What is a trick?

[AlexM]

Question: What is a trick in kendo?

People have been discussing in another thread how tricks are considered "bad" kendo. So I want to know what is considered a trick?

Is a feint considered a "trick"? Is any technique besides a straight cut considered a "trick"? Is a small cut considered a "trick"? Is winking at your opponent in tsubazeriai considered a "trick"? (or is it just considered bad flirting)

What are your thoughts?

[Neil Gendzwill]

To me, it's anything where you break your own kamae in order to break his. Like katsugi-waza or windshield-wiper feints. The sort of stuff where if you try it on an aite who has a strong kamae, you just get hammered.

[Karaken]

Alex, good thread. I, for one, confused by this. What's the difference between Seme, feint and trick? Understand the beginners should concentrate on basic waza instead of feint but once you start to do real bout, what's considered a trick that should not be used ( or despised if used )?
One of the guys used to be in my dojo had a habbit of doing "Come On" jesture with his head during keiko. I don't even know he did it intentionally but it was like "This is a practice and my men is ready to be hit" kind of signal. In the beginning I was going for it without realizing it. Wasn't dirty I don't think but it's a trick nonetheless.

Love to hear it from everyone - holding center is not a trick.

[AlexM]

Originally posted by Neil Gendzwill
To me, it's anything where you break your own kamae in order to break his. Like katsugi-waza or windshield-wiper feints. The sort of stuff where if you try it on an aite who has a strong kamae, you just get hammered.

Right....... what's katsugi-waza and windshield-wiper feints???

[Neil Gendzwill]

Katsugi-waza is where you bring the shinai to your left shoulder briefly, then attack something (usually men). "Windshield-wiper feint" is a term I have for when someone raises their shinai and jerks it back and forth, trying to confuse the opponent. You see it a lot from high school kendo type people.

[kendo_chick]

I don't believe that Katsugi-waza is a trick, it is considered a waza after all. I think that it is a technique. And I stand by this because I know that Katsugi does NOT work on higher level players. They are not "faked out" by the move.

[Stan]

In football (American) a "trick" play is one that is seldom used and definitely not one of the mainstream plays, like the double reverse or flee-flicker(sorry for those of you who are unfamiliar with gridiron). The idea of a "trick" play is to decieive the opponent and in kendo this deception may create "suki" the unguarded moment that one needs to attack. I suppose in that case a "trick waza" are those waza that are outside the norm. For example, yoko-men, katate tsuki and the like. Of course if one uses these techniques often they stop having the effect one would want. From my understanding it is considered bad manners to try these techniques anyone other than your peers but I suppose in the 20th minute of encho, go for it!

[Old Warrior]

I'm a beginner and therefore my opinion is of little value. However, this thread seems a bit as if the participants are taking themselves too seriously. Kumdo has strict rules and only slightly flexible etiquette.

Basic attacks of the first intention never work unless you have blinding speed or perfect timing. Only the highest level of practitioners will have these attributes and we should all strive to achieve them. But, are all the rest of us are doomed to never win a point because our skills have not acheived that level of perfection? Some of us may be very clever thinkers and will notice something about our opponent's movement that can be capitalized upon with a technique that is"other" than one in the classical writings.

I will accpet that a feint to a nontarget area is wrong, but who's to say that something unorthodox that is within the rules is "bad" Kumdo. It may be contrary to perfect classical form, but whether you approach Kumdo from a budo or sport perspective, you should be prepared for the unusual. Why does attempting the unusual make you a poor student. Every once and a while we should be free to try something else and see if it works. Why not, the study of Kumdo does not have to be that rigid.

[sminki]

While I agree to an extent with Neil that trick is breaking your kamae to break your opponent's, I tend to think that there's a frequency/tendency issue. For example, if one solely depends on feints and katsugi waza to make a point, to me it's trick. If you're in a tight shobu situation and direly in need of a point, it could probably be considered a valid waza. For that reason, I will never use katsugi waza or feints during a keiko while I may decide to use it once or twice at a very crucial time in a tournament. I know many of you may disagree with this, but that's how I feel. In any case, I feel that this should be discouraged in regular keiko as we're all trying to learn proper kendo as opposed to learning to depend on one-time tricks or waza (not to mention that it's easy to learn these one timers anyway while hard to learn proper kendo).

So anyway, if you just do feints, etc. - trick and bad kendo. If you usually do proper kendo but occasionally employ feints, katsugi-waza, etc. depending on situation and oppnent - acceptable. That's my opinion.

[Neil Gendzwill]

Originally posted by kendo_chick
I don't believe that Katsugi-waza is a trick, it is considered a waza after all. I think that it is a technique. And I stand by this because I know that Katsugi does NOT work on higher level players. They are not "faked out" by the move.
Just because it has an official name doesn't mean it's not a trick. And if you'll read my earlier post, I state that tricks don't work well on higher level players. As sminki quite rightly points out, overuse of katsugi-waza and other tricks isn't good but occasional use is OK.

[Karaken]

Originally posted by Old Warrior

I will accpet that a feint to a nontarget area is wrong, but who's to say that something unorthodox that is within the rules is "bad" Kumdo. It may be contrary to perfect classical form, but whether you approach Kumdo from a budo or sport perspective, you should be prepared for the unusual. Why does attempting the unusual make you a poor student. Every once and a while we should be free to try something else and see if it works. Why not, the study of Kumdo does not have to be that rigid.

OW, I don't think it's bad or wrong but if you're hooked on tricks, it's like a drug. It'll help you for a while to get you a point or two and give you some illusion of better Kendo but it'll slow your progress as kendoka. That's OK if your goal is to stay around Shodan level and enjoy beating nidan for the rest of life but I think we all should strive for somewhat higher goal which has nothing to do with ranking btw. You said proper Kendo can not win a point unless you're fast but quite contrary, proper kendo doesn't have much to do with speed ( Atleast not as much as you think). If that's the case, I should be able to defeat my 6th dan sensei all the time. He doesn't use tricks and he's quite slow due to his age. You see him coming and he's coming slow but there's nothing you can do to counter because either you have already initiated certain move or he just caught you off guard. Some senseis are good and fast but I doubt most Hachidans are as fast as young Go-dans. They're just good at catching your opening.

Using tricks will prevent you from learning all these. The point is we don't have enough time to learn proper kendo in our lifetime. Why waste our valuable time on such things as tricks? Which will proved to be useless later anyway when you become Hachidan :-)

Center has no tricks..

[Chusan]

Originally posted by Old Warrior
Basic attacks of the first intention never work unless you have blinding speed or perfect timing.
Hello, dear friend-fencer :)
Basic attacks do work in Kendo. In fact that`s what Kendo is all about.
You have to learn the proper timing and you will succeed with just and basic techniques. If one starts ´knitting` instead of doing simple and pure Kendo, it`s not Kendo anymore.
Nevertheless, it`s useful to have some special-techniques. I like a migi-kaeshi-migi-do as well as katate-hidari-do, and as well as katate-kote, not to forget hiki-kote, o yes, and uchi-otoshi-nuki-men with hiraki-ashi-sabaki, to name my favourites. Tricks? Maybe, but I don`t use these stuff frequently, it`s just the salt in the soup.
In shiai, nearly all datotsu are result of basic techniques. Well, that`s Kendo, I suppose...

[Old Warrior]

Whoa, folks, I'm not advocating "tricks". I couldn't do them if I wanted to. The ice pack is on my knee as I sit here and ponder the last hour's class and what I learned. I assure you, all we practiced was the basics and no tricks were attempted. In the two bouts I had today I lost one on two straight mories (head cuts) My point was not that simple basic Kumdo isn't better, just that there should be no big deal about someone who adds a little unique technique to his Kumdo.

[Karaken]

Ow, don't worry. We all do tricks. We're also all hoping that we're good enough not to need to rely on any tricks :-)


Only with Center - Slavation!

[mingshi]

Originally posted by Neil Gendzwill
"Windshield-wiper feint" is a term I have for when someone raises their shinai and jerks it back and forth, trying to confuse the opponent. You see it a lot from high school kendo type people.

Dunno how to call this one properly, but I was told that they use it to create "beats", and then mess it up by striking all of a sudden.

Hmmm eg. if they tap 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2 --BANG!!

[munenmuso]

Even faking a call or a kiai sometimes does the trick or using your eyes to fool your opponent like in focusing on your sight on the doh and your opponent thinks that is your intended target so that when you move or attack he'll block his do but you'll hit his men instead. But there are good tricks and bad tricks, a good trick is good when you were able to hit him and a bad one when when its not effective or just wasting your energy after execution. In most cases, high level kendoka does't buy for cheap tricks. You can scare and rattle a mudansha with a strong kiai and paralyzes him for a few moments and go for it or do that windshield wiper thingy and you'll not be surprised that it works. But you'll only find it futile against 4thdan and up. Kendo with a lot of determination might do the trick, clean strong kendo.

[AlexM]

I suppose I should give my thoughts on the subject of what is a "trick" and what isn't a "trick".

A tirck is:

A) Anything where you feel you've suckered the opponent.

B) Anything scoffed at by a sensei with no sense of humour.

C) Anything that makes you want to whip out the rule book to see if it was legal.

D) Anything done by AlexM that results in ippon.

E) Anything that fails miserably against someone who either has more experience or is just plain better than you.

For the record: katsugi-waza is marvelous... I got my first ippon in tournament on katsugi-men.

Winking at girls or telling them they have nice eyes from tsubazeriai is counterproductive (just makes them do really fast hiki-waza).

More seriously though...
Is a feint considered a trick? Go for men and then come down on kote at the last second (tough to do). Or reverse it, make like you're going for kote but try to hit men. Are these tricks? I don't think they are. Isn't misderection a part of kendo? (Ain't Mitsunobu Sato considered a master in the art of "I'm going left when you think I'm going right"?) Is opening up kote or men considered a "reverse feint" and therefore a "trick"?

That's the problem with feints generally: The higher the relative level of the opponent, the tougher it is to get them to bite on a feint.

However, I don't agree with people who say that you shouldn't do feints (or anything unorthodoxe) in practice (as opposed to tourneys). I feel that doing that kind of thing in practice makes you less vulnerable to it in actual shiai. It's part of the learning process really. If you don't ever see unorthodoxe stuff before tournaments you risk being vulnerable to anything outside of ordinary kendo (the katsugi-waza's of the world).

In addition to that I feel that "tricks" (and we're talking really weird stuff here that includes the occasional foot-sweep) can be fun and break the routine of "normal" practice (I'll explain my "famous" AlexM-waza if you ask nicely). If you don't want to waste time on this stuff then don't do it. However, I suggest that you just quit kendo then ;) ... it's a monumental waste of time as it is. :D

Chusan, I have no idea what you're talking about... such complicated sounding waza.... Can you teach them to me?

[Chusan]

Originally posted by AlexM
Chusan, I have no idea what you're talking about... such complicated sounding waza.... Can you teach them to me?
Yes :D
To be true: they aren`t difficult at all.
Hidari-kaeshi-hidari-do: make your kaeshi against men with a move to the right instead of the usual left and hit him on the right side of his do (from your POV)
katate-do: well, do with one hand (try your right hand, that`ll be a surprise!)
hiki-kote: try this - cut a regular kote with your arms very well stretched and make your fumikomi on the spot, stomping with your right foot on its actual place, using that force to launch backward-right => you`ll hit your opponent`s kote thus ´floating away` from his shinai-tip in a curved motion. Even if he starts his counterattack immediately he will have been hit first and his counter will aim into the void since you`re yards away yet having complete control und thus maintaining zanshin. A very neat trick, if delivered properly. If it fails (which it will do, *shrug*) you`re the idiot, of course ;)
Always you servant :)

[AlexM]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Chusan

Yes :D
To be true: they aren`t difficult at all.
Hidari-kaeshi-hidari-do: make your kaeshi against men with a move to the right instead of the usual left and hit him on the right side of his do (from your POV)
[QUOTE]

Done that. Our sensei has us practice that from time to time. First he warns us not to do it with guests, in tournaments or when visiting. He says that no judge will give ippon on it but it is really humiliating for the opponent if pulled off correctly.
The trick is to squat when hitting the dou. You then try to turn your back to the opponent to let him/her know that they're beaten and not worth your attention :D . There are some variations to this: turn your back and wave to the imaginary crowd; turn your back and "re-sheathe" your shinai (you don't need it anymore after all); don't turn your back to the opponent just drop your guard and look at him with the expression "is that all you got sucka" (or in French: "T'en veux encore ducon")

[/B][QUOTE]
katate-do: well, do with one hand (try your right hand, that`ll be a surprise!)
[/B][QUOTE]

All my dous look like katate-dou! I actually "spin" the wrong way on dou (clockwise instead of counter-clockwise). It takes me longer to turn around but I feel it gives the dou something extra :D

Got anything else?

By the way.... I don't think these are the tricks I was talking about originally. I was thinking more along the lines of feints... Stuff that actually can get you points.

[Paburo]

i think this thread should be divided into 'dirty' tricks and 'admisible' tricks.

for instance: feinting, katsugi, using your eyes/sight to confuse opponent, changing waza in mid-air, would be admisible tricks from my POV.

on the other hand, fumikoming your opponents feet, pushing out of bounds, hitting purposedly out of the armour, or making your opponent trip in some sort of way i reckon as 'dirty' tricks (guys, this is kendo, not jujutsu!).

i'm not against the former type of tricks. they make kendo more interesting, and give a chance to balance physical strenght with strategy and what not.

the latter type is something i deem as dishonourable, and even dangerous in some cases.

[mingshi]

Originally posted by AlexM
E) Anything that fails miserably against someone who either has more experience or is just plain better than you.
...

That's the problem with feints generally: The higher the relative level of the opponent, the tougher it is to get them to bite on a feint.

Hmm... these two statements are fundamentally flaw. Against someone of a higher Kendo level, you are going to fail even with a simple Shomen-uchi.

:confused:

[Chusan]

@alex
You obviously got the general idea... :D

As to feints: might be a good idea against players who are constantly blocking. But, on the other hand: using renzoku-waza does work fine, too and is IMHO definitely ´better` Kendo, I suppose.