12/14/09 class – On suburi, nukitsuke, and gekken
Since this is my first post, I’ll mention a little about myself to give you an idea of what level of insight my comments are coming from- I started toyama about a yr ago w/ no prior martial arts experience, save several years of modern olympic-sport foil and epee fencing derived from the European schools of swordsmanship. I’ve been practicing about 1/wk w/ the occasional month or so hiatus to focus on med school and just passed sei zan kai san kyu testing.
Today’s class started w/ suburi as usual, which we then repeated in front of a mirror to emphasize kihon like blade position before and after the cut. These and other important details tend to get lost as we get used to doing suburi every practice and take it for granted as if it were some friggin high school gym class warm-up (our own warm-ups for practice tend to be underappreciated for the same reason and therefore we sometimes do them w/ weights in our hands to remind us of the tip speed we should be trying to generate w/ every rep). In particular, we put too emphasis on creating a loud hasuji (or tachikaze, I was never sure if the term for cutting arc/angle could be used to refer to the sound it made as well) instead of a proper one. Our first couple reps might have good form, but soon we’d be dropping our kissaki too low before the start of a cut, ending the cut too low, or not throwing the kissaki out early enough, and as long as our cut made a sound (even if it wasn’t at the right spot) we’d be fooling ourselves into thinking it was a proper cut. Also for kesa, our blade might stray from the center, telegraphing our cut before it started. These kinda flaws may seem obvious when practicing kata, but in the haste and rhythm of suburi it’s easy to miss, thus reinforcing bad habits.
Nukitsuke: Vincent already has a solid post on this, so I’ll just mention my own learning points
1) Jo-ha-kyu- What little medical education that I was awake for and retained regarding response to visually perceived movements only reinforced what sensei taught regarding large/quick vs. minimal/gradual motions. Due to the inefficiencies of my motions I didn’t notice a significant difference in the speed of my nukitsuke, but at the same time trying to implement jo-ha-kyu instead of fast and rushed certainly didn’t result in a slower draw. And going up against senpai I definitely noticed that they had quicker, cleaner draw after the lesson. This also applied to attacking and parrying during contact drills w/ bokken and during gekken, though the pressure and franticness quickly made me forget the lesson over sloppily charging in for the kill, which almost always ended in my death or ai-uchi (I’m sure that’s misspelled, someone plz correct me). I knew to incorporate jo-ha-kyu into my kata, but didn’t realize its real-world potential until this class.
2) Sayabiki!!! This has always been a weak point of mine, and while it’s often in the back of my head during nukitsuke, I don’t think my timing or the extent of my sayabiki has ever been good enough to actually help get the blade out sooner, at the least certainly nowhere near as effective as it can be. I’m not sure if it’d be of more benefit to practice this by going very slow to get the right timing down or to just practice at a relatively fast pace and gradually move towards what naturally felt like was helping my blade come out faster. Also I noticed my crrrrrrrrrRRRRRRRRRSSSSHHHHHKKKKK saya noise is especially noticeable during a simple quick draw to seigan or a slightly different one to spit out a kesa, probably b/c none of the kata I know really have a nukitsuke like that (I think there’s one in the chuden seitei set, but from the ones I know it’s probably closest to toyama nanahon me).
3) The opposite of pressure- When doing kata we’re always expected to have zanshin and resonate a ki that pretty much says “I will destroy you, you’ve already lost”, but when trying to out-draw your opponent, you want to lower their guard and reaction speed by giving the impression that you’re not ready/about to draw. To that extent, in addition to jo-ha-kyu, sensei said tactics like relaxing your shoulders and holding your breath work well. These certainly make sense, but I’ll need more practice to see their benefit in vivo.
Gekken: Just my own learning points.
1) Clear their blade/parry-riposte- You’d think I’d remember that enough from fencing, but no, I over-commit to attacking/counterattacking before I’ve cleared their center or before I’ve safely ended their attack, partially b/c I’m not mentally ready go to step-by-step when a blade is coming my way. When sensei reminds me and slows it down, I do it and it works.
2) Balance- Still debating how much active effort I should put in to correcting my back leg (a fencing remnant, even though I was lefty it just feels more natural to have my back leg narrower and more perpendicular than parallel, but it’s gradually improving passively w/ every class), but that aside, my over-committing and poor balance in general lead to a wobbly defeat, and if not, I still miss out on counterattacks when my opponent misses or loses form.
3) Retreat less- I should stand my ground even if I’m not ready to parry the attack, the practice of being in range will eventually train me to be ready to parry.
4) Jo-ha-kyu- As mentioned before it was hard to keep this in mind, despite seeing how well it worked during nukitsuke and contact drills. Need to work on my zanshin, ki, etc.
Last, a note on class a week or two back where we practiced tameshigiri w/ nukitsuke: I’ve been told the phrase “do kata like you’re cutting and cut like you’re doing kata” ad nauseum. That being said, I think very few of us can actually say we have this down. I wasn’t expecting to get through the mat (not that I had any mindset but victory when I came up to cut), but I was surprised how much I compromised my form in the hopes of somehow pulling out more energy to muscle through, when I know by now that good form is your best means of cutting through. I practiced the nukitsuke from Toyama ippon me and nihon me plenty for san kyu testing just recently, and even if it was never enough to cut through tatami, here I was already screwing it up and only getting worse results for my efforts. Surprisingly the closest I came to getting through was on a suihei, different than nihon mae in that I was starting facing the enemy, though I’m still generating tip speed too late and not squaring my shoulders, but I was expecting the nukitsuke from ippon me to have been easier since my hips would be more into it, also considering I’d have two steps to draw it out, and since I usually have the least trouble getting through the mat w/ regular gyaku kesa from waki no kamae. Ending on a high note, my kihongiri in general is getting more consistent, the spacing of my cuts not quite there for rokudan giri.
-Neil
Today’s class started w/ suburi as usual, which we then repeated in front of a mirror to emphasize kihon like blade position before and after the cut. These and other important details tend to get lost as we get used to doing suburi every practice and take it for granted as if it were some friggin high school gym class warm-up (our own warm-ups for practice tend to be underappreciated for the same reason and therefore we sometimes do them w/ weights in our hands to remind us of the tip speed we should be trying to generate w/ every rep). In particular, we put too emphasis on creating a loud hasuji (or tachikaze, I was never sure if the term for cutting arc/angle could be used to refer to the sound it made as well) instead of a proper one. Our first couple reps might have good form, but soon we’d be dropping our kissaki too low before the start of a cut, ending the cut too low, or not throwing the kissaki out early enough, and as long as our cut made a sound (even if it wasn’t at the right spot) we’d be fooling ourselves into thinking it was a proper cut. Also for kesa, our blade might stray from the center, telegraphing our cut before it started. These kinda flaws may seem obvious when practicing kata, but in the haste and rhythm of suburi it’s easy to miss, thus reinforcing bad habits.
Nukitsuke: Vincent already has a solid post on this, so I’ll just mention my own learning points
1) Jo-ha-kyu- What little medical education that I was awake for and retained regarding response to visually perceived movements only reinforced what sensei taught regarding large/quick vs. minimal/gradual motions. Due to the inefficiencies of my motions I didn’t notice a significant difference in the speed of my nukitsuke, but at the same time trying to implement jo-ha-kyu instead of fast and rushed certainly didn’t result in a slower draw. And going up against senpai I definitely noticed that they had quicker, cleaner draw after the lesson. This also applied to attacking and parrying during contact drills w/ bokken and during gekken, though the pressure and franticness quickly made me forget the lesson over sloppily charging in for the kill, which almost always ended in my death or ai-uchi (I’m sure that’s misspelled, someone plz correct me). I knew to incorporate jo-ha-kyu into my kata, but didn’t realize its real-world potential until this class.
2) Sayabiki!!! This has always been a weak point of mine, and while it’s often in the back of my head during nukitsuke, I don’t think my timing or the extent of my sayabiki has ever been good enough to actually help get the blade out sooner, at the least certainly nowhere near as effective as it can be. I’m not sure if it’d be of more benefit to practice this by going very slow to get the right timing down or to just practice at a relatively fast pace and gradually move towards what naturally felt like was helping my blade come out faster. Also I noticed my crrrrrrrrrRRRRRRRRRSSSSHHHHHKKKKK saya noise is especially noticeable during a simple quick draw to seigan or a slightly different one to spit out a kesa, probably b/c none of the kata I know really have a nukitsuke like that (I think there’s one in the chuden seitei set, but from the ones I know it’s probably closest to toyama nanahon me).
3) The opposite of pressure- When doing kata we’re always expected to have zanshin and resonate a ki that pretty much says “I will destroy you, you’ve already lost”, but when trying to out-draw your opponent, you want to lower their guard and reaction speed by giving the impression that you’re not ready/about to draw. To that extent, in addition to jo-ha-kyu, sensei said tactics like relaxing your shoulders and holding your breath work well. These certainly make sense, but I’ll need more practice to see their benefit in vivo.
Gekken: Just my own learning points.
1) Clear their blade/parry-riposte- You’d think I’d remember that enough from fencing, but no, I over-commit to attacking/counterattacking before I’ve cleared their center or before I’ve safely ended their attack, partially b/c I’m not mentally ready go to step-by-step when a blade is coming my way. When sensei reminds me and slows it down, I do it and it works.
2) Balance- Still debating how much active effort I should put in to correcting my back leg (a fencing remnant, even though I was lefty it just feels more natural to have my back leg narrower and more perpendicular than parallel, but it’s gradually improving passively w/ every class), but that aside, my over-committing and poor balance in general lead to a wobbly defeat, and if not, I still miss out on counterattacks when my opponent misses or loses form.
3) Retreat less- I should stand my ground even if I’m not ready to parry the attack, the practice of being in range will eventually train me to be ready to parry.
4) Jo-ha-kyu- As mentioned before it was hard to keep this in mind, despite seeing how well it worked during nukitsuke and contact drills. Need to work on my zanshin, ki, etc.
Last, a note on class a week or two back where we practiced tameshigiri w/ nukitsuke: I’ve been told the phrase “do kata like you’re cutting and cut like you’re doing kata” ad nauseum. That being said, I think very few of us can actually say we have this down. I wasn’t expecting to get through the mat (not that I had any mindset but victory when I came up to cut), but I was surprised how much I compromised my form in the hopes of somehow pulling out more energy to muscle through, when I know by now that good form is your best means of cutting through. I practiced the nukitsuke from Toyama ippon me and nihon me plenty for san kyu testing just recently, and even if it was never enough to cut through tatami, here I was already screwing it up and only getting worse results for my efforts. Surprisingly the closest I came to getting through was on a suihei, different than nihon mae in that I was starting facing the enemy, though I’m still generating tip speed too late and not squaring my shoulders, but I was expecting the nukitsuke from ippon me to have been easier since my hips would be more into it, also considering I’d have two steps to draw it out, and since I usually have the least trouble getting through the mat w/ regular gyaku kesa from waki no kamae. Ending on a high note, my kihongiri in general is getting more consistent, the spacing of my cuts not quite there for rokudan giri.
-Neil
Comments