Left foot... Right foot.

[Marine_Boy]

Something just occured to me...

Why is it in kendo foot work, the right foot always moves forwards in time with the sword cuts, or why we stamp the right foot down when cutting?

It's just that our bodies should be balanced and that we should be able to stamp with either feet even if it's not the done thing.

I may try and use my left in my own footwork practice to improve on my overall coordination.

Any comments would be great

Stan

[Neil Gendzwill]

Right foot is the most natural when holding the shinai in the normal way. But of course you can attack with either foot, and you will often see this for single-handed techniques (katate-tsuki, katate-men). Sometimes people attack kote this way, in fact at our seminar this past weekend we were shown kote men using a left-right attack sequence.

[kendo_chick]

And of course for Jodan, you can have both types of footwork as well, but the most common for jodan is left foot in front.

[kendomushi]

I feel the purpose of the basic footwork is to keep you on your toes so to speak, to develop a habit of keeping the weight forward on the feet so that you can immediately shift gears and launch into an attack no matter if you are fixed in place or moving in any direction. Reality would be of course somewhat different. Just look at the kendo kata, in some instances you cut or thrust with the right foot leading and with the left at other times.
In the third long sword kata, after uchidachi has blocked the attack of shidachi, he responds by thrusting back once leading with the right foot, and then again leading with the left foot.

[Neil Gendzwill]

From the standard kamae (migi chudan) the standard footwork is the fastest, most natural way to the target. If you are in a kamae with left foot forward then coming down on your left foot is the fastest way. Crossing your feet (landing on your left from a right foot forward kamae or vice-versa) is slower but gives you more range and also takes your body off-line a little bit. Each way is useful depending on the situation.

[Steve]

that left-right kote men drill sounds very useful. Anyway, just to add a bit of information to flesh out everything thats already been said you technically can use any foot you want to. But, it comes down to efficiency. migi chudan is most "natural" using the right foot forward, while hidari chudan is best done with the left foot forward. Same for Migi / Hidari Jodan and Migi / Hidari Nito (for lack of a better name).

You can intermix different footwork though. Yoko-men, some suriage drills, some gyaku do drills, etc... all make use of the left foot (as the forward foot) from migi-chudan. I guess in the end, you'll have to figure out for yourself which foot works best in which situation.

[Neil Gendzwill]

Originally posted by Steve
that left-right kote men drill sounds very useful.
Very cool. You can attack from quite a good distance, and it takes you left enough to get a really nice angle on the kote before straightening you out for the men.

Used to see Haga-sensei using the footwork straight out of kata #6 to hit kote as well (step offline with the left foot, hit with the right foot, all sliding steps).