Hard hits!!!

[munenmuso]

How do you handle or deal with people who hit so hard and painful? We have one here who oftentimes hits so hard without consideration to other's people well-being. He even hit me so hard on the head once which caused my ears to ring and his kote hits are equally traumatizing. I often times wanted to avoid him even skipping the rotations during practice. Even other members were complaining.But like anybody else here, nobody wanted to show pain.

This guy is kinda odd. The kind who thinks that Kenshin should be our national hero instead.What can you suggest?

[GMason]

If he is a beginner....... Put up with it and, correct his error with gentle pointers in the right direction.

If he is experienced, and is oblivious tell him, if he is oblivious. Then I guess he would say sorry and try to stop. If he is doing it deliberately then that is a diffenet story all to gether you could either beat seven bells of crap out of him or ........ tell our your sempai (Or sensei if it really gets out of hand.)

[KhawMengLee]

hmmnn...next time he tries to hit men...look up slightly and his shinai should hit your mengane and shatter.

[GMason]

Yep....... but breaking his Shinai is a bit harsh if he doesn't know he's doing something wrong.

We all used to hit too hard. I know I did and I have yet to meet a beginner that didn't when they first start.

[KhawMengLee]

I suppose you are right...damn the dark side is taking hold of me :D

[GMason]

What again ??? :D

[Paburo]

in a way, it's not so bad to have ppl hit you hard.

at my dojo we have a few who hit really hard, so the best way not to suffer their beatings is being faster than them. this have made me improve a lot. this is truly learning 'the hard way'.

if that doesnt work, block his menuchi with your mengane, until he gets the message.

[munenmuso]

He's not just breaking our skulls, arms and armpits, he's also breaking our shinai to pieces.

We also have a visiting sensei from Japan every quarter of the year who hits kote so hard. It's so embarrasing to complain it to him, I guess.

[Steve]

There are two types of hard hits: A hard Cut , and a hard Club.

The pain from the "Cut" should go away within a few moments. Hard enough to know you just got nailed, but controlled enough not to cause injury.

The pain from the "Club" is a lingering pain that hurts for the rst of practice. This is bad, and usually shows a lack of control.

Note: A cut AND a club can both leave a bruise!

"Clubbers" need to know they are doing it or they will never fix it. I used to be a pure clubber. Now i "hit sincerely" as one sensei told me. I'll still club from time to time, though i can now tell when i do it and offer a quick apology to my aite. This only came about after being told i was doing it, and asking my opponents to tell me whenever it happened.

Unfortunately, I've met clubbers who are high ranked (4th Dan). In that case, you just kind of have to take it. If the person is of the same skill level as you are (or lower) tell them they hit too hard. Talk to your sensei about those who are higher ranked than you, and let he/she deal with it.

[Neil Gendzwill]

Originally posted by Steve
Unfortunately, I've met clubbers who are high ranked (4th Dan).
I'd call that medium-ranked myself.

At any rate, you can't avoid getting hit by these guys by being quicker as you still have to deal with them for waza-keiko and kiri-kaeshi. You can lessen the pain. If you are receiving doh, turn your body to the right so that you present the front of the doh as target rather than the side. When receiving kote, roll your wrists out at the last second so that you take the kote on the tsuba or the lower part of the shinai (as if you were doing suriagi). When receiving men, be sure to keep your head up. You can add extra padding as well to both men and kote. If you ostentatiously pad up your kote before starting practice with someone, maybe they'll take a hint :).

[Old Warrior]

I worry about this all the time. Aside from the fact that no one will want to practice with you if you hit too hard - it's a sign you are doing the cuts poorly. What I want to know is how I can avoid patheticly [sp?] slow cuts, because I'm afraid I will be perceived as one of those clubbers?

A number of years ago I use to practice every week with the US Championship Womens Epee Team. Although, I was never a world class athlete, I could beat most of them. Someone clued me in that the women didn't want to fence with me because I hit too hard. I really took it to heart and paid attention to the unspoken gripe. It was a privilege to fence with them and I didn't want to lose it, as I really enjoyed the competition. I made a concerted effort to lighten up and if my lack of hard hits didn't discourage some of them from coming at me faster than I would have liked - SO WHAT. The practices were great and it was meaningless whether or not I won a few more bouts.

[Confound]

Surprisingly, I agree with Steve, and even the way he worded the distinction is rather nice. That said, I have yet to meet any
club wielders that are dan level, they're all little kids who don't know what they're doing yet; however, in your case, you've just got an idiot on your hands, Munenmuso.

I'm sure the dork is just trying to act cool like something he's seen in anime. The lead in your club should feel free to give him a good talking to about hitting your heads so hard. The purpose of kendou is not to knock out your opponents, and you don't get extra points if you detach their retinas.

c

[iwatekenshi]

No point in not telling him that he should fix his tenouchi. It's both bad for him and will keep on hurting you. If he doesn't fix it his kendo will not improve. I hope a higher ranking teacher is helping him.

[Dwayne P.]

I agree with Steve with the categorization of Clubber / Cutter in this situation. Like mentioned earlier clubbers tend to be inexperienced beginners or less seasoned kendoist. I personally havn’t met any high ranking dan that clobber but I’m sure they are out there.

That being said if your doing keiko I could suggest doing suriage-men against his men strike, roll over your wrist to keep your kote from being exposed and perhaps slightly tilt the tip of your shinai to the right while in chudan to further protect your kote. I wouldn’t worry too much if he makes a do cut unless he in fact hits your elbow or hip instead. Some good old elbow pads should help out tremendously. I don’t recommend the idea of shattering his shiani on your mengane, that could in fact leave you blind if a splinter shoots into your eye or even a lesser injury.

As far as doing run through drills with him, I would just ask him to concentrate on pulling his shots until he gets the proper technique for striking. After all kendo is a sport built around speed, accuracy and technique not power.

Dwayne

[inner_cent]

It is time for a good old Tsuki (Or a bad one) .... anywhere, anyhow, preferably somewhere between the leg, ..... through the Tare and bruise that Family Jewel of his........

[kendoka_ca]

I think someone stated it in an earlier post. Doesn't everyone start out as a clubber? Maybe a Kendo World Survey on this topic would be a good idea. It would be useful to learn how people finally came to understand that they were beating the crap out of their dojo mates.

[Confound]

Clubbing is evil. Absolutely evil, with a capital E and a long, nasal I. I agree that most people start out that way, but some of us are lucky, and we get corrected quickly. In my case, it was because someone else in the class that I detested, was a heavy clubber, and doing anything like him drove me nuts.

How do you civilized people tell someone that they're clubbing?

<sarcasm> Since you have all pointed out that I am lacking in civility, I'll assume that my methods are not proper. </sarcasm>

c

[Neil Gendzwill]

I have the advantage of being senior to most of the people in our club, so I just say "you're hitting too hard, let's try X, Y or Z to fix that".

Neil

[scbang]

Clubbers normally lack Tenouchi. When I see clubber, I move my head ( or Kote ) to avoid the hit and let their shinai hit the floor ( or way pass the target ) then I tell them even when they miss the target they are not supposed to pass that far.
This usually does the trick.
Sometimes they slow down too much. Then I tell them to hit FIRM not hard.

Karaken

[Steve]

In our club we usually discuss things any of us noticed during the class afterwards. eg : you weren't aggressive enough, use more Zanshin, you hit too hard, etc... So thats when topics like that usually come out.

[Nishi]

I am sempai at my club so i'll share the advice that i give to beginners that club...first we discuss "tenouchi", or tensing the hands and grip to bring the shinai to a complete stop a few inches into the target. Then we discuss the benifits of "tenouchi", for instance....

" if you swing to hard or heavy and you miss your target, your shinai will strike the floor, your kamae will fall to bits(like the kata 1 men cut), and your opponent will strike men freely, because of the tremendous opening you have made for him/her!"

Failing this....use "suriagi men" against clubbers, and you will get a similar result to the one mentioned above....I would then remind them that in order to control an opponent, they must start by learning to control themselves!

[Kendoka]

If he is senior to you - tell him what you are feeling when the cut lands, that may help him to understand.

If he is junior to you - instruct / talk to him on the subject of applying correct tenouchi.

Either way, if he's got some brains, that may help. If not, you may have to be a bit more blunt.

If he's a real dh then avoid him and / or speak with a senior in your dojo about it.

[gill]

I'm with karaken on this one, try nuki waza. The best lesson is a damaged ego!

Gill :D

[samurai999]

Originally posted by munenmuso
How do you handle or deal with people who hit so hard and painful? We have one here who oftentimes hits so hard without consideration to other's people well-being. He even hit me so hard on the head once which caused my ears to ring and his kote hits are equally traumatizing. I often times wanted to avoid him even skipping the rotations during practice. Even other members were complaining.But like anybody else here, nobody wanted to show pain.

This guy is kinda odd. The kind who thinks that Kenshin should be our national hero instead.What can you suggest?

I am shodan and I have 5kyu people with egos as tall as the Sears Tower trying to tell me that I don't hit correctly. But that aside, what I do is block the hit, sidestep and let him/her pass. The kendoka usually come back and ask me what I was doing wrong and I tell them what they were doing wrong. (ie too much right hand, more clobber than snap, etc)

Tim

[nodachi]

If it is hitting too hard, or anything else for that matter, one of my sensei will just reject the hit and push you back to the line and not let you run through in completing the whole strike followed by zanshin thing. If he doesn't like something, he rejects you, tells you what you are doing wrong, and then has you continue to try and get it right. He keeps pushing you back and having you try again until it is satisfactory or at least better. This way, being able to go past him is his stamp of approval that you did reasonably well for whatever level of skill he wants out of you.

[kendomushi]

We have had a few persistent clubbers in our dojo. Sensei will not allow them to test for any rank while they demonstrate such a lack of control. We constantly try to correct and teach them how to do things properly but those who don't get it, don't get promoted. Most have eventually dropped out of the club, a few have ended up joining a local police dojo where the police seem more than happy to put them in armor and practice taking out violent hulking foriegners all day long. :D

[hamish]

One way to make clubbers see the light is to pair them for the entire kihon part of practice with another clubber!