First Anniversary Kendo Celebration

This is an invitation to celebrate the first anniversary of the
founding of our Kendo dojo in Trinidad (Shoshin Kendo Dojo). As you
know, we've been growing from the first day we started and I was lucky
enough to pass along some of my knowledge to many people over the past
year. It's now time to look back and appreciate the result of our work.

It will also be a good opportunity to display our craft to our friends
and family, as well as other people not so familiar with Kendo.

In order to celebrate in a proper manner, I thought it was a good idea
to do it "Japanese-style", meaning an outdoor party under blooming
trees. We'll do some Kendo, check out some demonstrations, and more
importantly, eat, drink and be merry !

So please reserve that date in your calendar, and make sure to notify
everyone around you of the event.

For more details, please contact me directly @ 787-9100

Hope to see you there !

Eddy

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Details
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Date : Sunday April 17th
Time : 12pm (noon) - 6pm
Location : Queen's Park Savannah (precise location to be determined
later)
Format : Potluck picnic (Kendo members bring some food & drinks)
Agenda :
- Kendo demonstration
- Kata
- Bokken Kihon
- Keiko (free combat)
- Other martial arts demonstrations, including Iaido, Kung Fu, Tai
Chi, Karate and more...
- Food and Drinks !

Invited guests : All the past and present Kendo members, their friends
and families. All our friends from the martial arts community. Some
media will also be notified.

******************************************************************
Please note that I added you to my Kendo mailing list; you don't need
to register to receive messages. If you want to be removed from mailing
list and not receive future messages, please let me know. Thanks, Eddy.

Raising the intensity

Started yesterday to increase the intensity of the class, particularly by increasing the kiai, right at the beginning of the class. Until now, during suburi I'm mostly the one counting. I realized that it doesn't encourage them to take responsibility and develop their kiai. So now we all count to 10 one by one. This works wonders... now right at the beginning of the class they shout ! We did a lot of suburi, suriashi and general cardio work. I think they were quite tired after 45mins.

Then I had them work on maai, basically doing suriashi faster and faster on their own and with partner facing them.

Then, Men with the same partner, 4 times for a while, then kirikaeshi (only sayumen) on the lenght of the room.

Then K & I split the group and each had them repeat sayumen, since they couldn't receive properly.

Finally we had them attack Men on cue (I called "Men"), so they start developing their reflexes. Next exercise was kakari keiko after they had attacked 4 times after our cue.

Last exercise was multiple men attacks with one breath; first 3 men, then 5.

They were done after that. Well done I should say. I was thinking of a last hayasuburi or something, but I felt they had worked enough.

Shinai repairs & the weather

I had the chance of moving here with a big bunch of shinais, some given by San Diego Kendo friends, some I had, as well as a lot of spare parts. So it's been easy so far to lend them to everyone, so they wouldn't have to dish out all this money right at the start. Even if $20-$30 is peanuts in the states, it means much more here, where the salaries are as much as 10x less than there.

But my shinais are getting a beating! I must've forgotten how hard beginners tend to hit. And I didn't expect the weather to play such an important role. Half of the year it's very dry, the other half it's very humid. It's a killer for precious wood, cigars and ... shinais. About a month ago I decided to hold a shinai repair session, that everyone seemed to enjoy. A couple of days earlier I'd wiped them with baby oil so I thought all was good. Well after fixing all of them I had 4 broken within a week!! So last week I bought a huge piece of PVC pipe, epoxied one end to a flat piece of treated wood and filled it up with 3 litres of baby oil, basically 18 inches high. I then removed the sakigawa/tsuru and plunged about 20 shinais in baby oil. Left them in there for about 4 days, hoping that the oil would seep in and up halfway the shinai. Had a look today and the color seems ok and the bamboo looks soaked alright. I'll wipe everything tomorrow, sand and reassemble it all.

Slacking...

Haven't Blogged in a while, because 1- I've been focussing quite deeply on some exciting job interviews, 2- because it's Easter and I canceled the last 2 classes. About 50% of the population is part of some kind of christian religion, and Easter is a big thing for them, so since most of my students seem to go to church and our dojo shares the same land as a big church, I thought it was appropriate to cancel for the weekend...

On the job side, no update yet, but many opportunities have recently popped up. Something should happen soon...

Ended International School classes

Classes have ended for the semester at the International School. They've asked me if I was interested to teach again in 3 weeks. I told them I'd get back to them because I have to check my availability. I'd like to keep going, because I think it can only grow and get better, as well as it seems to have generated quite a lot of interest with the other kids and parents. The returns (connections, opportunities,...) I can get out of that are significant. And it's nice to teach them, when they're behaving of course.

Non-Profit Budo Academy for kids ?

Just had a chat today with a friend of mine who teaches Western fencing (as well as aikijutsu). After talking about the pain of rent, material, having to find new students to support the serious ones (basically when 2/3rd tourists pay the bill for the 1/3rd serious) I thought about the idea of creating a non-profit to teach kids (disabled and able-body) various budo. My teaching at the rich kids school here is part of that long-term strategy: gathering the proper contacts to eventually raise funds for such a project.

Idea would be to offer 4-5 different budos (serious ones, no gymnastic stuff), and charge a token fee for the kids. We'd need to get help from some kind of organisation like Rotary club or such, that would help provide the building and gather funds to pay the instructors a certain fee. I figure:
- rent: 10,000 / month
- fee for 4 instructors: $200/hr * 2hrs * 2/week * 4 weeks * 4 instructors = $12,800 / month
- repairs, utilities: $2,000/month

Total of roughly $25,000/month ... I gues that means finding someone with fairly deep pockets...

I'll keep thinking about it.

Some statistics...

After about a year of teaching here, I thought it'd be interesting to see a few stats on who's been joining.

So far, at my latest count, 31 students enrolled in the past year (excluding the International School class). Many had just one class and left, most dropped out after less than 5 classes. Pretty average...

Some observations:
- overwhelmingly unmarried men
- by far the largest age group is 21-25, my favorite, followed by 15-20, my second favorite
- many have vast "budo" experience, many don't have at all
- the vast majority are still beginners (<10 classes), although that includes the droupouts... - it took less than 10 classes for the dropouts to, well, drop out (most dropped out after < 5 classes) - Reasons given for attending classes are out of this world... but not much different than what you'll find in any dojo around the world.

Classes attended so far:



Number of classes attended when dropped out:



Prior Budo experience:



Married or not ?



Sex:



Reasons given to join the Kendo class:

To fully understand bushido and the way of the samurai
To become a better person and lose weight
It is interesting and maintain discipline
Fitness
A new experience
New experience, wish to learn as much arts
A new experience
To attain some measure of discipline, self defense, fitness and peace
Interest in the art form and as a part of a keep fit program
To enhance the abilities of my mind & body. To acquire self-discipline. To learn about the japanese culture of the sword.
Stress, Energy to spend
It is my belief that one can obtain true spiritual enlightment only by going into a state of "no mind". I hope that Kendo can reveal this to me.
I have always been interested in Martial art and asian culture
To continue to develop my mind and spirit in the Way, Kendo helps me focus on the job at hand
I believe that the way of the sword runs in direct line of my paths in life
I'm inspired by the art of swordsmanship
Always wanted to learn a martial art
Always wanted to practice a martial art and now I've found one which I'm interested in.
Dream
To focus my desire to do a martial art, to hopefully learn some asian tradition and to seek purpose

Old farts - New blood

Good class yesterday. Got there 15mns before class and there were already 5 guys warming up. That's how I like it! That's enthusiasm! Well everyone did god except the two older ones, one with just no motor skills and another overweight guy just coming out of a series of health trouble. Good for him, with all this on his back (was just diagnosed with diabetes) he still want to get better and he sees Kendo as a good way to keep himself mentally and physically fit. Except he doesn't breath properly and apparently thinks he's still 25! So after a few suburi he has to stop to breath because he whacks like a beast and he's beet red. But cheers to someone like that who has the right attitude and motivation.

Besides the "40-going-like-I'm-20" folks, most other guys are late teens, early twenties. And most learn so quick. It's really nice to see them go. They're also relatively well behaved. One thing's for sure: they can't wait to start wearing the bogu. And soon enough, they will...

Like in the old days

In a previous life I used to do Kendo a lot... In Montreal (that's 15 yrs ago) I did Kendo 3/4 times a week, often practicing until 10pm and back in the dojo at 10 the next morning. Granted, that's nothing like the gasshuku trainings in Japan but it brings some of the feeling back. Today was the same; we had a good practice last night and one this morning. Slightly different people but same feeling. 6 last night, 5 today, just how I like it. Very good energy (mostly towards the end unfortunately. Got to work on that...). Nice hard atmosphere with lots of kiai and movement. It wasn't so hard yesterday although one re-injured hiw right hand and Lesley almost fainted twice due to the cardio vasc. exercises, but today was a killer. Right in the middle of the day, is was so hot and little wind that I had to give 3 breaks in only one hour. Short breaks but breaks nonetheless. Did good keiko with K; having a harder than ever time beating him with a clean men. I find myself having to trick him more and more. Either he's improving faster than I thought or my seme is getting weaker.

Had a chat with him at the end about what I think is a problem he's developing: not committing enough to his attacks, rather counting on his shinai to open the way. If I deflect it as he prepares to attack, he's stumped and stops right there. His attacks are too focused on his arms and not enough on his hips and legs. Therefore, he doesn't commit his hips enough, which is directly related to his mental blockage. He needs to stop thinking so much about "what ifs" and start throwing himself with more abandon.

Change in Tuesday - Friday practice time

Please note that starting this week, classes on Tuesday and Friday at
Methodist Church Hall will promptly start at 6:30 (instead of 6pm) and
end at 8:30pm. See you there!

Eddy

Bokuto ni yoru kendo kihon

I wonder if this series of technique is another example of teaching "the Japanese way" with little respect for foreign teaching methods (see below). We've been practicing this for while but with a twist. Never going beyond Sandan waza, we'd instead explore all variations in footwork to achieve men. For example, too-ma, shika-ma, men-men, kote-men, kote-men-men. Since almost everyone's a beginner I don't understand the purpose of teaching harai, hiki, suriage, nuki, ... So until I have a good chat with a sensei who really knows what's behind those kata I won't show the Oji/Shikake waza, too confusing in my mind for beginners already having a hard time with Ippon Men.

We're already having enough trouble teaching the basics to beginners who want to fling their sword in the air like Jet Li, that shoing them harai or kaeshi will only satisfy their craving and next thing you know they'll spend their time doing only that. (By "we" I don't mean my group but all the western dojos I know). I remember a few months ago when I was still showing only Men (no Kote or Do, far less kaeshi...) to K and the guys, and when he saw me and E (from London) go at it and E always doing nuki do or kaeshi do, he started doing the same. Without ever having been taught! Unfortunately he was doing it all wrong, but it showed me that they'll grab onto any cool new technique they see.

The risk is certain. First, a beginner is not skilled enough to read through his opponent's mind to do or even understand debana or even suriage. So they'll rely on kaeshi do a lot. Then they will start thinking mostly in terms of receiving, then blocking the attack. This is the big risk: that they'll become used to "block and attack", forgetting the only thing a beginner should do during keiko, that is mindless abandonment (sutemi). Until I get proof that the risk isn't as high as I think I won't take the chance.

The Japanese teaching I refered to above is that I think the AJKF doesn't take into account non-Japanese when developing curriculum. In this case I don't understand why they included fancy techniques like described above without explaining why and how to make sure they are part of the more common (shinai) curriculum without the risk of generating a bunch samurai wannabes. Unless they introduced it without understanding the possible complications in a western dojo. See, things don't work the same way in Japan as elsewhere:
Tanaka sensei: "Practice men- kaeshi-do with bokken. But don't do it with a shinai until next year!".
Little Kotaro: "Hai !"

Johnny sensei:"Practice men- kaeshi-do with bokken. But don't do it with a shinai until next year!"
Bob: "Why not?" (Bob is in late 20s)

Empty class !?!

Nobody showed up for class today... One told me last week he was out of the country, 2 called this afternoon, 1 called while I was walking in the dojo. I had with me all the shinai so I spent the time dissassembling them and fixing/throwing away what needed to be. Then did some reading on the Bokken Kihon (see next post). Then A showed up and we had a long chat on a bunch of things. His daughter is giving him hell to the point he spends his days worrying... Supposedly she's rebeling, but not in the way he'd like. As for me I told him all about my work (or lack of) and had an earful about the Trini work system. It was a good chat, I have to spend more time with my guys not doing Kendo.