A difficult goal
One of my personal goals with battodo is to be able to perform what's essentially batto-rokudangiri -- the six-cut rokudangiri pattern with each cut done solely from the draw. This involves four different kinds of cuts -- one downward to the right (migi kesa), four downward to the left (hidari kesa), one upward to the right (migi gyaku kesa), and one horizontal to the right (suihei).
My confidence has grown enough that I can do three of those kinds of cuts, but I haven't tried the one that's carried out most often in this pattern, the batto hidari kesa. It seems tricky to do from the draw, but hopefully, that's all in my head.
If I were, to be honest with myself, I'm partly trying this out of ego, to do something that I don't really see others doing. But I'm also attempting this because the style is, well, battodo, and learning how to cut from the draw from every possible angle seems like a worthwhile goal.
Part of me is afraid that the mechanics I learn along the way will not translate to other things I should learn for battodo. Is this just a game that won't make the rest of my tameshigiri better, won't make my kata any better, won't improve my grasp of battodo and budo?
My hope is, tho, that this all isn't just vanity. At the very least, I'll overcome my fear of doing that batto hidari kesa. Hopefully, my accuracy and angles and first-cut-first-followthrough will get better so I'll cut regular rokudangiri better (man, I really need to get better at that). Maybe I'll learn to generate power better so I use my arms less and my core more. Maybe my technique will get cleaner so I'll need less power. Maybe I'll learn to cut more mindfully and more calmly.
At the end of the day, just learning to cut with more justified confidence in anything is an end in and of itself. So much of tameshigiri is mental, just as is the case with battodo, and budo, and life.
-- Charles Q. Choi
My confidence has grown enough that I can do three of those kinds of cuts, but I haven't tried the one that's carried out most often in this pattern, the batto hidari kesa. It seems tricky to do from the draw, but hopefully, that's all in my head.
If I were, to be honest with myself, I'm partly trying this out of ego, to do something that I don't really see others doing. But I'm also attempting this because the style is, well, battodo, and learning how to cut from the draw from every possible angle seems like a worthwhile goal.
Part of me is afraid that the mechanics I learn along the way will not translate to other things I should learn for battodo. Is this just a game that won't make the rest of my tameshigiri better, won't make my kata any better, won't improve my grasp of battodo and budo?
My hope is, tho, that this all isn't just vanity. At the very least, I'll overcome my fear of doing that batto hidari kesa. Hopefully, my accuracy and angles and first-cut-first-followthrough will get better so I'll cut regular rokudangiri better (man, I really need to get better at that). Maybe I'll learn to generate power better so I use my arms less and my core more. Maybe my technique will get cleaner so I'll need less power. Maybe I'll learn to cut more mindfully and more calmly.
At the end of the day, just learning to cut with more justified confidence in anything is an end in and of itself. So much of tameshigiri is mental, just as is the case with battodo, and budo, and life.
-- Charles Q. Choi
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