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Old 02-05-2008, 08:53 PM   #4
Kent Enfield
 
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Location: Oregon, USA
Join Date: Jul 2002
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Re: Freeform Bokken Drills to Develop Aiki Flow

Quote:
Chris Parkerson wrote: View Post
What you say is very interesting. Perhaps we are preconditioned about what is "swordy". My training partner in this video is a senior instructor in Kum Do (Korean Sword). He loved the drill.
Without wanting to start a tangent, there's all sorts of stuff that gets labeled as kumdo. Everything from shinai kendo identical to that in Japan to stuff that you'd expect from Team Paul Mitchel.

What I mean about it not being swordy is that you're not using your bokuto as swords, at least not in what I call a "combatively rational" manner. There's lots of presenting huge suki (which aren't taken advantage of) and, conversely, lots of attacking without any real opportunity. There's also plenty of smacking the other guy's bokuto when you could have just cut him. You seem much more intent on getting body to body than on just dispatching the other.

I wasn't talking about the shape or manner of cuts so much.

Quote:
Using padding with shinai allows each practicioner to trade blows
On another tangent, if you're trading blows, you're not doing kendo (or any other legitimate weapon art that I know of), at least not doing it very well at all.

Quote:
But this drill is not about the initial strike. It is about capturing "in motion and an element of chaos" the moment when swords lock with force on force.
If you're locking swords with force on force, you're probably doing something wrong. Admittedly, it happens sometimes and it's a better situation than getting cut yourself, but your goal should not be to lock swords. You should striving to advantage yourself and disadvantage your opponent, rather than to get to a mutually disadvantageous situation.

Kentokuseisei
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