Moukusou

[Tetsu]

As far as I read,Mokusou in kendo is sitting in seiza,emty your mind and breathing properly.Talking about breathing properly,the manual say that we breath in by 3sec through nose,using our abs and hold the air in seika tanden for 2s,then release it through mouth for 10-15s.

I don't really get the part "breathin by using abs",are we going to sink our abs or enlarge it ? I ask my sensei and he say I shouldn't focus too much in that instead of empty my mind,just breath in by nose and out by mouth steadily.

Can someone explain this to me,please ?


P/s : I have another small question to ask : If a senior from another dojo come to practice at our dojo,where he should sit ?

[rfoxmich]

" I ask my sensei and he say I shouldn't focus too much in that instead of of empty my mind,just breath in by nose and out by mouth steadily"

I think that's pretty clear. Mokuso is not a formula it's a state of being. When you try to reduce it to a formula you're not doing it. Just breath and stop thinking. If you start to think, and you will acknowledge the thought and send it away...along with whatever stupid manual you have that makes you use a stopwatch to time your breaths.

As far as breathing with abs.. enlarge to inhale allow to naturally fall inwards to exhale.

[Hisham]

I was thought to breath in and out through the nose, exhaling should be slower than inhaling.

[hl1978]

Now, while this is a big part of the practice, i'd wouldn't focus much on the meditative aspects, in part because we do it for a very short period of time in kendo, and probably too litle to gain much benefit. One is probably better off spending more time on that outside of class.


Figure out how to "pull" with the muscles just on the outside of the kidneys when you inhale. You sort of push down with the front abs at the same time. You will find you get a much larger inhalation. When you exhale, more violently pull down, but you don't pull with the abs, its more with the crotch, hip, and inner thigh.

Now why is that important... Well asides from learning how to power you cut with breath which I might add is exceedingly strong/fast if you can do it, something which I have seen very few ZNKR affiliated people do, even hachidan (this sort of knowledge seems to be forgotten by and large in gendai budo probably due to the pedagogical model), at the very least it will allow you to preform more hits in kirikaeshi or uchikomi without breathing. If you can really work on it, you will figure out, "hey i don't time my breath with my cuts" Rather, "my breath initiates, raises the arms and drives the arms down".

[krys]

If a senior from another dojo come to practice at our dojo,where he should sit ?

Another dojo or not, he is your senior so he should sit where would your senior sit - before you. Unless you are the one leading the class.

[jjcruiser]

Another dojo or not, he is your senior so he should sit where would your senior sit - before you. Unless you are the one leading the class.

I think there has been some discussion about this on here in the past and there might be a consensus but it's not always the same. I've been in dojos where the visitor always sits at the end past the beginners. Sometimes this seems to depend on the particular visitor -- for example I usually start trying to go there but then someone asks what rank you are and you end up being moved down. I think it makes sense to ask your sensei when you are not the visitor, and to ask others when you are the visitor, and do what you are told.

(FWIW, in our dojo when visitors come they line up integrated by rank, and this is true even if lower ranked "home dojo members" are leading practice. I've in fact ended up leading practice with a few people sitting "ahead of me" just because they aren't from our dojo. So I think a lot of these rules vary by dojo practice.)

[JSchmidt]

Another dojo or not, he is your senior so he should sit where would your senior sit - before you. Unless you are the one leading the class.

As a visitor, unless explicitly invited to sit else where, I'll always sit at the lower end.

[Halcyon]

As a visitor, unless explicitly invited to sit else where, I'll always sit at the lower end.

Same here.

[Lloromannic]

I think the most common one I've seen is; the senior visiting person will try to sit at the lowest end possible while the people from the home dojo will try to make him sit at the highest possible, there is a bit of awkward polite shuffling and then the visitor ends up taking a spot at the higher end. Exceptions are when someone obviously will sit at the sensei side, then there is still an invitation to sit there and it is taken.

[krys]

As a visitor, unless explicitly invited to sit else where, I'll always sit at the lower end.

The question was where senior visitor should sit, not where he would 'start taking his place' out of courtesy. The same courtesy requires the local person to move the visitor to his/her proper place. And the proper place would be the one in accord with rank.

[Halcyon]

The question was where senior visitor should sit, not where he would 'start taking his place' out of courtesy. The same courtesy requires the local person to move the visitor to his/her proper place. And the proper place would be the one in accord with rank.

A senior visitor should sit where the sensei invites him to sit.

[krys]

A senior visitor should sit where the sensei invites him to sit.

And if there is no sensei present?
The original poster probably has this kind of situation hence the question.

[JSchmidt]

The question was where senior visitor should sit, not where he would 'start taking his place' out of courtesy. The same courtesy requires the local person to move the visitor to his/her proper place. And the proper place would be the one in accord with rank.

Define 'senior'? If it's a kodansha, then you ask them to sit in front. If it's a regular visitor, usually the 'regulars' will invite the person to sit according to rank. If not, then at the end of the line is perfectly acceptable.

[rfoxmich]

That's for your sensei and dojo tradition to determine. It varies.

P/s : I have another small question to ask : If a senior from another dojo come to practice at our dojo,where he should sit ?

[Hisham]

A yondan kenshi from the US (he's a moroccan/american) will be visiting us soon, it's just normal for me to step down (i didn't grade beyond second kyu) as the study group leader and let him take over the training while he's with us, my question is should i just get back to sitting with my fellow dojo mates as it was the case when we had our own sensei or sit at his right? For the record, the second option doesn't feel right to me, anyway thanks for the feedback.