Behaviour after being hit

[nollaig]

a bit of help would be appreciated on this point. Since I’m not Japanese a question of how to conduct ones self on the dojo floor came up.

One guy from another club has a habit of lashing out some wild strikes when he begins to get frustrated by another fighter. I was on the receiving end of one such badly aimed kote. It mashed my right thumb. I managed to suck up the pain the first time but when he did it again I had to stop. The pain was so bad I dropped to my knees and ripped off my kote to see had he broken my thumb.
Thankfully he hadn’t, all he had done was to drive my thumb nail into the flesh my finger ( I bite my nails and seem to have very strong finger nails!)

What a senior grade said to me afterwards “you shouldn’t be such a wimp when you take a knock in kendo you must keep going no matter what happens”

At the time I was trying to tie my shoe laces without using my right thumb so I told him where to shove his comment.

But the question was he right “suck it up and survive” or f##k this I’m hurt!!?

If I was in Japan what would be the socially correct thing to do?

if thery are any other small hints on social etiquette within the dojo that could be shared around please shout it out load
thanks
Nollaig

[Bleda]

Shiai or jikeiko? If its shiai its a competition and those things happen you should just try to suck it up and keep going. I am not saying if your thumb is shattered or you are in severe pain you shouldn't stop but most matches don't last that long anyways. If its jikeiko then i don't see the problem with stopping the fight if you get hurt. Perhaps dropping to your knees and ripping off the glove was a bit much but nonetheless i see nothing wrong with stopping it. I've personally stopped jikeiko before for injuries and such.

[litige]

When you think your thumb is broken,it's normal you try to see it ASP...

I've always been told that if I don't feel like continuing as to worsen(spl?) my case, to just stop.

[Old Warrior]

I am recently recovered from a BROKEN thumb. I do nito and when I raised the shoto to block a full force cut hit the tip of my thumb that extended under the tsuka. Although I did not know it at the time, it was fractured. The blood was welling up under the nail and the throbbing pain was intense. Now, I've survived kidney stones, a motorcycle crash that destroyed my knee and gall bladder surgery and I can state with certainty that the hit to my thumb hard was enough to stop me dead in my tracks. When I got whacked, I let out a sound of pain and had to stop. While I did not drop to my knees or whine - it hurt plenty.

I would never comment on someone else's reaction to pain. I was stoic because I didn't want to give my opponent the satisfaction of knowing he hurt me - but I still couldn't continue. But it's bad form to think you know how someone else should react to pain.

[Bleda]

Like i said before i mean if the pain is intense that you really can't go on of course you should stop the match but by the same token you really should try to control your reaction to the pain atleast a bit. I've had alot of things broken so i know it hurts terribly but you don't want to over react.

[litige]

always the little things that hurt the most....incarned nail....small toe on a corner.....hammer whack.....the nose.....precious thing cought up in the zipper....Tha COCCCCCYX

Those things stop my breathing quick....Your sempai musn't have experienced the Shinai-on-the-thumb-at-120kmhmore whack. The first reaction you get from seeing those things happening to other people is always the same..."Ouch, That hurts!"

[John W]

I reckon that if you are injured then you should stop.

If you continue to fight you could make the injury worse and who know's? it could get to the point where you may have to give up kendo due to the injury.

So it's hurt pride Vs Giving up kendo.

I know what I would rather choose.

[Neil Gendzwill]

Don't play macho games with your health. If you think you may be hurt, stop and check it out.

[Sepiraph]

a bit of help would be appreciated on this point. Since I’m not Japanese a question of how to conduct ones self on the dojo floor came up.

One guy from another club has a habit of lashing out some wild strikes when he begins to get frustrated by another fighter. I was on the receiving end of one such badly aimed kote.

If someone is hurt during sparring, the injured person should signal the other to stop the sparring.

Another important thing is that someone should teach this guy to do proper strike and not just strike at random body parts. Respect and proper temperance is important in Kendo.

[Shiro]

Another important thing is that someone should teach this guy to do proper strike and not just strike at random body parts. Respect and proper temperance is important in Kendo.

Even if it's a sempai, telling him he shouldn't hit like that is no exaggeration.

Besides, I think that hitting like that and being frustrated is way worse than stopping to check if everything is ok (though I agree you might have overacted a bit, but that would be the spur of the moment, I guess).

[iwatekenshi]

a bit of help would be appreciated on this point. Since I’m not Japanese a question of how to conduct ones self on the dojo floor came up.

One guy from another club has a habit of lashing out some wild strikes when he begins to get frustrated by another fighter. I was on the receiving end of one such badly aimed kote. It mashed my right thumb. I managed to suck up the pain the first time but when he did it again I had to stop. The pain was so bad I dropped to my knees and ripped off my kote to see had he broken my thumb.
Thankfully he hadn’t, all he had done was to drive my thumb nail into the flesh my finger ( I bite my nails and seem to have very strong finger nails!)

What a senior grade said to me afterwards “you shouldn’t be such a wimp when you take a knock in kendo you must keep going no matter what happens”

At the time I was trying to tie my shoe laces without using my right thumb so I told him where to shove his comment.

But the question was he right “suck it up and survive” or f##k this I’m hurt!!?

If I was in Japan what would be the socially correct thing to do?

if thery are any other small hints on social etiquette within the dojo that could be shared around please shout it out load
thanks
Nollaig

Yes and no. You should keep going no matter what happens but what is fundamentally wrong here is that he got frustrated and injured you. The point of keiko is completely missed.

This particular kendoist was from another dojo it seems, therefore a guest. His conduct should be of that standing. Just common sense I think. Would you want that guest to come back and bash more fingers? An apology during keiko would probably be more appropriate rather than you worrying about your own code of conduct. Was there even an apology? In Japan we often apologize gracefully if we made a mistake.

This hard hitter does not have his tenouchi down nor does he know anything about heijoshin. If he became frustrated then he lost the psychological battle in keiko. There, keiko should end and move on. A higher ranking teacher would pick up on this and either say thank you gracefully and move on or go into marathon uchikomi to tire the student out. Out of respect and honor the student would later say thank you and perhaps the teacher might even explain the reasons why he did what he did. The student would then think about that and reassess his keiko.

I think you did nothing wrong, maybe you went a little overboard but still your guest made all the wrong moves for being a guest. If that person nearly managed to bust your thumb then he should go re-evaluate his kendo. If I were your senior I would have taken a better look at your situation and would not have said what your senior said but rather speak words of encouragement.

[KhawMengLee]

Yo wassup Neol!

Haha, haven't seen u since WKC in Scotland. Dude, you're a pretty big lad so if this fella is playing rough I would give him a nice good smack and then tai atari his butt into the wall.

Or I would stop him for a second and point out the valid target areas and say "could you try harder to hit these places accurately?"(maybe he'll get embarrased and start doing proper kendo).

[Niels]

A guy in our dojo can't sit in seiza because of his ankle, dunno exactly what's up with it, anyway you might think that it's a big deal that you cant join in on the sensei ni rei part and what have you not.But our sensei just said

"If you can't do it,don't.We used to be tough,now we're wise"

Okay that was translated from Dutch so it sounds a little less cool in English.

--Niels

[dorkusxmaximus]

don't even practice if you're hurt. you're going to mess it up even more if you do.

[ctan]

I don't think you overreacted at all, personally (just my opinion though). I think it is perfectly natural to be concerned if one gets hurt, and to want to physically inspect the hurt area, assess it's severity, and see if it needs immediate treatment. I wouldn't personally care if someone in your dojo implied that you were "soft" or something. It's *your* body; they can take whatever risks they want with their own. The fact is, you don't do kendo for a living, you have a life outside of kendo, and you don't want to mess up your quality of life too severely. I'd prefer to let them call me a wimp in your situation.

I would, however, have politely signalled to the other kendoka (given that the sensei can't be everywhere and see everything all at once), that I thought he should go a bit easy. I'd also remind him (again politely) that you are *offering* him your body so he can train and get better; in return, he at least has to respect you enough to look out for your well-being. Also, you don't want him hurting your other kendomates, so you should probably check him there and then. The same reasoning applies to practice mates who don't look after their shinai, I think. We do kendo at some level to have fun (at least, I do!), and unsafe practice definitely isn't going to contribute to this, and is, frankly, unnecessary.

Again, just MHO.