kaeshi waza

[hyuna]

At the AUSKF summer camp this year I heard a different description of kaeshi waza than what I originally learned. This came up during bokuto ni yoru kihon keiko ho, so I had an opportunity to observe very carefully the differences. I would like to know how it was taught to other people (if at all).

When I first learned kaeshi waza, I was taught to think of it as redirecting my opponent's energy. I was taught to block with a light and loose grip, to let the force of my opponent's strike spin the shinai around, and then to redirect that momentum back into a cut. To do this, I was taught to make the movement big and relaxed. Also, a consequence of letting the shinai spin around would be that the edge would face to the rear (not necessarily completely to the rear, but the point is that the edge would turn away). This all matches how we are taught the tsuki kaeshi men in kata #4. So the thing is that I understood it to be called kaeshi because it is redirecting and returning the energy of the attack.

But at camp, I saw someone teach kaeshi differently. The way they were doing it was basically suriage, but switching from one side to the other (left/right) for the return cut. So in that method, the difference between suriage and kaeshi was not the blocking part of the technique, but just which side the attack went to.

So that might be difficult to imagine, so here is a more detailed description of the movement of the shinai during men kaeshi do, receving the men on the omote side of the shinai and hitting normal do.

The way I was taught originally, you raise the sword to block, then after receiving the sword tip immediately moves downward. The left hand continues moving upwards, and the sword spins around the right wrist (because this is omote side). The tip of the sword crosses underneath the kakarite's sword and as it spins around, the edge turns to the rear so that the big return cut has proper hasuji. So, the way I was taught kaeshi do, I generally only use it when my opponent both tends to finish high and hits hard. If they hit hard and cut low, I can still do kaeshi men. Using hiraki ashi I can do kaeshi do even if they cut low, but there is a good chance of missing if I am too slow (which is almost always).

The way I saw this person demonstrate at camp, however, is like suriage, so you raise the sword to deflect, and then the sword continues to rise after the deflection. Therefore, the tip crosses over the kakarite's sword. Because it is crossing over and not under, the edge is always facing the kakarite. Thinking about it, I sometimes do this too, but I have never thought of it as kaeshi waza. The explaination I heard for why this is called kaeshi is because the return cut is coming from the other side from the block. If you did precisely that same blocking technique but returned with gyaku do, they would call that suriage. It would be nigh impossible to do the method I originally learned with omote and return with gyaku do (although it is simple enough to block on the ura side and return gyaku do).

I would appreciate any clarification people can offer on this waza...

[Xeraphim]

In my experience, every dojo has some differences in what they teach, (I haven't been to more than 3 or 4 dojo's tho, but I'm pretty sure of it).

At my home dojo, there is one older sensei who tought me some nookie techniques in private training (not sure what they are called, I'm a bit lacking in the terminology part), the dojo officially doesn't teach, wich I'm not really sure of why, possibly because the head sensei thinks they're either too dangerous or inferior.

[samurai999]

I am going to start a rant and I apologize for the people who have to hear it. haha

This is why people should keep an open mind for kendo in terms of learning (at a more advanced level of course). Everybody has to understand that there are different ways of learning, teaching, and executing waza. This isn't like learning the principles of physics, or engineering where you expect the same thing everytime but in variants. I have learned different ways of kaeshi waza, debana waza, and even men, kote and dou. But you have to weed out the parts you think are important and use that in your own kendo. People (and I know who you are) who say "this way is wrong" or "this way is ugly" or even "you can't do it this way" need to expand their minds and take it in. Not necessarily accept everything, but look at it from another perspective. Take advice, try out the methods and then judge for yourself whether it makes sense or not.

My 0.02$(US),

Tim

My rant mode is now off. haha. I now return you to your normally scheduled thread. :D

[JoonShik]

I was taught, kaishi waza is where you block and hit, and nuki waza is where you dodge and hit. Lets take do for an example. Nuki-do is where you hit do as your opponent is goin for men. Kaishi-do is when your block your opponent's men. The thought that was given by my sensei was, "If your half a second late, then use kaishi waza." "Kaishi-do, your opponents shinai should be hittin yours not your shinai hitting his. The sound of the shinais and the sound of the do should be simultaneous." Thats what I was taught, and it works to :). I got the winning point at a tournament for thinkin this. haha

[hyuna]

Maybe I should clarify my question. It is not a question of right or wrong. I am just wondering what people are taught. I myself just never encountered kaeshi being taught in this suriage style before, so it made me wonder what is the more common explanation. As I said, I also use that technique sometimes, so I am not saying it a bad technique. I just never thought of it is "kaeshi waza" before.

Also, I understand that different dojo and different sensei teach differently. I have seen kaeshi being taught with many different ideas as to what angle the block should be at, what part of the shinai should catch the other, what height and part of the swing the block should occur at, and so forth. But, the difference I am talking about is very large and very fundamental. Moreover, kaeshi is pretty basic. As I said, this difference came out during bokuto ni yoru kihon keiko ho. If you were to do it in a test one day, the difference between the two would be glaring. So, it is important to know what the correct way is.

[Kingofmyrrh]

I never had any success with kaeshi do until I started doing it with a suriage motion. I just never had the time to swing round. Now I find that if I use a suriage style motion, trying to keep my kensen as close as possible to the centre line throughout, I have no problem.
For me the next topic is well illustrated in this photo:

http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/3267/img04105xh.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

The right column shows a basic version, where you attempt to use the suriage motion, as far as is possible, with the monouchi end of the shinai, and aim to receive their strike as far away as possible. This gives you plenty of time to get the shinai where it needs to be for a solid do strike. However, it also means that your opponent also has time to recover, often in the form of clamping their elbows down and receiving the do strike on their arms, which is pretty painful, but saves you from going a point down. The left column is a more advanced version. You allow their men strike to continue as late as possible, reversing it only at the last moment. This makes it much harder to squeeze in a good do strike, but also makes it almost impossible for the completely committed opponent to save themselves. As the model in these shots says, this might be the only way to actually use this technique in a high level match. I can remember in particular a time when the British team coach asked me to cut his men from chu-ma (middle distance) so that he could practice this kind of kaeshi do. I must admit that I have no idea how he squeezed all the movements required in such a tiny interval, both spatially and temporally, but he did. Needless to say, I'm still working on it...

On the other hand, when I'm doing kote kaeshi men, I find a full-swing-around kaeshi motion to be much more effective than a modified suriage, so I guess there's no universal answer. I don't really use men kaeshi men so I can't comment on it, nor any other kaeshi techniques.

[Kingofmyrrh]

I realized that the above isn't actually much of an answer to your question. In short, I think that the type of kaeshi do used by most skilled competitors/teachers is the suriage-type version. I've also been told to do it this way, with the word 'suriage' specifically mentioned, by some pretty well-respected teachers. However, I doubt that there's a definitive 'right' way, in the same way that a lot of people can't agree on a standard version for something as basic as shomen suburi.

[Kirin]

The way they were doing it was basically suriage, but switching from one side to the other (left/right) for the return cut. So in that method, the difference between suriage and kaeshi was not the blocking part of the technique, but just which side the attack went to.

It would be nigh impossible to do the method I originally learned with omote and return with gyaku do (although it is simple enough to block on the ura side and return gyaku do).

Diffrence between kaeshi and suriage waza is which side you attack (based on which side of shinai)
ie. omote to do, it would be kaeshi-do, omote to gyaku do = suriage do or ura to do = suriage, ura to gyaku do = kaeshi.

For kaeshi waza, a deflect point should be same as suriage-waza.
It is not blcok then return. Otherwise you be too late to strike, unless you have superb ashi and/or tai sabaki or practicing with lower ranks.

[Momotaro]

Hey Hyun, we practiced together at the last AUSKF Summercamp. I was the guy translating for the Sensei.

Kaeshi besically means "to return" or "to invert." At least for Kendo it does. It has many more meanings in Japanese.

From this point, it can be interpreted in many ways. The basic concept is to return the opponents attack from the opposite direction. Meaning if you block on one side, you hit on the other. How you perform this return depends on how your Sensei teaches it and how you interpret it.

Some people like to perform a "hard" kaeshi. Meaning that they will block you solidly before they return the strike. Some will do it more "softly" like a suriage waza. Both are equally kaeshi waza. My Sensei taught me to block solidly before returning the strike. He said that I needed to use my wrists to "whip" the shinai from the blocking position to the target.

Hope this helps and I hope that we can practice together again soon.

[Philippe]

The explaination I heard for why this is called kaeshi is because the return cut is coming from the other side from the block.
I wouldn't worry about the terminology overmuch. Just for fun, I just looked at three of my books and found three different explanations of what "kaeshi" is:


The technique starts on the omote side and finishes on ura, or vice-versa.
The technique is performed by "inverting" or reversing the wrists.
Synonym for "ōji waza" (Interestingly, that book used "ōji kaeshi waza" for the specific techniques such as men kaeshi dō).
I wouldn't be overly surprised to find other variations if I started digging through other books as well. :)

FWIW, my own sensei generally uses the second of the above, and it's thus how I tend to think of kaeshi waza myself.

[hyuna]

Kingofmyrrh: Thank you for the picture and the description, that is very interesting about the change of distance and blocking and whatnot. I know it seems like I am looking for a specific right method, but I actually I am more looking for a general idea. Sort of the way that there is no definitive right way to do nuki waza, but everyone can tell the difference between nuki waza and suriage waza. Even though there is infinite variation in each of these techniques, there is still a fundamental core to it that makes the technique what it is and differentiates one from another. It does sound like it is just "block on one side, hit on the other," from what everyone is saying.


Momotaro: It was good to meet you and to practice with you at camp. And, thank you very very much for all of your hard work with your translations!

Thanks for your description. Interestingly, the way I was taught kaeshi looks like a hard block but it feels softer to kakarite than suriage, particularly in the case of do. It is just like in kata #4 -- even if uchidachi pushes down sharply when they do the tsuki, the shidachi does not resist the pressure, so it does not even feel like a block, much less a hard block. The way I was taught is exactly the same against men and kote.


Thanks everyone.

[Hisham]

The way I saw this person demonstrate at camp, however, is like suriage, so you raise the sword to deflect, and then the sword continues to rise after the deflection. Therefore, the tip crosses over the kakarite's sword. Because it is crossing over and not under, the edge is always facing the kakarite. Thinking about it, I sometimes do this too, but I have never thought of it as kaeshi waza. The explaination I heard for why this is called kaeshi is because the return cut is coming from the other side from the block. If you did precisely that same blocking technique but returned with gyaku do, they would call that suriage. It would be nigh impossible to do the method I originally learned with omote and return with gyaku do (although it is simple enough to block on the ura side and return gyaku do).

I would appreciate any clarification people can offer on this waza...

That's how i was thought kaeshi do, raise the shinai to deflect then hit with a gyaku do at the opposit side, if i didn't misunderstand Momotaro's explaination it's the latter (hitting from the opposit side of a block)that gives the kaeshi description to the waza.

[kendokamax]

If you watch the video of the Individual final of the 11th World championship you can see that Eiga is doing some kind of suriage before going the do that will make him world champion. It is almost as if he is faking men. Its a cool kaeshi do...

[The great I AM]

If you watch the video of the Individual final of the 11th World championship you can see that Eiga is doing some kind of suriage before going the do that will make him world champion. It is almost as if he is faking men. Its a cool kaeshi do...

If you like that, watch the zennihon where he won, against I think Harada he did something that looks like kaeshi dou at normal speed but in slow motion looks like men osae dou!!

[ratdeau]

In my sense, the "suriage style" of kaeshi do apply in this situation.
When you do suriage, if the other is too strong and do not move his shinai on the side, you can finish with kaeshi do. If he move his shinai, simply go for men.

[JByrd]

I've been taught kaeshi waza by a few teachers who mostly told me the same thing: Kaeshi involves absorbing the energy from the opponent's strike and using it to initiate your own strike. Soft, supple wrists are an important part of returning the energy without dissipating it.

I was also taught to move my shinai toward the blow quickly so as to make contact with the opponent's shinai early. For example, in men-kaeshi-do, you want to make contact with the opponent's shinai while it is still near the midpoint of the interval between you and the opponent. If you wait until the blow is almost on your men before it hits your shinai, there will not be enough time to execute the returning strike before the maai becomes too close.

[Neil Gendzwill]

If you want to practice this "suriagi" style of kaeshi-waza, try this drill: have a partner stand in front of you and repeatedly swing men. He shouldn't move his feet, just swing. Then block each swing and hit doh on the opposite side, using a side to side step (similar to practising saiumen). You'll find it very difficult to do this cleanly if you make your shinai too horizontal on the blocks, instead you'll need to raise it more up and towards the opponent, similar to suriagi-waza. You should still have that rotational feeling though, as your wrists are crossing up and then uncrossing (or the opposite) as you block and strike. Although the technique looks something like suriagi, I've always found the timing to be different as you have to wait a little longer to fully receive the attack. For this reason nuki-doh is easier/safer/more common than kaeshi-doh.