2008/10/09 -- First Practice
2008/10/16 -- Hakama and Keikogi
2008/11/15 -- Bogu
2009/02/11 -- 1-kyuu Shinsa (Passed)
2009/09/06 -- 1-dan Shinsa (Passed)
Monday, September 7, 2009
Shodan (1-dan) Shinsa
I had my shodan (1-dan) shinsa the other day at the city gym, which was the same place I had my 1-kyuu shinsa at. The city gym has a fairly large dojo for kendo, which was good, because there were a TON of people there this time.
This shinsa was only for 1- and 2-dan grading, but there was quite a crowd nonetheless. There were probably almost three times as many people trying for 1-dan than 2-dan. The people trying for 1-dan were largely second-year junior high students, but there were also a few late beginners from high school and five or six adults (four of us being men).
Since I couldn't find a ride, I biked to the gym -- it was about five kilometers. Since I had my shinai/bogu with me, it took a little longer than it normally would have. I arrived before registration, but well after a lot of other people, it seemed. Sensei saw me and took me to a corner in front of the emergency exit to change, since the locker room was filled with bags from everyone else who'd arrived a lot earlier than I did.
There was a bit of registration panic because I didn't have everything on my form filled out that I should have, despite having checked with sensei earlier this week about it. Oops. So he filled those places out for me (with amazing handwriting), then we ran into a second bump... Registration was 12,300 yen, I brought 13,000 yen because I didn't want coins falling out of my pocket while I biked or something. Well, apparently they wanted exact change... so sensei ended up fishing out some coins. I felt really bad.
I was actually quite nervous on the spot; a lot of it was procedural nervousness. Not only is my Japanese listening comprehension not that great, but the dojo also had absolutely terrible acoustics, with quite a bit of echo. I stuck with two students from my junior high who'd come and relied on them a bit to tell me what was going on.
The first half of the day was kata practice. I found the girl I'd practiced with for the 1-kyuu shinsa, so we practiced together this time as well. The 1-kyuu shinsa required kata 1-3, this one required 1-5. I technically know 1-7, but it was nice to have the refresher. The hardest parts of the kata practice were when we were forced to stay in sonkyo or jodan while the sensei walked around talking and checking people. My arms were definitely sore after the jodan bit!
It was also hard to tell who was supposed to lead, since the words (uchidachi and shidachi) tend to sound about the same to me with the echo. Again, I ended up relying on the two junior high students I knew.
After the kata practice wrapped up, we split up into our respective groups (guys and girls testing for 1-dan, then all of the 2-dan people together) to get our numbers. This was a fairly tedious process; there were four adult men, and I was number 1. I'd really hoped someone ELSE would be number 1 so that I'd be able to watch the procedure, but it worked out okay.
We had a 50-minute break for lunch; I ate some meat and rice, then went back to get my armor on and prepare all of the cords so that I could put the men on quickly when it was my turn. It turned out not to matter since I was going after all of the junior high kids, all 76 of them. I had a lot of time to sit and watch; I watched how they did kendo and I watched the judging panel's expressions to see how my thoughts matched up with theirs. I noticed that the judges weren't at all shy about laughing; I wasn't sure if this was because someone made a joke, or because someone's kendo was just that bad. Sometimes it happens.
There were quite a few times when the process stopped so that the judges could explain the correct way to do something to a hapless kenshi who had the misfortune to do it completely wrong. I have a feeling those people didn't pass.
One of the major problems was that in uchikaeshi, people were doing massive side-to-side swings rather than angled up-and-down swings. I guess the need for speed and nervousness really got to a lot of people. Kiai and kakegoe often seemed weak or like they were used as an afterthought -- especially in uchikaeshi.
I have to admit, I had an underlying nervousness throughout the entire process because of the idea of the written exam. My keiko and uchikaeshi portions flew by (30 seconds for each, two bouts of keiko) and before I knew it, we were doing kata. All of the kata went fine up til the end (I was uchidachi) when my partner messed up really, really badly and I found myself kind of clueless about what to do and kind of stood there. They had us redo it and it went fine.
After the kata portion, they announced the people who had passed so far and told all of us to get our stuff for the written exam. We all sat down and they passed out large, blank sheets of B4 paper for the written exam. The sensei went out of their way to help me, knowing that as an American, my Japanese isn't anywhere near perfect. The sensei in charge read the three questions in Japanese; my sensei wrote them down in Japanese and gave me the paper, then another sensei came by to read them out loud and make sure I understood them. I was very, very grateful for everything they did to make it easier for me.
I wrote and wrote; my handwriting isn't that great and I really didn't care, since I wanted to make sure I got out everything I could in the time allotted. I filled an entire large sheet of B4 paper and rushed up to the panel. It turned out that I had plenty of time left, about 5-10 minutes, actually... but time seems to pass faster when you don't have a clock and you're writing in a foreign language.
There were five people on the panel checking papers; I went straight for my sensei since I figured he's used to "my kind" of Japanese. He read it over, hmm'd approvingly a few times, and laughed at how much I wrote -- he even passed it to the other judges so they could laugh, too. I looked at the junior high kids' papers and a lot of them hadn't even written half of what I had. Oops.
I don't think anyone actually failed the written portion.
After that, we all finished up, said our thanks, cleaned, and went home.
I still feel sore the day after -- sitting on a hard, wooden floor the entire day while trying to keep my back straight didn't do my lower back any favors. My foot hurts where a callus peeled off, too. But I'm 1-dan!
Here's to 2-dan in a year!
This shinsa was only for 1- and 2-dan grading, but there was quite a crowd nonetheless. There were probably almost three times as many people trying for 1-dan than 2-dan. The people trying for 1-dan were largely second-year junior high students, but there were also a few late beginners from high school and five or six adults (four of us being men).
Since I couldn't find a ride, I biked to the gym -- it was about five kilometers. Since I had my shinai/bogu with me, it took a little longer than it normally would have. I arrived before registration, but well after a lot of other people, it seemed. Sensei saw me and took me to a corner in front of the emergency exit to change, since the locker room was filled with bags from everyone else who'd arrived a lot earlier than I did.
There was a bit of registration panic because I didn't have everything on my form filled out that I should have, despite having checked with sensei earlier this week about it. Oops. So he filled those places out for me (with amazing handwriting), then we ran into a second bump... Registration was 12,300 yen, I brought 13,000 yen because I didn't want coins falling out of my pocket while I biked or something. Well, apparently they wanted exact change... so sensei ended up fishing out some coins. I felt really bad.
I was actually quite nervous on the spot; a lot of it was procedural nervousness. Not only is my Japanese listening comprehension not that great, but the dojo also had absolutely terrible acoustics, with quite a bit of echo. I stuck with two students from my junior high who'd come and relied on them a bit to tell me what was going on.
The first half of the day was kata practice. I found the girl I'd practiced with for the 1-kyuu shinsa, so we practiced together this time as well. The 1-kyuu shinsa required kata 1-3, this one required 1-5. I technically know 1-7, but it was nice to have the refresher. The hardest parts of the kata practice were when we were forced to stay in sonkyo or jodan while the sensei walked around talking and checking people. My arms were definitely sore after the jodan bit!
It was also hard to tell who was supposed to lead, since the words (uchidachi and shidachi) tend to sound about the same to me with the echo. Again, I ended up relying on the two junior high students I knew.
After the kata practice wrapped up, we split up into our respective groups (guys and girls testing for 1-dan, then all of the 2-dan people together) to get our numbers. This was a fairly tedious process; there were four adult men, and I was number 1. I'd really hoped someone ELSE would be number 1 so that I'd be able to watch the procedure, but it worked out okay.
We had a 50-minute break for lunch; I ate some meat and rice, then went back to get my armor on and prepare all of the cords so that I could put the men on quickly when it was my turn. It turned out not to matter since I was going after all of the junior high kids, all 76 of them. I had a lot of time to sit and watch; I watched how they did kendo and I watched the judging panel's expressions to see how my thoughts matched up with theirs. I noticed that the judges weren't at all shy about laughing; I wasn't sure if this was because someone made a joke, or because someone's kendo was just that bad. Sometimes it happens.
There were quite a few times when the process stopped so that the judges could explain the correct way to do something to a hapless kenshi who had the misfortune to do it completely wrong. I have a feeling those people didn't pass.
One of the major problems was that in uchikaeshi, people were doing massive side-to-side swings rather than angled up-and-down swings. I guess the need for speed and nervousness really got to a lot of people. Kiai and kakegoe often seemed weak or like they were used as an afterthought -- especially in uchikaeshi.
I have to admit, I had an underlying nervousness throughout the entire process because of the idea of the written exam. My keiko and uchikaeshi portions flew by (30 seconds for each, two bouts of keiko) and before I knew it, we were doing kata. All of the kata went fine up til the end (I was uchidachi) when my partner messed up really, really badly and I found myself kind of clueless about what to do and kind of stood there. They had us redo it and it went fine.
After the kata portion, they announced the people who had passed so far and told all of us to get our stuff for the written exam. We all sat down and they passed out large, blank sheets of B4 paper for the written exam. The sensei went out of their way to help me, knowing that as an American, my Japanese isn't anywhere near perfect. The sensei in charge read the three questions in Japanese; my sensei wrote them down in Japanese and gave me the paper, then another sensei came by to read them out loud and make sure I understood them. I was very, very grateful for everything they did to make it easier for me.
I wrote and wrote; my handwriting isn't that great and I really didn't care, since I wanted to make sure I got out everything I could in the time allotted. I filled an entire large sheet of B4 paper and rushed up to the panel. It turned out that I had plenty of time left, about 5-10 minutes, actually... but time seems to pass faster when you don't have a clock and you're writing in a foreign language.
There were five people on the panel checking papers; I went straight for my sensei since I figured he's used to "my kind" of Japanese. He read it over, hmm'd approvingly a few times, and laughed at how much I wrote -- he even passed it to the other judges so they could laugh, too. I looked at the junior high kids' papers and a lot of them hadn't even written half of what I had. Oops.
I don't think anyone actually failed the written portion.
After that, we all finished up, said our thanks, cleaned, and went home.
I still feel sore the day after -- sitting on a hard, wooden floor the entire day while trying to keep my back straight didn't do my lower back any favors. My foot hurts where a callus peeled off, too. But I'm 1-dan!
Here's to 2-dan in a year!
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Shinsa
The shinsa was held as part of a sports event at the city gym; there were near two hundred people, though I was one of only three adults being graded. Oddly enough, all three of us were trying for 1-kyuu. Most of the kenshi there were female, too, which I found surprising.
I arrived around 8 AM, since registration opened at 8:15; I was traveling with two kids from my dojo, who were also testing for 1-kyuu. We practiced our kata for a while until registration opened, then registered -- it was fairly straightforward: pay them 4000 yen and give them the application form.
Registration closed about an hour later and we all gathered for the opening remarks by my sensei. He told us what they would be looking for and gave us some advice (try your best, kiai loudly, cut/move/think straight). After that, we were split up between the kendojo and judojo for kata practice. I was sent to the judojo -- it was really odd practicing on that bouncy floor.
Several sensei came with us to the judojo and we were split even more -- two groups going for 1-kyuu, then a group going for 1-dan, and another group going for 2-dan. We were all together while the sensei talked about the history of kendo and the katana (for a long, long time) -- then we went to different parts of the room to practice.
For us 1-kyuu wannabes, that meant watching two sensei perform each kata (1-3) multiple times, commenting on important parts. They also talked a lot about reigi and how/when/where to bow, since it was our first shinsa.
After a lot of watching and a little practicing (3 or 4 times as shidachi/uchidachi), we had a quick break to stretch and get a drink before we gathered again for another round of practicing. We finally wrapped up around 1 and were told to prepare our bogu, then eat lunch.
Our lunch break was about half an hour -- I was kind of mystified by the fact that we had the shinsa AFTER lunch, since it seemed like a good way to get a stomachache, but I guess it works.
When we came back, we were split into our respective testing groups again and sent to a third of the kendojo -- each third had a grading panel of five sensei. The 1-kyuu group was then further divided into elementary kids (6th graders can test for 1-kyuu), junior high kids (tons testing for 1-kyuu, a few for 1-dan, and then even fewer for 2-dan due to age), and then high school kids and above (the group I was in). The order was elementary -> high school -> junior high, since there were only 14 or so elementary kids, 5 of us, and then around 140 junior high kids.
First, the elementary kids went up for uchikaeshi and keiko; it was all lumped together on what seemed to be a 3-5-minute time limit. 1 vs 2, with both doing uchikaeshi, and then keiko, then 2 vs 3, with 3 doing uchikaeshi, then keiko, and then 4 vs 3, with 4 doing uchikaeshi, then keiko, etc. At the end, the last person would do uchikaeshi and keiko with 1 again. That way everyone gets a chance to do uchikaeshi as shidachi and uchidachi, and everyone gets a chance to keiko twice. It was a long, tedious process, even though our individual parts only lasted a little while. We were told to go relax or practice while we were waiting on everyone else.
After about two hours, we reassembled sans bogu for kata. My group and the elementary kids went up together, and I ended up being shidachi. We went through 1-3 together and that was it for us -- we went off to relax again until they called us for the closing remarks and results.
Everyone in my group passed 1-kyuu. There were a bunch of junior high kids who didn't, unfortunately; most of the elementary kids passed as well.
I'd guess that the junior high kids who didn't pass just joined this year in kendo club; the elementary kids who passed have probably been doing kendo for several years at this point. That's just my guess, though.
I arrived around 8 AM, since registration opened at 8:15; I was traveling with two kids from my dojo, who were also testing for 1-kyuu. We practiced our kata for a while until registration opened, then registered -- it was fairly straightforward: pay them 4000 yen and give them the application form.
Registration closed about an hour later and we all gathered for the opening remarks by my sensei. He told us what they would be looking for and gave us some advice (try your best, kiai loudly, cut/move/think straight). After that, we were split up between the kendojo and judojo for kata practice. I was sent to the judojo -- it was really odd practicing on that bouncy floor.
Several sensei came with us to the judojo and we were split even more -- two groups going for 1-kyuu, then a group going for 1-dan, and another group going for 2-dan. We were all together while the sensei talked about the history of kendo and the katana (for a long, long time) -- then we went to different parts of the room to practice.
For us 1-kyuu wannabes, that meant watching two sensei perform each kata (1-3) multiple times, commenting on important parts. They also talked a lot about reigi and how/when/where to bow, since it was our first shinsa.
After a lot of watching and a little practicing (3 or 4 times as shidachi/uchidachi), we had a quick break to stretch and get a drink before we gathered again for another round of practicing. We finally wrapped up around 1 and were told to prepare our bogu, then eat lunch.
Our lunch break was about half an hour -- I was kind of mystified by the fact that we had the shinsa AFTER lunch, since it seemed like a good way to get a stomachache, but I guess it works.
When we came back, we were split into our respective testing groups again and sent to a third of the kendojo -- each third had a grading panel of five sensei. The 1-kyuu group was then further divided into elementary kids (6th graders can test for 1-kyuu), junior high kids (tons testing for 1-kyuu, a few for 1-dan, and then even fewer for 2-dan due to age), and then high school kids and above (the group I was in). The order was elementary -> high school -> junior high, since there were only 14 or so elementary kids, 5 of us, and then around 140 junior high kids.
First, the elementary kids went up for uchikaeshi and keiko; it was all lumped together on what seemed to be a 3-5-minute time limit. 1 vs 2, with both doing uchikaeshi, and then keiko, then 2 vs 3, with 3 doing uchikaeshi, then keiko, and then 4 vs 3, with 4 doing uchikaeshi, then keiko, etc. At the end, the last person would do uchikaeshi and keiko with 1 again. That way everyone gets a chance to do uchikaeshi as shidachi and uchidachi, and everyone gets a chance to keiko twice. It was a long, tedious process, even though our individual parts only lasted a little while. We were told to go relax or practice while we were waiting on everyone else.
After about two hours, we reassembled sans bogu for kata. My group and the elementary kids went up together, and I ended up being shidachi. We went through 1-3 together and that was it for us -- we went off to relax again until they called us for the closing remarks and results.
Everyone in my group passed 1-kyuu. There were a bunch of junior high kids who didn't, unfortunately; most of the elementary kids passed as well.
I'd guess that the junior high kids who didn't pass just joined this year in kendo club; the elementary kids who passed have probably been doing kendo for several years at this point. That's just my guess, though.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Exam Time
There was a period when I was getting pretty frustrated with my kendo and how badly I was doing at... well, everything. I feel like I'm getting better now, though; I have a better grasp of how to move with armor on, I feel like I can get one or two hits in in sparring practice, and I think I'm starting to understand the basics.
On the other hand, there's this blog. I originally wanted to chronicle my growth in kendo and remind myself of what I was doing in each class, but the blog ended up becoming a burden and a distraction... not to mention a dead albatross around my neck. I ended up just sitting down and thinking about all of the mistakes I'd made rather than what I'd accomplished.
So, if you've been waiting for a post -- sorry!
The reason I'm making this one is that I have an exam coming up -- ikkyuu, or first kyuu. Kendo rankings generally run from sixth kyuu to first kyuu, and then from first dan to eighth dan. It doesn't sound as fancy as it looks, though; first kyuu is the first rank that really means anything in the kendo world, and then, it doesn't mean much at all... just that you attended practice and paid attention for a little while.
Seriously. The lower kyuus aren't even graded or really recognized by the kendo federation; they're awarded by each dojo. They're given to help people feel that they've progressed (something I can certainly understand!) -- knowing how to sit, hold the shinai properly, walk properly, dress properly...
Ikkyuu is, I guess, a grade that shows that you're learning how to practice properly. Even though first dan is regarded in the US as "black belt", in Japan, first dan just means you're serious about wanting to learn. Third dan is where most people stop; serious kenshi are around fifth dan. Seventh dan is really, really hard, and the test for eighth dan is supposed to be one of the hardest tests in the world. National Geographic even did a special about it at one point.
My first kyuu test is in two and a half weeks or so -- I'm really nervous about it. Even though it's such a minor ranking, it's my first real step into the world of kendo.
On the other hand, there's this blog. I originally wanted to chronicle my growth in kendo and remind myself of what I was doing in each class, but the blog ended up becoming a burden and a distraction... not to mention a dead albatross around my neck. I ended up just sitting down and thinking about all of the mistakes I'd made rather than what I'd accomplished.
So, if you've been waiting for a post -- sorry!
The reason I'm making this one is that I have an exam coming up -- ikkyuu, or first kyuu. Kendo rankings generally run from sixth kyuu to first kyuu, and then from first dan to eighth dan. It doesn't sound as fancy as it looks, though; first kyuu is the first rank that really means anything in the kendo world, and then, it doesn't mean much at all... just that you attended practice and paid attention for a little while.
Seriously. The lower kyuus aren't even graded or really recognized by the kendo federation; they're awarded by each dojo. They're given to help people feel that they've progressed (something I can certainly understand!) -- knowing how to sit, hold the shinai properly, walk properly, dress properly...
Ikkyuu is, I guess, a grade that shows that you're learning how to practice properly. Even though first dan is regarded in the US as "black belt", in Japan, first dan just means you're serious about wanting to learn. Third dan is where most people stop; serious kenshi are around fifth dan. Seventh dan is really, really hard, and the test for eighth dan is supposed to be one of the hardest tests in the world. National Geographic even did a special about it at one point.
My first kyuu test is in two and a half weeks or so -- I'm really nervous about it. Even though it's such a minor ranking, it's my first real step into the world of kendo.
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