tai-a-tari?

[kendogrl]

Am I the only girl with this problem? When doing tai-a-tari with a male, I find it really hard. Im glad the males aren't going easy on me but I end up being pushed all the way across the floor and I can't even push back due to strength differences. And I find if I do they can practically knock me on my back because of there force. And If I try to push away from them fast and hit a men they still run me over im not strong enough to push them or nudge them because their still charging and holding their weight against me.

So I have a question,
Open to male or female advice, when doing tai-a-tari with a man what ways are there, that can get me out of that position? Is there anything I can do with my shinai or something?

[kendogrl]

Am I the only girl with this problem? When doing tai-a-tari with a male, I find it really hard. Im glad the males aren't going easy on me but I end up being pushed all the way across the floor and I can't even push back due to strength differences. And I find if I do they can practically knock me on my back because of there force. And If I try to push away from them fast and hit a men they still run me over im not strong enough to push them or nudge them because their still charging and holding their weight against me.

So I have a question,
Open to male or female advice, when doing tai-a-tari with a man what ways are there, that can get me out of that position? Is there anything I can do with my shinai or something?

Well not tai-a-tari but tsubazeriai when we lock the tsuba's. My mistake.

[Anonymous]

One of my friends had the same problem, basically I told her that if I start to push her around all she really has to do is move to the side a little so I can't just plow straight into her.

[kendogrl]

One of my friends had the same problem, basically I told her that if I start to push her around all she really has to do is move to the side a little so I can't just plow straight into her.

Sometimes that becomes really hard if your shinais are hooked, or putting pressure against eachother. It makes it harder to slide off to the side.

[Anonymous]

Sometimes that becomes really hard if your shinais are hooked, or putting pressure against eachother. It makes it harder to slide off to the side.

Kendo isn't Judo, its quite easy to do that when the other guy isn't grabbing anything.

[Josh Reyer]

Hard as it may be to believe, you have the advantage. Your center of gravity is lower, and you have the better angle. Hold your ground by putting strength into your abs and lower back muscles. Maintain strength in your neck so you don't get bent back. Keep your shoulders and arms relaxed; don't try to match him strength for strength. Rather, just maintain enough strength so that you don't collapse your structure. When pushing back. push up; you'll have your whole body supporting your push up, and he'll only have his shoulder and upper body strength for pushing down. Raise his center of gravity and have your way with him.

[JSchmidt]

Hard as it may be to believe, you have the advantage. Your center of gravity is lower, and you have the better angle. Hold your ground by putting strength into your abs and lower back muscles. Maintain strength in your neck so you don't get bent back. Keep your shoulders and arms relaxed; don't try to match him strength for strength. Rather, just maintain enough strength so that you don't collapse your structure. When pushing back. push up; you'll have your whole body supporting your push up, and he'll only have his shoulder and upper body strength for pushing down. Raise his center of gravity and have your way with him.

Sorry, that simply doesn't work. Big guy vs small girl (who tries to stand her ground as you describe) = Small girl gets hurt.

You have to learn to absorb part of it and use the rest to 'bounce' back.

[Kagerou]

Sorry, that simply doesn't work. Big guy vs small girl (who tries to stand her ground as you describe) = Small girl gets hurt.

You have to learn to absorb part of it and use the rest to 'bounce' back.

All other things being equal a lower center of gravity prevails. However, all other things never are equal so in most cases this is true.

Just to continue, after you bounce hiki-men/do/kote the guy. Or avoid tsubzeriai by doing mawari techniques (very common to see in my neck of the woods)

[Josh Reyer]

Sorry, that simply doesn't work.

No need to apologize, I'm the one getting shoved around by little old men 5 inches shorter and 20 pounds lighter than me.

In the interest of clarity, though, I wasn't recommending she get into a shoving match (specifically why I said "don't match strength for strength"), but rather suggesting a way to maintain structure so she isn't physically dominated. (Also, note that despite the thread subject, the problem in question really concerns tsuba-zeriai, not tai-atari. What I wrote was not meant to be a method of dealing with tai-atari.)

[Tsunemori]

Im glad the males aren't going easy on me but I end up being pushed all the way across the floor and I can't even push back due to strength differences. And I find if I do they can practically knock me on my back because of there force.

While people do push around in shiai, I've always been told that it's bad Kendo to push around too much. Some pressure is necessary, but when you receive enough to get pushed back and even knocked down, I think that's just excessive force.

You should probably ask them to calm down a bit, or maybe ask your teacher for advice on how to deal with this. One of my teachers/instructors/senpai is a big bulky guy, and if he wants to he can knock everyone to their ass any day, but no one's going to learn anything that way. We have 8-12 year old girls in our dojo, and it's only common sense to hold back so they don't get hurt.

[LarsCW]

2 years ago while helping out the dojo with the Fu Metsu cup there was someone pushing everybody around with tai-a-tari.

There was one of the ladies who used this to her advantage being lighter and faster on her feet.

She joined in the pushing, stepping out as he did some sort of charge taking him of balance making him step out.

Basicly his aim was pushing people out, very bad kendo.

You should have heard my sensei afterwards when everybody was gone and we had everything cleaned up.

He always teaches us it's better to lose doing good kendo then win doing bad kendo.

BTW, she won, in such kicking him out of the cup

[kendogrl]

While people do push around in shiai, I've always been told that it's bad Kendo to push around too much. Some pressure is necessary, but when you receive enough to get pushed back and even knocked down, I think that's just excessive force.

You should probably ask them to calm down a bit, or maybe ask your teacher for advice on how to deal with this. One of my teachers/instructors/senpai is a big bulky guy, and if he wants to he can knock everyone to their ass any day, but no one's going to learn anything that way. We have 8-12 year old girls in our dojo, and it's only common sense to hold back so they don't get hurt.

Talking to the sensei won't do much, as I'm more referring to matches. I'm not in control of the other guy, nor how he or his team train. Which I've come to find there are a lot of guys who don't care who you are, they will try and plow you with brute force. Which is mostly the younger guys who want to use strength and in turn bad kendo. Most of the other guys can match them back by pushing or shoving them away. Me not so much.

But I will definately have to try practicing sliding off to the side more. Is there any other ways out of that?

[turboyoshi]

But I will definately have to try practicing sliding off to the side more. Is there any other ways out of that?

Hmm, couple more ideas: use the force directed at you to bounce backwards out of range. You can pretty much expect them to take a hiki men attempt here but it's generally easy to deflect it enough so it won't score, although a better response is hiki kote if you can get the timing down.

If the other guy is already on you and keeping the pressure pretty constant, then, in a quick explosive movement, press forward throwing all the weight onto your right foot just like you would fumikomi and then use that energy to drive yourself backwards out of range. You must not spend any time preparing for this though, they'll see it coming. Explode. Your lightness and speed are an advantage here.

As Neil suggested earlier, don't allow them to keep you in tsubazerai. I have a little rule with myself not to stay in that position for longer than a couple seconds. Everyone else is more experienced than I and most of them are heavier and/or taller. If I don't take advantage during the initial contact, then I've lost my opportunity and I need to get away.

One other option, when you see them coming in, close in and then without stopping, go off at an angle just like you would as if you were using a doh strike. Don't even let them stick you in tsubazerai in the first place.

Practice practice practice footwork.

sean

[kendogrl]

If the other guy is already on you and keeping the pressure pretty constant, then, in a quick explosive movement, press forward throwing all the weight onto your right foot just like you would fumikomi and then use that energy to drive yourself backwards out of range. You must not spend any time preparing for this though, they'll see it coming. Explode. Your lightness and speed are an advantage here.

Im not quite catching on to this, how can I use the forward weight to drive myself back?

[turboyoshi]

Im not quite catching on to this, how can I use the forward weight to drive myself back?

Hmm, well this is hard to explain but I'll try. It's kind of like 2 billiard balls colliding (assuming you've ever played pool.) When high level pool players break, the cue ball goes smashing straight into the rack and then bounces back a little bit. You want to be a bit like that cue ball. You exert a force forward, some of which will be absorbed by your opponent, the rest which you use to bounce back.

The right foot gets driven into the ground on the forward push and then as you lose all forward momentum, spring back, starting with the left foot and then driving with the right foot. It's the reverse of fumikomi. Practice against a weight bag or wall or something, and I think you will begin to see how the energy should flow.

All of these options require practice before you'll understand the timing and kinesthetics, but at least you have more choices in your toolbox now.

sean