Kendo II - First Practice

   My first practice! I showed up in sports shorts and a t-shirt; I don't really have much in the way of sportswear, but I figured that it would be okay. I was still incredibly intimidated by joining a bunch of kids, but I swear, I'm just a kid inside, too.

   They're all nice kids; three or four of them are actually brothers. There are usually eight or nine people at practice; enough to make for a fun game of handball!

   Apparently one of the pre-practice traditions to warm up is to play handball with a knotted, wet towel. The kids all show up in hakama and keikogi, ready to go, so once enough kids show up, they start splitting into teams. Of course, everyone wanted me on their team since I'm a gigantic adult.

   It was a lot of fun and helped me loosen up. After we played handball for a bit, we all went out to the sink to get more washcloths and wipe the floor. If you've seen Japanese movies or anime with people bent over, running as they press a towel against the floor, you know what we do.

   Sensei paid special attention to me that day in the beginning since it was my first day. He introduced me, told them I was from America, then practice began.

   I was glad I'd had experience in aikido; I knew what to expect in the beginning, with lining up and bowing. If I hadn't had that experience, I probably would have been completely lost!

   From there, sensei found me a shinai that had belonged to a student who had since left; probably an older one, since it was just the right size for me. He showed me the parts of the shinai before moving on to the grip and stance. A shinai is a special practice sword used for kendo; it's made from four bamboo slats carefully fitted together and bound with deerhide.

   The grip is interesting; the left hand grips the bottom of the tsuka, or hilt. The fingers of the left hand grip with decreasing power from the pinkie up; the grip is supposed to be strongest with the pinkie and ring finger, but zero with the thumb and index finger. The right hand grips the tsuka just below the tsuba or crossguard. The right hand's power is supposed to be almost zero as well.

   Another important point is the direction of the palms; rather than facing up or directly toward each other as you might expect, they should be on top of the tsuka, facing downward. Sensei explained and demonstrated that this grip allows you to use more of the body's power.

   As for the stance, both feet should be facing straight forward, with the left foot slightly back and the heel raised. I found that pretty hard to do while keeping my balance!

   Initially, because of practice in aikido, I kept pulling my shinai back so far that it would hang down over my back; I'd been told that that was to protect against strikes from behind. When striking in kendo, the shinai doesn't go back that far at all!

   We spent a lot of the time with me practicing men (head) strikes. I was thrilled at how much fun it was, even as I found myself becoming sore.

   Another thing that I learned was how to sit properly in seiza. Again, previous experience in aikido was detrimental; I had been taught not to sit with my big toes overlapping, but that's the correct way to sit in kendo. I had trouble remembering that I had to sit/rise with specific legs sometimes, so sensei taught me a mnemonic: 左座右起 (さざうき, sazauki), which means left-sit-right-move. When sitting in seiza, the left leg goes down first; when rising, the right leg comes up first.

   My biggest problems that he pointed out were that I needed to make sure my feet were pointed forward, that my shinai, when in guard position, pointed at the opponent's throat, and that I kept my shoulders relaxed when striking.

   All in all, it was incredible. Everything I'd been hoping for since I was a child, and more.