Cutting men

[ahmed61086]

Lately here on the forums I have been hearing that when striking men, either small or big motion, that the left arm should be straight? Is this correct? From what I have been taught the left arm should be bent and right arm straight since the power should be coming from the left arm. Please can someone clarify this for me.

BTW, I have allready asked my sensie, but I want to hear what you have to say, because I think I heard different poeple say differnt things, but i could have been incorrect since I dont understand all of the japanese termonology. Thanks.

[stuartwilson]

If your left arm is appreciably bent, you are not getting the reach that you can. A bent left arm is usually the result of your hands being too low at the end of your cut, more down to the chudan position than they should be. This is a common problem that often persists well into Kendo training. The sooner you fix it, the better off you are.

Try practicing three section men (ichi-ni-san) and note the difference in position between ni and san. It should NOT be a simple lowering of your hands. At ni, both of your arms should be straight. To do this right, you have to stretch your forearms a bit, especially as you do tenouchi. If you are tensed up, it is hard to do the technique correctly.

Depending on how bent your left arm is, you are robbing yourself of a proportional amount of reach. This can be several inches, which makes a huge difference.

[ahmed61086]

Is the left arm supposed to be bent(appreciably) for the whole strike or just during and after tenouchi?

Also, I am pretty sure my strike is not too low probably the opposite, but my left arm is still bent during the strike.

[JSchmidt]

Left arm straight usually leads to people hitting the mengane. Left arm should be somewhat bent.

Jakob

[Kingofmyrrh]

Left arm straight usually leads to people hitting the mengane. Left arm should be somewhat bent.

Jakob
I agree. It always puzzles me why so many instructors insist on a perfectly straight left arm, despite the fact that they bend their own left arm, and despite the fact that it's quite clearly mechanically impossible to strike men cleanly with a straight left arm (you jodan folk don't count!).

[Lloromannic]

I agree. It always puzzles me why so many instructors insist on a perfectly straight left arm, despite the fact that they bend their own left arm, and despite the fact that it's quite clearly mechanically impossible to strike men cleanly with a straight left arm (you jodan folk don't count!).


I think it is because if they said "have the let arm slightly bent" we would bend it far too much. If we try to have the arm straight we'll bend it naturally to our correct position. Unless you are really concentrating on the straightness of of it.

[Kingofmyrrh]

I think it is because if they said "have the let arm slightly bent" we would bend it far too much. If we try to have the arm straight we'll bend it naturally to our correct position. Unless you are really concentrating on the straightness of of it.
That seems fair enough. I suppose that some less experienced people don't have the ability/inclination to make such fine adjustments, in which case I can see why they might say that. Although my favourite teachers tend not to, so I guess it goes both ways.

[Lloromannic]

Definitely. I was not taught to have a straight left arm, I was told to "not have it crooked", however I've seen it taught by some as "straight".
Although I'm one of those less experienced people I found "not crooked" a better explanation that "straight". I think it may relate to how we are always told that the left foot never crosses over or some other rules that as you progress see that they may not be so strict.

[Neil Gendzwill]

Here's my 2 cents Canadian:

Left arm should be what I call "kendo straight" which is pretty straight but not so much that the elbow is locked up. When you do shibori/tenouchi, the forearms rotate up a little bit so that the inside of the elbows are aiming about 45 degrees off vertical. Some people take "straight" to mean "hyperextended". Some people end up with the elbows pointed straight up, which means no tenouchi and also a risk of injury due to hyperextension. You don't want to lock the joint at extension.

The speed is generated through extending your arm from bent to "kendo straight". Also you are looking to maximise the distance and that limitation is how extended your left arm is. Your left arm should definitely not be more bent than your right. One key point is that your left hand should not be touching or close to your right forearm at the end - there should be a definite gap.

As far as hitting the mengane - the contact point comes from tenouchi, which generates a snap that gets the kensen on the menbuton. After that contact, the kensen is no longer very close to horizontal.

Just rummaging around from some of our seminar pictures, you can see an example of what I'm talking about here (http://www.kendo-sask.com/Seminar2005/Saturday/VincentMen.jpg). You can clearly see the gap between his left hand and his right wrist, his arms are both straight and rotated at the end. Here's another example (http://www.kendo-sask.com/Seminar2005/Saturday/ConnerMen.jpg) - but in this one, I probably would have told him his left arm was not straight enough.

[Ignatz]

I think it is the same sort of reaso we practice "big" men and "big" kote, the small cut then is easier to do. Same thing if we practice with full "extension".
My first teacher said if you practice with 1000 big men and your opponent practices with 10 little men, who will have the advantage?
Make sense?

[tantadi]

Gendzwill: "One key point is that your left hand should not be touching or close to your right forearm at the end - there should be a definite gap."

What if someone is taller than you? Takes even more tenouchi to hit the futon, or what?

In this pic http://www.kendo.or.jp/picture/photo/champ53/champ53-09.jpg
the left arm on the guy looks bent, to avoid it he have to have a shorther grip..??

If you have hyperextension issues with the left elbow and the left hand is close to the right arm at end, how can that be remedied?

[Neil Gendzwill]

In this pic http://www.kendo.or.jp/picture/photo/champ53/champ53-09.jpg
the left arm on the guy looks bent, to avoid it he have to have a shorther grip..??Really hard to criticise from an action shot, but if I were evaluating a beginner I would tell him not to do what that guy's doing.

If you're shorter, yes you need more snap to get to the top. The solution is not to bend your elbow and scissor your left hand past your right arm as many people do. You'll get dull, slow, right handed hits that way.

[tantadi]

Thanks!:) Guess I have to practice tenouchi a lot!

[ahmed61086]

Thanks for all the info, I definitly need to work on that.

It is just confusing, becasue one of my sensies doesnt really believe in the straight left arm, hhmmmmm, and hes all about good basics, posture, and all the technical stuff. Well, i guess to each is his own.

[Kingofmyrrh]

Here's my 2 cents Canadian:

Left arm should be what I call "kendo straight" which is pretty straight but not so much that the elbow is locked up. When you do shibori/tenouchi, the forearms rotate up a little bit so that the inside of the elbows are aiming about 45 degrees off vertical. Some people take "straight" to mean "hyperextended". Some people end up with the elbows pointed straight up, which means no tenouchi and also a risk of injury due to hyperextension. You don't want to lock the joint at extension.

The speed is generated through extending your arm from bent to "kendo straight". Also you are looking to maximise the distance and that limitation is how extended your left arm is. Your left arm should definitely not be more bent than your right. One key point is that your left hand should not be touching or close to your right forearm at the end - there should be a definite gap.

As far as hitting the mengane - the contact point comes from tenouchi, which generates a snap that gets the kensen on the menbuton. After that contact, the kensen is no longer very close to horizontal.

Just rummaging around from some of our seminar pictures, you can see an example of what I'm talking about here (http://www.kendo-sask.com/Seminar2005/Saturday/VincentMen.jpg). You can clearly see the gap between his left hand and his right wrist, his arms are both straight and rotated at the end. Here's another example (http://www.kendo-sask.com/Seminar2005/Saturday/ConnerMen.jpg) - but in this one, I probably would have told him his left arm was not straight enough.

I totally agree with the pictures, although to me that left arm still isn't quite what I'd call straight. But as long as the people who are being instructed understand then I guess it doesn't matter all that much how you describe it.

[Kingofmyrrh]

Gendzwill: "One key point is that your left hand should not be touching or close to your right forearm at the end - there should be a definite gap."

What if someone is taller than you? Takes even more tenouchi to hit the futon, or what?

In this pic http://www.kendo.or.jp/picture/photo/champ53/champ53-09.jpg
the left arm on the guy looks bent, to avoid it he have to have a shorther grip..??

If you have hyperextension issues with the left elbow and the left hand is close to the right arm at end, how can that be remedied?
Forgive me for being slow, but which guy are you talking about? The guy on the right seems to be hitting men, but the guy on the left looks to be shorter, which I thought was the issue at hand. Sorry...

[tantadi]

The guy on the right..(from the last All Japan Championship, btw..). I tried to find a pic of two players of different sizes, but I couldn't. Esp. doing small men against big guys is difficult, no score on mengane hits.

[Gessho]

I agree. It always puzzles me why so many instructors insist on a perfectly straight left arm, despite the fact that they bend their own left arm, and despite the fact that it's quite clearly mechanically impossible to strike men cleanly with a straight left arm (you jodan folk don't count!).

Me too. My instructor just keeps repeating "straighten your arms" but I find that to be odd.

So basically, beginners have to keep the arms straight until everything becomes second nature and then they modify according to their style and skills?

[Kingofmyrrh]

The guy on the right..(from the last All Japan Championship, btw..). I tried to find a pic of two players of different sizes, but I couldn't. Esp. doing small men against big guys is difficult, no score on mengane hits.
Strange as it looks, that's pretty much how all high-level people cut. Of course you have to be a pretty good photographer to catch that instant of maximum extension. I don't think there's anything wrong with cutting this way for the reasons I've already put down in this thread (and also of course the fact that all the best people do it this way!).

[ratdeau]

An other example of tenouchi
http://www.skijournal.co.jp/kendo/book/0206/KN6%82%90128.swf

[tantadi]

His left looks a little out of center and bent...

[JSchmidt]

I think the angle is decieving, but that's the amount of 'bend' that I would expect to see (and hope that I'm using).

[Kingofmyrrh]

It says that he's doing kirikaeshi so I guess that's why. Hey, if it's good enough for Miyazaki...

[Neil Gendzwill]

Looks good to me.

[Charlie]

Got a follow up question for you guys. How straight does the left arm stay on the upswing? Orthodox teaching says the left arm should stay straight all the way up, doesn't it? So that at the top of your up swing your left hand is very high above your head?

[Neil Gendzwill]

Orthodox teaching says the left arm should stay straight all the way up, doesn't it? So that at the top of your up swing your left hand is very high above your head?God, no. Basic beginner mistake #37, or something like that. Bend both elbows equally and naturally. It's the straightening of both arms that generates speed and snap. Look at the little video Ratdeau posted for how to do it properly.

[Charlie]

Gosh, Neil, I hate to contradict you but are you sure? Maybe I'm making a mistake in that arms-straight is for suburi, not for cutting?

[Charlie]

Found an img, and it is of suburi, not the men cut. Like this:

http://www.kendo-sask.com/suburi.gif

EDIT: Haha! And it's from your site!

[Neil Gendzwill]

I've never had any sensei tell me to straighten my left arm at the top, have you? My own sensei will often point out that particular mistake to beginners. If you look at the diagram you linked to, the 2nd last image in the sequence (middle bottom) shows what I am talking about, both hands level with the arms naturally bent. If the left arm was straight (and the diagram was accurate), the elbow would be above the top of the head.

[Charlie]

Actually, I find that normally a sensei will tell us to stop at about the fourth image, with the shinai up at 45 degrees, and not go further back as the illustration describes, unless its joge suburi. But yes, I have heard sensei say keep your left arm straight all the way up.

Just now I went off by myself and made a few men cuts with my arms and my suburi men and my actual men are a bit different, the suburi men with arms straight and the actual men flexing slightly (although still trying to get my left hand up in a big motion).

[Charlie]

BTW, an interesting result for google img search "men cut."

http://www.dosfordonts.com/Rene%20o22.jpg

I believe Neil-sensei has this cut til about 1987.

[Neil Gendzwill]

Gawd no, 1987 was my floppy-haired 80s new wave-y sort of look.

[Ignatz]

A big mirror ball in the dojo and all white keikogi and bogu would finish the picture nicely.

[Charlie]

I should clarify, by the way, that when I say keep the left straight I mean Neil's kendo-straight. I have distinctly heard several sensei say, "Your left arm should retain the same shape all the way up and down as it swings."

[Lloromannic]

BTW, an interesting result for google img search "men cut."

http://www.dosfordonts.com/Rene%20o22.jpg

I believe Neil-sensei has this cut til about 1987.
This (http://www.lizardkingduran.com/bootpic87.jpg) is a picture from one of the first Saskatoon seminars

[Charlie]

AHAHAHAHAHA!

Course I'm almost bald so I should probably just shut it.

[Neil Gendzwill]

It was a lot closer to this (http://www.imdb.com/gallery/granitz/0325-env/Events/0325-env/granthug.h%232?path=pgallery&path_key=Grant,%20Hugh%20(I)), although I'm much better looking than that putz.

[Charlie]

I had a mild Flock of Seagulls going. Short on sides and back, bangs down to my chin. *sigh*

[tantadi]

Oh, you men are so goodlooking! ;-)

Another follow up question, what if the bendy left is something that is produced at the end of a men cut, because the right stay still at it's maximum extention, and you lift the left a little (or bend the hand down) to get the shinai even more horisontal and the tip down?

[Charlie]

I would advise against it, myself, tantadi. I'm sure a lot of people cut that way but it isn't orthodox, as far as I know. I mean, as a benchmark, even though a shinai is not a sword, you should try to use it like a sword as much as possible. Thus, you wouldn't want to cut that way with a blade, it would take away from your cut. Also, you're giving too much to the right hand. Just my two cents, U.S.

[Auricom22]

I'll second what Charlie said. Kan sensei described it as the difference between a cut and a tap. If you're raising your left arm to "flatten" the shinai, you'll still hit the men, but just a tap opposed to a cut. I've seen this as a kind of last-second correction when someone (usually new) has blown their cut to the men but are still trying to hit it. The cut is now coming from just the wrists. Even a quick men, kote, whatever, the left hand is supposed to be pulling the shinai, not just bending at the wrist.

Hope it helped.

[Kingofmyrrh]

I actually think that Tantadi is heading in the right direction, although perhaps not expressing it in the way that I might.

http://www.kendo-world.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7440&page=3&highlight=oshi-te
#40

We call the right hand the 'pushing hand', and the left hand the 'pulling hand'. The instant we strike, we push with the right hand using the idea of chakin shibori, and pull up the left hand, tightening the little finger firmly. If you do that, then your strikes will have 'sae'

This was written by Inoue sensei, his first name escapes me right now, but he was one of the more respected kendo teachers of the last few decades. Put simply, one of the functions of tenouchi is to further accelerate the kensen by transferring from a circular motion where the centre of motion is at the tsukagashira (left hand little finger) to a circular motion where the centre of motion is midway along the tsuka (between the hands). By transferring the centre of the arc the shinai describes to the middle of the tsukagawa, you can give it enormous acceleration by performing the motion described by Inoue sensei. However, because the shinai as a whole is still travelling downwards, the left hand doesn't actually rise, it just drops more slowly then the right hand. Incidentally, this is why high level kendoists cut men with the strange kind of "up and over" appearance at the moment of impact, as shown in the photograph that Tantadi posted in another thread recently.

[Auricom22]

This would be the difference


because the shinai as a whole is still travelling downwards

What I normally saw was more an interruption of the cut, as opposed to something integral to the cut. My apologies if I misunderstood.

[Kingofmyrrh]

What I normally saw was more an interruption of the cut, as opposed to something integral to the cut. My apologies if I misunderstood.
Sounds like we're in agreement. No problem there!

[DCPan]

Put simply, one of the functions of tenouchi is to further accelerate the kensen by transferring from a circular motion where the centre of motion is at the tsukagashira (left hand little finger) to a circular motion where the centre of motion is midway along the tsuka (between the hands). However, because the shinai as a whole is still travelling downwards, the left hand doesn't actually rise, it just drops more slowly then the right hand.

That makes sense.

I've also seen cases where this is over done though...then you get the "leading with hands then tip flys forward" look, resulting in a visual dip in the middle of the arc.... It's almost like a one-two in this case.

[Kingofmyrrh]

That makes sense.

I've also seen cases where this is over done though...then you get the "leading with hands then tip flys forward" look, resulting in a visual dip in the middle of the arc.... It's almost like a one-two in this case.
I think I understand what you mean, and I agree, that's not something to aim for.

[Charlie]

Ohhhh, I get it. Took me a minute. I've never cut this way myself nor heard cutting described this way by any of the sensei I'm familiar with. Or maybe I've just never heard it put that way before.

Hey, Auricom, are you referring to Kan-sensei of Detroit? Do I know you?

[Auricom22]

I've also seen cases where this is over done though...then you get the "leading with hands then tip flys forward" look, resulting in a visual dip in the middle of the arc.... It's almost like a one-two in this case.

Myrrh,

Yep, that's what I was driving at.


Charlie,
1: Yes, I was referring to Kan-sensei at Detroit.
2: Nope. Well, maybe. Think back to your visits to Detroit over the last year or so. The only short, white guy in bogu. That'd be me.

[Charlie]

The only short, white guy in bogu. That'd be me.

Short white guy... short white guy... Man, I can't place it. Not Mendoza or Zdunksi. I think we may have keiko'd together but never met. Shoot me a PM or e-mail me at charliekondek-at-yahoo-dot-com.

Hey, were you at the Family Tournament last year?? We can take this to private correspondence.

[Charlie]

Lookit this pic, from the 8th dan championships.

http://uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/junaidandhana/detail?.dir=756b&.dnm=61a8.jpg&.src=ph

[JBouch]

I figured I'd add my two cents to these questions.

Charlie, when you're asking about the upward swing, there are really two ways to do it, and both are used in specific instances. The suburi swing you brought the pic up of refers to a warmup suburi swing. The goal of that extended swing is to get you warmed up and limber, and is different from a big men. The primary difference lies in the area you pointed out, at around the 4th stage; besides the straightening of the left arm (which would not happen so much in a regular big swing), this practice suburi extends you beyond where your shoulders can easily rotate to. That's why you'll notice that, after the 4th frame, the guy's right arm in particular bends to bring the shinai further back, along with his left wrist. Most senseis will have you stop at around where you achieve a 45 degree angle above your head when performing a big striking suburi (as opposed to the warmup suburi), so that the upswing can remain entirely focused on rotating the shoulders. So, when doing your men, just raise your kamae up above your head from the shoulders, then strike outward. That's what I was always taught.

/Detroit B
//Even though I'm in Kalamazoo
//Inside jokes are great

[Charlie]

DETROIT B! HOLLA!

Right, JB, that's what I'm thinking. I don't think Neil and I are really that far apart and think there's room for a little bend, but I was echoing what Tagawa-sensei and other sensei from Detroit keep saying. As Tagawa puts it: Kamae up, kamae down - arms stay the same all the way up and all the way down.

Interestingly, there was an abstract in the most recent issue of KW that said different kenshi from kyu all the way up to hachidan have slightly personal, individual ways of cutting men. Regretably, it was an abtsract and we don't have full documentation of what it means bu a difference in "objective and subjective" movements in cutting men but to me it reinforces that there are slightly individual ways to cut men and that as long as one doesn't stray too far from orthodox, it's okay.

My two yen - actually, I've probably spent a hundred yen by now...