What to expect my first practice?

[Phorest]

Guess what everyone?!

MY FIRST KENDO PRACTICE IS ON WEDNESDAY! :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: .... :D

I don't know if any of you remember my intro post (boy was it a doozy :rolleyes: ), but I talked about looking for a dojo and how the closest one was supposedly at the mostly-japanese school. Well, through a weird set of eventsI came to find out first that this Kendo club did not exist. The college's activities advisor e-mailed me saying that there was no longer any Kendo club, since all the members had graduated. So, after being bummed about that I emailed the next closest dojo (2 hours away) and the lady there informed me that there indeed was still a Kendo club at Salem. She also sent a copy of my email to a guy who is still in the Kendo club there, and he gave me the lowdown. Wednesday nights 6-8PM.

Woo! I am so excited I can hardly sit still. Heh.

Just to ease my tension a little bit, heres a question. What should I expect in the first practice? I know its to differ by dojo but I mean in general. Also, (if some of you can remember back that far :p) what was your first practice like? Did you get to pick up a shinai your first visit, or did you just do basic footwork?

Describe it in detail, paint me a verbal picture...because I need something to read between now and then. I'm SO excited!! :eek:

[AlexM]

Calm down there, someone wanna get this kid some morphine! :D While that takes effect let me take you back to 1 year and 4 months ago. My first practice. It bored me to tears. Kendo seemed really much less exotic and a good deal less spectacular than what I expected (still stuck with it though).

They loaned me a shinai and we got down to business. We did the basic warm up (which consists of the entire class making a circle and doing stretches, some muscle stuff like sit ups and then suburi (katate suburi, shomen suburi, and hai suburi if I remember properly)). All this was done with little instruction at first (I'd hate to have seen what our first hai suburi looked like). Then we did the lining up and bowing thing (seiza). Afterwards we got basic instructions on kamae, footwork drills and men-uchi (separate from the people in bogu). It was just the basic example of what a normal practice would be like. The last 15 minutes were devoted to watching the seniors like kendokamax (holds back laughter) just do kendo in bogu. You learn a lot from watching (don't be disapointed if they make you stop before the official end of class, just watch and enjoy it). Most of the instructions were given out by sempai, not the sensei. I know now that the whole point of the first practice is to give a taste of what a normal practice is like and to "make them sweat". That's it.

My feet hurt like hell afterwards (burning sensation during that first series of suburi) and I had blisters on my soles for 4 months but I got used to it.

By your drooling I see that the morphine has taken effect so I'll leave you to dream of kendo.

[KhawMengLee]

Hah! Yar, first training very boring because you will be doing funny shuffle all up and down dojo(see Monty Python's Holy Grail knights for example).

Kendo timeline

First few months boring doing funny footwork and trying to hit properly.

A few months later you get to hit motodachi who is angry at you cause you hit to "@#%&ing hard!".

Then you try bogu and have to learn technique all over again because you find that all that cool bogu stuff makes you retarded.

Motodachi gets revenge on you.

You get beaten.

You get beaten again.

You contemplate going to the ICU for concussion treatment.

You start improving(motodachi only krackedyou twice this week)

You start to score proper points.

You are finally used to the bogu.

and then kendo suddenly gets better every day you practice.

Moral: Patience is a virtue and good things come to those who wait.

MENG

[kendokamax]

But something to consider Alex, in your case you were with 30 or so other beginners for your first practice. So we already had plans for all these new faces. Phorest may be the only new guy at his dojo(I really hope not!)...

2 years and half ago...
For my first practice , i was two weeks late with the beginner group. I had no shinai and every other beginners had already bought one. I asked to the instructor (sensei) in the room how I could get a shinai, he just kindly told me to take one in the back room.

For the first few weeks I really enjoyed it, it was all new for me and I had the chance to make a few new friends. Kendo was just an activity like any others, at the beginning...

Then I started to like it toooo much!! never miss any practice..
I traveled all around Canada for Tournaments (halifax, toronto, vancouver) went to havard too. I will go to Japan soon...all these opportunity to wander the world and meet amazing people, they were created because of kendo...it's so amazing!


Tomorrow we will have the first official practice of the year, I wonder how many beginners will join..?!I hope many many many!!
In that new beginner batch, we may have a future team canada member, who knows!


yo Alex by the way it's haya(fast) suburi.

[KhawMengLee]

Hahahaha-yar good to see another kendophile. Man, its my obsession too...people are like, "take a day off" and I'm like, "NooooOOOOooooOOO!!!"

[KATSUJIN]

Say.... KhawMengLee, i remember u saying that u will be in singapore around this time rite? r u in singapore now? i just saw a person from melbourne university kendo club who recently joined us. Is that u or somebody else?

[KhawMengLee]

Melbourne Uni eh? nah, wasn't me.

I just started work and am really to busy to go down. Training hard here though...heh

Hope, to go down soon...maybe during chinese new year.

p.s. call me meng

[Jerry Wellbrock]

Phorest congratulations on finding a kendo dojo and for making a commitment to go to class....don't get frustrated if your first few classes don't seem to exciting to you...my first class was one hour of footwork and only okuri ashi and then one hour of swinging the shinai in place....the next class I got to put the two together....Best Wishes and Good Luck

[nodachi]

I had the warm up where I looked horrible compared to everyone who knew what they were doing. Sensei corrected me by manually moving my arms to where they should be moving. They tried to speak Japanese to me and when I didn't understand sometimes they would resort to physically moving me into the correct form. I got funny looks for doing wrong things, but a few good ones when I did something right. Don't get discouraged. In the beginning I think we all look like complete morons in our form. I still do lots of the time. Lots of walking practice, then lots of walking practice with suburi at the same time, and finally it ended with hitting sensei's shinai as he held it out to represent different target heights. Men, kote, kote me, do, and they would correct lots of things as we went through it.

It seems wierd to think this way, but in the beginning, I was even super excited when I simply got to hit another shinai held out in the air instead of just suburi. And the first time I got to hit the motodachi, I was super excited. Depending on how excited you are to be in a kendo club will determine whether or not even these simple exercises will make you giddy or not. I was retarded and found all of it super exciting and have diarrhea of the mouth whenever I come home from practice.

[Neil Gendzwill]

As you're the only guy I expect they'll tailor something to suit you. For our club, the first practice consists of a group warm-up without suburi. Then they get instruction in etiquette (standing and kneeling bow), how to stand, how to move forward and backward, how to hold the shinai and basic men swing. We usually only go for about an hour or hour and a quarter the first class. Second class much the same as the first. About every 2nd or 3rd class we might add something new, so after a few weeks they will know all the basic suburi and movements and start working on hitting stuff.

[Old Warrior]

After 3 months of Kumdo classes I am an expert at the subject of what its like to be a beginner. That's all I'm an expert at.

The first class began when I was assigned a student to show me how to put on the uniform (nobody trains without a uniform). The Master, in broken English, told me something about the importance of respect for country, for teacher and other students. What I took from it was that the bow to the flag is 45 deg. from the waist, to the Master 30 deg. from the waist and fellow students get a 15 deg. nod from the neck.

Then he told me about the requisite bow to enter the training floor. The Master gave me a shinai to use and then assigned someone else to show me the basic grip and stance.

The highest ranked student said something loud (in Korean), everyone lined up, putting the jukdo (shinai) on the floor and we bowed first to the flag and then to the Master. A student led us in a brief warm-up and then we lined up to do strikes, none of which I understood or could do. Suddenly a student runs over and says "The Master says I'm to teach to how to hold the jukdo and a 3 step swing. From time to time other students were sent over to teach me something else.

I spent the entire class feeling humble and dumb. Not knowing what was going on was annoying but I was never forgotten. The class may have been doing something else, but I always had my assignment and Master would come over and show me how I was doing it wrong.

All I can say, is 3 months later: I have an idea what's going on, my swing usually stays on the center line, I'm always worried about hitting too hard (especially when I have to hit the Master) and I can't wait for my armor to arrive.

PS - I passed my first test but I'm still the lowest of the low in my class. I can't wait till we get a new student.

[Steve]

My first practice, we had 150 people...all beginers! (our club had just started, and Kendo was unheard of here in Halifax). NOBODY had a shinai either. We did some stretching and some jogging for a warm up, then went into footwork.

Then, believe it or not, we did san dan shomen suburi...without shinai!!!!! (that continued for 2 weeks until the clubs order for gear arrived)

Once our club had some gear, we fell into a more "standard" type of practice, heavy on San Dan, Ni dan, Ichi Dan, and Haya Suburi. Specifically, the dojo lead back then created a tradition of doing 1000 suburi every class. whether the class was an hour long or two hours we were doing 1000...most being Haya suburi.

Hard work, but it was lots of fun.

[Phorest]

Thanks for the great perspectives guys!

I'm sitting in school right now. Ugh. Cannot WAIT till 6:00!

I'll post an update after I get home. Woohoo! :eek: :eek: ...:D

[kendokamax]

haha it's amazing for you
good luck

[Critical_Bill]

for the first month, after every practise, i was thinking
"i'm going to die, my sensei is trying to kill me, i can't move my legs!!"
but i stuck in there, and eventually got into it :)
the thing is just to get over the hump. There is one for everyone, just pass the low point and it'll be a relative breeze the rest of the way :)

[Phorest]

Okay, I'll make this brief since I have mid-terms to study for.

Kendo tonight was in a word...AMAZING! Even better than I thought it would be. Really.

I showed up right on time, and of course (my luck) went to the wrong room, asked a group of people wearing workout-outfits whether this was Kendo. They said no, that it was Cheerleading practice. OOPS. SO I start the evening feeling rather dumb. About 5 minutes later Daisuke (the guy who I talked to via email) arrives with Reiko at the room right next door. I introduced myself, and we talked a bit about how I got to be interested in Kendo etc. Turns out, the "Kendo Club" is just the two of them, another girl, and a guy who is "lazy" and never comes. So 4 people in all. They practice once a week and drive 2 hours to Bethany College to practice with a bigger group (30-40).

Then, Reiko begins to put on his bogu as Daisuke hands me his extra shinai and tels me how to hold it. After I got that down, he showed me basic chudan kamae. Suri-ashi was next, which I practiced for a while. Next he showed me suburi/a basic men cut. Practiced that a while, then he taught me how to combine the suri ashi with the suburi. A bit overwhelming at first, but I caught on quick. Then he explained the three main targets. He then let me hit Reiko's men several times using suri-ashi. All I can say about this part was WOW!!!!!!! The feel of the shinai hitting the target and the loud CRACK it makes was just....amazing. I loved it. After several minuts of men-hitting we moved on to Kote. He showed me the basic way to hit Kote, and I did. Also fun! Then Do, which I had a tough time with. By the end though, I got it down. (and by "down" I mean I was able to perform something which remotely resembled a cut...I'm not claiming it was correct, or even good! ;) ) Then he showed me very quickly how to do Fumi Komi Ashi. I had a lot of trouble with that!

So all in all, he introduced me to most of the basics of Kendo, and said that we'd work on them progressively. He loaned me his shinai to practice everything at home.

We talked for about 15 minutes afterwards about Kendo in general, how I got into it/etc. They invited me to come to the Detroit Tournament with them, and were very surprised that I knew who Miyazaki was and that he has won AJKC 6 times. (Thanks Kendo World!...or as BigG put it my e-sempai :D ). We planned to meet next week same time, same place.

So, if you read through all of that...thank you. I must say, I am 100% HOOKED on Kendo already. I loved it.

Also, forgot to mention. I already have my first foot injury! I sliced a big cunk of skin off under my big toe pad. It HURTS.

Study time.

[Phlebas]

Congratulations Phorest! You got through the first one. Now all you need to do is get through several thousand more and you will be making headway. I am in (more or less) the same position as you: I go for my first visit to the dojo next week, for the first time in seven or eight years (so it might as well be the first time EVER, because I only trained for a few months before I had to stop) and I am really looking forward to it. I know my legs are going to ache and my feet will look like hamburger meat, but it's all going to be worth it. Sounds like you agree, and that's definately the first step. Sacrifice and perseverance. Too bad I dodn't realize that eight years ago... I'd be well into the ranks by now! :)

-Phlebas

[Haowen]

Looks like you had a great time :) Watch out for injuries and take a break whenever you feel something not working right. Enthusiasm can have its price for anyone starting a new activity.

[aru-ma]

congratulations and good luck on your kendo "career". It's good to know that someone's feels the way you do only after the first day of training, keep that feeling all the way it'll do your kendo good. Most importantly take care of your body (especially your feet!), you can only do kendo when you're alive and well.

[ben]

Nice to know that lurking around these boards can improve the quality of one's kendo experience (to use some corporate-style jargon) to such an extent. Well done Phorest. As Alec Guiness once said: "Congratulations my boy. You just took your first step into a larger universe!"

:)
phben

[Phorest]

You know ben, strangely thats how I feel. Its just...satisfying to finally be practicing Kendo. I get the feeling that I'm on some kind of road...just starting out on my journey, and I don't know what lies in store for me. Will I be able to practice Kendo this summer in Japan while studying abroad? What will I learn there? How will moving to New York (for college) affect my learning Kendo? How well will my friends here in WV prepare me for the rest of my Kendo career? Who will I come in contact with in the world of Kendo? Will I be a sensei too someday? Questions like that just give me this....deep perspective.

I don't know how to describe it, but Kendo is just that exciting to me. :D

[Steve]

Ahhh, the classic foot injury. Get ready for blisters, calouses, ripping those calouses off, and then new blisters. Same for your palms (left hand only though) to. That'll last for a few months till your skin toughens up a bit. But its all worth it!!

Kind of the "growing pains" every new kendoka has to endure.

Then you graduate to bruises. ;-)

[aru-ma]

Hey Steve, dont scare the guy to much :D
and Phorest, dont think to much about it the best thing to do is just do your kendo, my dad use to tell me to look ahead but dont look too far ahead, you might spoil the fun.

[nodachi]

Don't worry about blisters. I've been doing this for almost 5 months now and haven't got one blister yet. My secret... always be barefoot!!! Of course you can't always be barefoot, but whenever you can, do it. Especially outside. Cushy rugs won't do squat for toughening your feet, but cement works wonders. I hate shoes, wear them as little as possible, so I already had tough callouses before starting kendo. The happy benefit is no blisters, thus far at least. Knock on wood.

And for all your parent types out there, yes... I should be careful and look where I am going so I don't step on nails or glass or creepy things looking to give me a ganggreen foot (sp?).

:)