go and kendo

[ginger_justice]

ladies and gentlemen,

i was first pointed in the direction of kendo by my go sensei, who passed away recently. he told me he thought that kendo would benefit my go, though whenever i asked him how, he smiled and stared off into the middle distance, or told me i'd work it out in time.

i suspect he just wanted me to loose a bit of weight, since i tended to eat most of the contents of his house when i went round for a game and smelt rather acrid on hot days. that said, i've been wondering if anyone else here plays go to a reasonable standard, and has found connections between thier style of go and their style of kendo, or anything along those lines. i'm still a kendo peasant, and a dan-grade at go, though i feel to have found a much more comfortable niche with kendo than i ever did with go.

i tend to go for what i suspect's a rather 'direct' for of kendo, involving a good deal of vigorous physical hijinx, whilst my go style's also comparatively agressive, despite being based on a chinese opening; i take a side, and then batter the opponent with brutal land-grabs and revoltingly complex ko-related attacks.

since taking up kendo, i suppose i tend to play down the sides of the board a little more, whilst thinking hazily about fighting a nito-weilding sempai, and his tempting, juicy kote.

i spend much more time on kendo now, and much less on go, so it's quite possible my sensei was just trying to get rid of me; does anyone else see a deep and abiding connection between being smacked over the head with a peice of bamboo, and putting pebbles down in pretty patterns on a plank?

[don don]

There are one or two Go players in our Dojo. See our website http://www.noentry.plus.com/ There's some brief discussion of these matters there which you could re-invigorate if you want. You're not a million miles away either, so why not come and train with us also?

[Dave Fowler]

One of my students plays go, and he made the comment that he plays go like he plays kendo. So I played him a game and then asked him afterwords 'so you play kendo defensively do you' he was quite surprised that I was able to notice even after only having just learned to play go half an hour before hand. :-)

[ginger_justice]

many thanks for the invite, dan dan. i fear i'm currently skint, but will certainly come over and visit you when money allows, and when i've inflicted enough damage in my current dojo to grow through the 'useless violence' stage.

that's a very impressive website, by the way; could you possibly point me to the go discussion? i put 'go' into the search, and got nout.

mr. fowler, that's interesting in itself. i don't know anyone who plays go and 'does' kendo, but must admit, i think my style in both reflects my personality. i used to box, and used tended to rely on strength and little tricks then, as i do in go; in kendo, i'm not up to the cunning tricks stage yet, but the out-and-out brutality's certainly there, alas. i find it interesting that kendo seems to have sent me down the side of the board; when i boxed, i had a very 'straight' style, and tended to punch into blocks. given the kendo empahsis on holding centre, i find the fact that i'm now going for off-centre go 'kotes' very interesting.

[Sepiraph]

ladies and gentlemen,

i was first pointed in the direction of kendo by my go sensei, who passed away recently. he told me he thought that kendo would benefit my go, though whenever i asked him how, he smiled and stared off into the middle distance, or told me i'd work it out in time.

i suspect he just wanted me to loose a bit of weight, since i tended to eat most of the contents of his house when i went round for a game and smelt rather acrid on hot days. that said, i've been wondering if anyone else here plays go to a reasonable standard, and has found connections between thier style of go and their style of kendo, or anything along those lines. i'm still a kendo peasant, and a dan-grade at go, though i feel to have found a much more comfortable niche with kendo than i ever did with go.

i tend to go for what i suspect's a rather 'direct' for of kendo, involving a good deal of vigorous physical hijinx, whilst my go style's also comparatively agressive, despite being based on a chinese opening; i take a side, and then batter the opponent with brutal land-grabs and revoltingly complex ko-related attacks.

since taking up kendo, i suppose i tend to play down the sides of the board a little more, whilst thinking hazily about fighting a nito-weilding sempai, and his tempting, juicy kote.

i spend much more time on kendo now, and much less on go, so it's quite possible my sensei was just trying to get rid of me; does anyone else see a deep and abiding connection between being smacked over the head with a peice of bamboo, and putting pebbles down in pretty patterns on a plank?

This is a very interesting thread. I can't really say much about it though as I was only kyu-level in both Go and Kendo. :) I suspect that the connection has to be with personal development that both Go and Kendo can give you.

Also I suspect the mentality is similar in some way in both Go and Kendo, for example, in Go if you are too greedy you will lose, and in Kendo if you are too aggressive you will lose. Or say your confidence in your own ability in either pursuit.

Lastly, I think at the very least Kendo can compliment the physical aspect that Go lacks. :)


One of my students plays go, and he made the comment that he plays go like he plays kendo. So I played him a game and then asked him afterwords 'so you play kendo defensively do you' he was quite surprised that I was able to notice even after only having just learned to play go half an hour before hand. :-)

Well he should able to beat you with a 9-stone handicap if you just learn the game, and not to mention that there is no way you can sense someone's Go style unless both people are at dan level. :)

[Optomitrist]

Pardon my ignorance but what is Go?

[ginger_justice]

have a look at

http://www.usgo.org/resources/whatisgo.asp

which does the job better than i ever could.

you're most likely to have seen it played in a few recent films; russel crowe finds out he's bad at it in 'a beautiful mind', and some mathmo sees it as proof of universal order in 'pi'.

i seem to remember 'go' meaning 'behind the opponent' in a kendo context, but i may well be wrong.

[Optomitrist]

ah, is it like othello? didn't they play that in hero?

[ginger_justice]

looks similar, but they're only really related in very loose ways. go stones aren't reversible, they're just one colour, and unlike othello, you often remove them from the board. i love othello, but go's a much more complex game; it has a rank system much like kendo, and is a multi-million dollar 'sport' in asia, with televised games and the like.

i'd urge anyone who hasn't to read kawabata's 'the master of go'; not only is it an utterly beutiful book, it also conveys quite how important go was to japanese culture in the last century.

[Rafeal]

Interesting thread this - yes.

If you are interested in Go - and its relationship with not only Kendo but Life - a must read is the book Shibumi. Authored by Trevanian.

If anyone else is a fan would love to hear.

Rafeal

[Rafeal]

ah, is it like othello? didn't they play that in hero?

Comparing Go to Othello is like comparing Baby duck to Dom!

[Rafeal]

From Shibumi, by Trevanian Those interested in impressing others with their intelligence play chess. Those who would settle for being chic play backgammon. Those who wish to become individuals of quality, take up Go.

[Dave Fowler]

From Shibumi, by Trevanian Those interested in impressing others with their intelligence play chess. Those who would settle for being chic play backgammon. Those who wish to become individuals of quality, take up Go.

And if I play all three ? :-)

[Charlie]

Fascinating thread. I wish I knew more about Go. I've been a lifelong, mediocre chess player and played Go once or twice with a friend also learning the game, and could make nothing of it. I'd love to hear more. How fluent in Go do you have to be to read the Trevanian book?

Ginger, I don't know if it will help, but I wrote an article comparing combative sport to chess. Maybe some of the points will be similar or reflective of your own thoughts. Here is the article:

http://www.ejmas.com/jalt/jaltart_kondek_0702.htm

By the way, I think it takes at least two years to start having profound insights into kendo. Maybe I'm wrong. I think you must be a patient person, however, and expect this...

[Frame]

not sure about the book, but like kendo, go has a billion japanese terms which you only use when playing the game

http://senseis.xmp.net/

is a good go wikipedia style site with a search thing for any terms if you need them

[Neil Gendzwill]

How fluent in Go do you have to be to read the Trevanian book?
Not at all, like almost all Trevanian books it's simply a great read - his best, as a matter of fact.

[Lloromannic]

I used to play a lot of chess and became quite good at it (winning small tourneys and stuff). After a good match my hands usually trembled and were sweaty. I think that generally I go about life as I played chess (or the other way around) including Kendo. I was generally quite aggressive and opened the board quickly on one side and then the other. My "trademark" in chess was a (sometimes excessive) willingness to trade pieces which usually left both with few pieces and lead to difficult endgames. By the same token in Kendo I generally start forwards and try to put pressure before starting to attack and in the final 30 seconds or so I try to make one very good point. In addition my largest flaw as a chess player was that I played very moodily. If by some reason I didn't fel like attacking that day I played very defensively or on the other hand I attacked recklessly. Same happens (although I have largely controlled it) in kendo.
I know how to play go but I have little experience there. I am very good at air hockey though

[senjlee]

very interesting topic.
Between Go and kendo, Hmmmmm,
Metsuke in Kendo...Pattern recognition in Go

My friend Go player mentioned that Go players feel the pressure of the opponent while looking at the Go board. So......there is seme in Go, too.

[Rafeal]

[QUOTE=Charlie]Fascinating thread. I wish I knew more about Go. I've been a lifelong, mediocre chess player and played Go once or twice with a friend also learning the game, and could make nothing of it. I'd love to hear more. How fluent in Go do you have to be to read the Trevanian book?

Read the book - it will teach you about go

[Rafeal]

Not at all, like almost all Trevanian books it's simply a great read - his best, as a matter of fact.

I agree it is a gret read - goes well beyond go!

[ginger_justice]

Ginger, I don't know if it will help, but I wrote an article comparing combative sport to chess. Maybe some of the points will be similar or reflective of your own thoughts. Here is the article:

http://www.ejmas.com/jalt/jaltart_kondek_0702.htm

By the way, I think it takes at least two years to start having profound insights into kendo. Maybe I'm wrong. I think you must be a patient person, however, and expect this...

many thanks for this, i'll have a read when i've got the time to do it justice.

i suppose my best thought at the moment about what my late sensei was driving at involves the wierd duality you find in kendo, where you have one weapon, or two if you're a mentalist, but must use it to control and strike at several different points; for instance, a kote-men waza involves a series of movements that you could see as individual strikes and movements, but that seem to become decidedly more effective when combined into some kind of fluid, and yet still subdivided motion. in go, you can only play one stone at once, so each move could well become 'separated'; but the best players will never play a stone which has no relation to the last one played. even the nutorious sealed move kawabata's so shocked by in 'the master of go' makes sense in context. i keep coming back to the nito analogy; watching the nito-weilidng sempai doing a spot of target practice last night, i found myself thinking about various diversionary tactics and cuts in go. equally, the 'snap-back' techniques in go, where you loose a stone but immediately come back and take territory or a stone in return, are coming to remind me of the give-and-take we all experiance in kata.

i suck huge donkey balls at chess, but i'd be nterested to see how you chessy types feel it works with kendo; i wonder if the more linear style i see in chess players comes across in their kendo? charlie may well enlighten me abut that one in his article.

this from a man who apparantly uses psychotic violence as a method of building seme. alas.

oooh, get me. brain the size of a planet, and they tell me to get the broom...

keep it up, chaps, this is all good, thought-provoking stuff, though i suspect my go-playing days are numbered; i like pain far too much, and it's much ahrder to express unacceptable opinions about modern art with armour on.

[Rafeal]

And if I play all three ? :-)

lack of self awareness comes to mind! : )

[Charlie]

Ginger, I'd love to hear more about Go. The few times I played it I was so shocked at how quickly the game can reverse, and it seemed obvious to me that it takes a great deal of learning and experience to become proficient in it, so see the long-term plan. I may read Trevanian's book, then. Looked it up - kind of a sexy spy-thriller, isn't it?

I think, Ging, that one thing you will experience in kendo is that, if, like many of us (myself included), you are starting later in life (post teens), there is an amount of catch-up you must do. The first couple years of kendo are spent feeling like you're always much slower than anyone else and that your movements are constipated, I think. You reach a new breakthrough when your speed comes and you find you can hang a bit more, it opens up your options a bit (though there will always be someone faster or with better timing). I guess what I'm trying to say is I salute you for your commitment to this beloved art (going on seven years myself, a sandan) and I suspect you have the patience to invest in it long-term, but you will reach new plateaus of understanding and/or insights after about two years, methinks.

And now, I get to pester you with questions! (I hope.)

What dan grade are you in go? (Is it rude to ask?) How'd you get started? Where do you play? I know where there's a go club in my area but I don't know if we have a go dojo.

[ginger_justice]

go's a funny old game. it can seem to run very suddenly if you're watching, but both players've almost certainly been waiting for said turn to occur, so when it odes, one feels very self satisfied, and the other meets with the concept of Inevitablity, head-on.

i'm theoretically a 2-dan at the moment, but i was examined by the serbia-montenegro go association, which, in all fairness, isn't exactly the most authoritative grading body in the world. i reckon that by british standards, i'm probably first kyu or shodan; one day, i'll get the courage up to go and grade here, and spend the next few weeks in tears.

i started playing in oxford, when i was bored; me and a mate bought a set, and sat round in the bar playing. i found a sensei back in my hometown, who was a marvellous old korean 6-dan, a brilliant teacher, cook and all-round person, who i miss. he was also bloody good at darts, oddly.

when you say you're not near a go dojo, the go club's all you need; you can play go anywhere. most of the local clubs in the UK play in pubs; you don't need quite the headroom you do for kendo, and there tends to be much less shouting. depending on the size of the club, you'll probably find they play at members' houses, down the pub, in the park, or under a tarp in a nearby underpass...

marvellously, i think i'm the youngest person in my dojo by a couple of years. i'd like to think i skip nimbly around the superannuated zimmer-framed people to my right in the line, but, sadly, an excess of pies means that they can all hide under my stomach(s) until i get tired, and then cut up into nice, thick steaks. but i could 'ave them if we were playing with little black and white pebbles, so the joke's on them...

[Dave Fowler]

many thanks for this, i'll have a read when i've got the time to do it justice.

i suck huge donkey balls at chess, but i'd be nterested to see how you chessy types feel it works with kendo; i wonder if the more linear style i see in chess players comes across in their kendo? charlie may well enlighten me abut that one in his article.



Well as one of those chessy types :-) I'd say that I play kendo and chess both the same way. Unfortunatly it typically means I get slaughtered in kendo. Why? In chess I rarely go in with a game plan ahead of time and like to just play a reactionary type game untill I can see what the other player is like. For 95% of the people I play that works quite well and I able to beat them, but for the other 5% they just crush me as they have a plan already in place. (suppose it's why I have a hard time breaking the 1400 rating in chess that I have)

In kendo I usually try the same thing but there if you wait to long to see their style you will most times be beaten.. It's only in tournaments where I tend to think ahead and plan out my strategies that I tend to fight better.. so..

If you want to be better in Kendo be better in Chess ;-)

[Charlie]

Very interesting, Ging! Welcome to the Path, man.

So, I just got back from the used book store and they had some Trevanians but not the one I was looking for (Shibumi). I'll track it down, though. Call me cheap, but I usually buy my books used.

Hey, Dave, check out my article if you like. It basically says, toward the end, that as chess is a game of both tactics and strategy, most great players employ both. More basic players like myself rely on tactics more than strategy. I believe, as I say in the article, that fighting - in this case kendo - is mostly a matter of tactics, and that startegy rarely comes into play. YMMV.

[Sa Mu]

Don't know the difference between a Go move and a pigs rear, but I'm more than happy to keep showing you the strategy of teasing you with my Kote and batting you with the Daito... :silly:
By the way John has a really nice Carbon fibre imprint on his arm...

[ginger_justice]

By the way John has a really nice Carbon fibre imprint on his arm...

the sign of a good, firm kote strike. could be worse, my old bamboo job used to print 'fudoshin' backwards on pete's head, and heaven knows, that made him miserable.

[ginger_justice]

as for the difference between a pig's rear and go, remind me to show you that one at some point. we'll be a bucket of stork and your shoto.

[Sa Mu]

Well it was certainly firm, but I'm not sure Kote is above the elbow...

Actually, seriously, I quite fancy learning how to play. I better start reading some of those books. And get the butter ready :wink:

I'm looking forward to the Jodan vs Nito thing next week...

[ginger_justice]

i'm still slightly confused as to how chris landed one on my shin...

want to borrow a few books? have an excellent go intro book at home, but it's pretty old and in an advanced state of decay. ditto, the kawabata book, which'd be right up your street.

you might want to wear that wrist protector on wednesday. don't tell me which arm it's on, don't want to ruin the surprise.

[Sa Mu]

Cool. Yes would like to borrow a book - as long as the pages heven't been stuck together in one of you Hobbit appreciation ceremonies...

A wrist protector won't help with one of these: http://www.kendo-world.com/forum/showthread.php?p=101991#post101991

[Paburo]

i can play sort of... decently in the small go board 9x9, but when it comes to the real board i kinda lose it. i learnt the rules by myself and i like the game, though i haven't really met any sensei or the chance to learn formally.

go reminds me a lot of things in kendo. as you place your stones, you're building your defense(a strong position/formation) and strenght, in kendo you should build a strong kamae and seme as well. this is vital for victory.

in go you must be careful not to make a careless attack, for most attacks will leave an opening that the opponent will use against you. same in kendo :D

also go gives you a great insight on overall usage of *space* around you. this is help you to plan strategies within the shiaijo (i.e. learning how to corner your opponent and oblige him to go forward -or seme him out of bounds!-, or luring the opponent towards an edge so you have enough room to perform a dou waza, etc)

though i mostly find go helpful when playing twister! :D in this game i'm invincible under the sun hahaha.

btw, my good friend gave me that trevanian book -shibumi for bday some years ago. its not sublime, but its entertaining. the part about the basque country was fun to read :D (irakasle, dont miss it!)

[ginger_justice]

Cool. Yes would like to borrow a book - as long as the pages heven't been stuck together in one of you Hobbit appreciation ceremonies...

A wrist protector won't help with one of these: http://www.kendo-world.com/forum/showthread.php?p=101991#post101991


you should see what i can do with a go board...

[crabbi]

...If you are interested in Go - and its relationship with not only Kendo but Life - a must read is the book Shibumi. Authored by Trevanian. ...

...From Shibumi, by Trevanian Those interested in impressing others with their intelligence play chess. Those who would settle for being chic play backgammon. Those who wish to become individuals of quality, take up Go. ...
and

Not at all, like almost all Trevanian books it's simply a great read - his best, as a matter of fact.

On the back of this thread I bought Shibumi and I must say that it makes a great read as a novel, but has some very thought-provoking passages that bear reading in their own right as philosophical observations...

Excellent recommendation... thanks....

Cheers

[Rafeal]

thanks crabbi
i agree
more people should read it
Cheers
Rafeal

[MrUnWaki]

GO is an AWESOME game and like kendo has many levels to it, i recommend all strategists go out and learn the game