down into an easier to read diagram. ;)