New to Kendo. My introduction :D

[Kazekoru]

Well my classes have a ton of people in them [We ARE at the largest Japanese community center outside of Japan, afterall.], but so many people drop out after a few weeks of non-bogu. I'm sure they have their reasons, but I'm still kind of disappointed they don't want to continue.

Also, most of the non-bogu people are below ni-kyu, I'm only roku-kyu myself. Testing comes again in spring. Everyone ni-kyu and above is in the bogu class, or are starting to prepare to move into that class. I heard it's way more intense than non-bogu. (Personally, I can't wait to get into bogu. I like a challenge.)

So yeah, I guess it makes sense that our non-bogu people don't get to learn kata yet.

[ender84567]

(Personally, I can't wait to get into bogu. I like a challenge.)

Good luck, Knowing who practices there, and the stories I heard, you will need it to avoid the kiss of death.

[Kazekoru]

Oh right, forgot to say this :

To the O.P. : Awesome reference to Expendables.
To anyone who hasn't seen it : Go see it. Nao.

[CauseImSmaller]

Oh right, forgot to say this :

To the O.P. : Awesome reference to Expendables.
To anyone who hasn't seen it : Go see it. Nao.

Lol. Ay, someone noticed. Kickass movie lol.

[UnimportantHero]

I'm relatively new to Kendo, been at it for about a week. Love it, and can't wait til next practice.

Hullo! I am pretty much just as new as you. Just started at the end of July, and I have been loving it as well. Practice had to be cancelled today because the YMCA where we train is redoing the floors. So now I am all antsy, not to mention inwardly bemoaning the fact that now my feet will stick to the floors even more.

I have a question as well. Am I the only one who feels awkward when doing a kiai before fumikomi as a beginner?

I feel awkward with kiai when I am facing Maestas Sensei, but not so much when I am just facing empty space and (we have one of those mirror walls) my own reflection.

Nice to meet you!

[rfoxmich]

About Kiai...well one of your former countrymen had a really nice way to put it. There's a lot of hard stuff in kendo. Footwork, grip, suburi, fumikomi, seme..all of that stuff. But there's one easy thing you can do from the very start...and that is be loud. So start with the easy parts of kendo.

[dwez]

We're open to practically day 1 beginners coming to kata, but that's because they go through the kihon-keiko-ho [new ones]. Having a separate kata session allows the beginners two hours of solid tuition, without the distraction of the guys in armour screaming and shouting. There's more time to focus on the posture, footwork, cutting etc. than getting the job done so they can rotate. However, we don't get a huge take up from beginners to come to the session as it's in a different location, but for those that have you can see a marked improvement on a Wednesday night.

We've also started to use the new katas as a full routine in armour. It get's you through most of the wazas and makes you think a bit more about how you're going to achieve kote-suriage-men if you haven't stepped in and offered the kote in the first place. It's really starting to resonate with some aspects of seme we were shown at a grading seminar last year.

[CauseImSmaller]

I feel awkward with kiai when I am facing Maestas Sensei, but not so much when I am just facing empty space and (we have one of those mirror walls) my own reflection.

Nice to meet you!

Nice to meet you too. I think I'd feel less awkward if I had bogu on maybe because I'm really self conscience about shouting in public after being told for 17 years not to do this lol. I think I just need to forget all the everyday stuff while I do mokuso and just focus on Kendo rather than what people walking by the gym might think.

[turboyoshi]

Nice to meet you too. I think I'd feel less awkward if I had bogu on maybe because I'm really self conscience about shouting in public after being told for 17 years not to do this lol. I think I just need to forget all the everyday stuff while I do mokuso and just focus on Kendo rather than what people walking by the gym might think.

Kiai is something you should practice even when at home alone. That might even be the quickest way to get you comfortable with yelling. I'm an extremely self conscious person and it's hard for me to do stuff that might make people look at me so take it from me, if I can get comfortable with it, I believe anyone can. I believe in another thread on this subject, someone mentioned practicing kiai during their daily commute. Well I tried it and even though I felt stupid at first, I forced myself to do it and it did help me get more comfortable with executing kiai so hey, whatever works. If it helps, maybe you should think of the kiai as part of your attack, it is a weapon in itself and must be used properly to make your strike successful.

[Wraith]

...someone mentioned practicing kiai during their daily commute. Well I tried it and even though I felt stupid at first, I forced myself to do it and it did help.....

Ensure you don't do this on a packed tube train during rush hour, unless you want people to think you're mad; then again it might clear a large enough space around you that you might even get a seat!

[UnimportantHero]

I'm really self conscience about shouting in public after being told for 17 years not to do this...

This just now occurred to me. Remember when adults would tell us - when we were all children - to use our inside voices? Well now is our chance to use our outside voices as much as we want! While swinging sticks around! Indoors!

Inner child? Welcome to your sweet, sweet revenge.

XD

[Neil Gendzwill]

Remember when adults would tell us - when we were all children - to use our inside voices?

This is what I tell the kids' class - "now's your chance to yell as loud as you like, and your parents aren't here to tell you no!"

Two helpful drills for kiai:

1. From standing with feet at least shoulder width apart, toes pointed out a bit: raise your shinai over your head, come up onto your toes and breath in. When it gets to the top, your breath should be all the way in. Then swing very big and kiai like pronouncing the letter A (eh if you're Canadian), with the feeling of throwing your shinai away. As you are swinging, drop down into a partial squat, back straight, knees at no more than a 90 degree angle, heels on the floor. Remember to breath all the way in, but don't let much air out on the kiai. After the motion is stopped, release the rest of the air, and breathe in again as you come up for the next one. We call this by the confusing name "kiai exercise". The breathing and the motion and the fact that everyone knows they are doing this for kiai means that usually even beginners make a nice sound.

2. From one end of the dojo, swing men with a step and then follow through across the dojo with footwork, keeping the kiai from the initial men going all the way. Again, breathe in deep at the start but let out as little air as possible as you move across the dojo.

[CauseImSmaller]

Ensure you don't do this on a packed tube train during rush hour, unless you want people to think you're mad; then again it might clear a large enough space around you that you might even get a seat!

LOL! Yeah, I think that's more on the extreme part of the kiai training spectrum :P

This just now occurred to me. Remember when adults would tell us - when we were all children - to use our inside voices? Well now is our chance to use our outside voices as much as we want! While swinging sticks around! Indoors!

Inner child? Welcome to your sweet, sweet revenge.

Haha, I should try to think of it in the way. Having a sore throat for the past few days didn't help though.

When doing fumikomi, one of the older members kiai-ed for like 30 seconds, held his breath or something, striked and slided for a bit after the attack. (I'm not even sure how he did it) Is that really necessary? (the 30 second kiai prior to the fumikomi men strike.

[Kazekoru]

Kiai eventually becomes a part of you. After a while, you hear yelling and you automatically think "KIAI! MORE!!". Personally, when I go to watch my friend's Karate classes, I find their kiai is... Relatively pathetic compared to kendo's. I guess it's the mentality of each individual martial art - kendo is 50% speed, 50% accuracy, >9000% kiai.

Fumikomi hurts at first, but then you just start to get used to it. All of the nerves on my feet are all dead - I can't feel any pain at all anymore. [I had massive blisters at the beginning, now they're armour more than anything.]

[CauseImSmaller]

Kiai eventually becomes a part of you. After a while, you hear yelling and you automatically think "KIAI! MORE!!". Personally, when I go to watch my friend's Karate classes, I find their kiai is... Relatively pathetic compared to kendo's. I guess it's the mentality of each individual martial art - kendo is 50% speed, 50% accuracy, >9000% kiai.

Fumikomi hurts at first, but then you just start to get used to it. All of the nerves on my feet are all dead - I can't feel any pain at all anymore. [I had massive blisters at the beginning, now they're armour more than anything.]

Fumikomi doesn't hurt though. I haven't gotten a single blister on my foot since I've started maybe because I did wrestling/BJJ before and my feet got hardened or something. On the other hand, I got blisters on my hand on the bottom two fingers. I think I maybe gripping the shinai too hard when I swing and even when I'm in kamae.

It's just the long kiai in the beginning that I am taught to do. Just wondering if that was necessary.