Bokushingu
Blessed

Sorry for the delay in the reply, I've been kinda busy lately with working, kendo and holiday travel.

I took a look at your video and you did look very well out there, especially while going against someone with more jodan experience than you. It was also great that you were able to hang in there for the full match since I can only imagine that holding the shinai above your head for so long while moving around and striking just can't be very easy. Unfortunately, I can't offer much advice since my total Jodan experience is about 2 minutes by just randomly paying around with it.

In Italy we have a good jodan player, Walter Pomero (one of the few italian 7th dan) which is quite high and use a stance a little closer than your (but however wider than chudan). Search "pomero kendo" on youtube and you will find something interesting. If i remeber correctly he do part of his 7th dan shinsa ji-geiko in Jodan (and pass!!).
Maybe you can find that video too....

yes, the kote @ the end was . . . . regrettable, hahaha.

Hey Boku,
Thanks for sharing the video with me. You were able to exert good pressure against your opponent, that's great at our level! hahaha, how did you like having your shinai ripped from a maki waza at tzubazeriai distance? I find that there are 2 things we must master when we play jodan, 1)we have to make *(absolutely) sure our left hand swings down the center of our body, 2)fumikomi goin forward. Only then will our opponent fear us ne? hahahaha, i don't know much. i am sure you have much better sensei to teach you this kinda stuff. Good luck!

Feet too wide? I don't know, only you can feel the right distance. All can i say is that many famous jodan player assume a stance wider than that they use in chudan. Chiba sensei or kenjii Shoudai have their feet in a position similar to that you adopted.
I think that the only answer, as every time, is experimentig during practice..

oops I wanted to send that as a PM. Oh well.

It went really well. I played as Mudansha (of course) in the womens division, but I won third place. I was the person that they called (didnt come up cause I was like...uhm, did they actually call my name?). Were there two 3rd places I dont know?

Very cool match btw...

Anyway, I won 1 match... which was really a suprise to me, because in our shiai practices at my dojo, I couldnt even score 1 point. I just got into a different mindset for the shiai, I think. In my first match I scored both points. In the second one, I almost scored a point (and ended up distracting myself lol) anyway I lost to the girl who eventually took 1st place in my division.


The whole thing was totally awesome! It was also my first shiai.

You play jodan? Thats really neat. You know, I never even heard of Jodan until about a few weeks or month ago.

My team match- well I won that one too, but mostly by default because the other person didn't show up. So My team didn't win though. (I played as a subistute on another team, not Ken Zen). So anyway, I played two matches. I LOVE Kendo and Kendo Shiai!!!! I was glued to the matches!

Oh well, a very beautyfull fight!
You land two very nice kote as about 4.00 and 7.50 but maybe they were lacking zanshin....
I also note that your jodan feet stance is large, "Chiba" like i say.
Am I wrong or you used some "tricks" we were discussing a few time ago?
All i can say is: good work!

Hard to tell on youtube, but I thought you were robbed of that point at 7:25!