Loading ...
Chiba Sensei Seminar Report
Okay, I admit, I had not quite tuned in. Chiba Sensei was making some opening remarks and my mind was still wandering, thinking about my journey down to Sussex University, just outside Brighton, who else was attending the seminar, how hard it would be, and then, snap! Chiba Sensei cut men – and everyone was instantly engaged.
- No pressure then… Chiba Sensei spent some time exploring and demonstrating correct use of Seme (pic courtesy of Jeff Martin)
Of course you’d expect a cut from an 8th Dan Hanshi sensei to be good. Especially a three times winner of the All Japan’s and Shihan (Emeritus) at Keishicho dojo (the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Kendo Dojo). But this was just a punctuation mark during his introductory remarks, not an attempt to show us a perfect, correct cut. He carried on talking almost without interruption – but his audience had changed…
The cut had been so relaxed, the Sae (snap) so crisp and the impact so solid and precise that you had no doubt that that would have been a very effective cut in any environment – but he made it look so easy. And for the rest of the seminar, that’s how it continued. Chiba Sensei showed a technique which looked perfectly simple, and then we struggled to a greater or lesser extent, to emulate him.
Our first exercise was to split into pairs and cut men ten times while our partner held their shinai above their heads as a target. The point was to cut using a relaxed but sharp technique… Chiba Sensei emphasized that the cut should be ‘big’ for the less senior attendees but could be ‘smaller’ for those with more experience, but in either case the key was to work on flexibility in the wrist. In addition, he asked that we aim the cut to reach chin height once the wrists were extended giving a certain flex or bounce to the cut.
The group then divided into pairs by grade – up to second dan in one line and over second dan in the other. The practice developed into an extensive meditation on Seme, starting with each pair cutting men, then stepping in to cut men, then gradually adding permutations (such as pressuring the opponent’s shinai from above) to emphasise the need to create ‘real’ opportunities, both in practice and in shiai.
Now, at this point, I would like to point you in the direction of the excellent blog by Geoff Salmon Sensei at http://kendoinfo.net/ (Geoff’s Blog includes the following description taken from this session of the seminar, and rather than reinvent the wheel, I thought I’d ask him I if could include it here, which he kindly agreed I could:
With such a variety of teaching, I imagine that different people took different things away from the seminar, but what particularly resonated with me, was sensei’s instruction on seme and maai.
He pointed out that over the years it has become conventional wisdom to teach people to attack from long distance. I was personally taught to come in no more than 15cm past the point of the opponent’s shinai. In his view, this is simplistic and your optimal cutting distance depends on your age, height, leg strength etc.
He pointed out that it would be unlikely for seme to be strong enough to break your opponents spirit if you only pushed in beyond the point of the shinai and therefore a deep movement forward was required to make your opponent move back. This was also true in the case of positioning for uchiotoshi and makiotoshi waza.
His main thoughts on seme were that you should keep a relaxed and natural posture and use seme to force your opponent to react to make the chance for debana or oji waza. For instance, as you step in, point your shinai to the right of the men, so that he tries to beat you to the men attack and then take degote, or you seme to his kote and take men as he tries to cover his kote; or raise to the right eye to force a men attack to counter with ojidou.
He also pointed out that for senior grades, (given they had developed tenouchi and kikentaiichi), that it was not necessary to make a fully blown forward motion for such techniques and that you only needed 50% of the effort that you would apply to shikake waza as your opponents forward motion created the other 50%.
- Tsuki! Chiba Sensei advises members of the British Kendo Squad (pic courtesy of Jeff Martin)
Other techniques explored on Friday included Men Nuki Do and Men Kaeshi do, with Chiba Sensei showing just what was possible with a flexible wrist by, at one stage, performing a kind of rapid Do kirikaeshi with his eyes shut – and hitting the target every time.
Towards the end of the afternoon we moved on to jigeiko and shiai geiko. Continuing one of the main themes of the day, Chiba Sensei pointed out that after applying seme, if the opponent reacted, you should then cut and if they did not react, you should also cut – one example of which was the use of debana waza.
At the end of the day while most of us adjourned for well earned refreshments, Chiba Sensei carried on for a further two hours in a special Squad session for members of the British Kendo Squad (the World Kendo Championships being only a few weeks away). A number of non squad member were invitated to challenge fights with the squad and then Sensei conducting ‘autopsies’ on the results!
On Saturday, following the warm up (led for the second day running by Steve Bishop from Edinburgh Kendo Club), we reprised some of the key lessons from Friday and began adding to the complexity by looking at the “receiving” side’s options for responding too and handling Seme/attacks, including Oji Waza, such as Men, Suiragi Men.
Once again, I am grateful to Geoff Salmon, for the following observations of this session:
Many people have read the theory of sansappo or sansatsuho – The threeways of making an opening:
- Ki wo korosu – Kill the spirit / mind
- Ken wo korosu – Kill the sword
- Waza wo korosu – Kill the technique
For many of us this is a concept that is difficult to translate into physical action. At the recent seminar, Chiba sensei did a great job in demonstrating how this concept works as part of his instruction on seme. He did this in the following way:
- Ki WO korosu – Take a deep step into you opponents distance with full spirit. The movement has to be deep and aggressive. Merely pushing in past the point of his shinai is not enough. The movement must be sufficiently strong to break his composure and force him to lose the centre. As soon as he does this, strike men.
- Ken WO korosu – In essence this means to knock the shinai out of the centre, so harai, osae, uchiotoshi or makiotoshi can all justifiably claim to fit this purpose. The key point with these is that they should be accomplished in the same movement as the following strike. For example with harai men, you only make one step from approach to strike, knocking the shinai away as your right foot travels forward.
- Waza wo korosu – This means to break the attack against you and counter, so debana, oji, kaeshi, nuki, suriage etc all fall into this category. The key point here is not to wait, but to aggressively force or invite your opponent to attack and take away and return his waza.
If you are an experienced kendoka, there should be nothing new or surprising in this description. I was however impressed how Chiba sensei made the theory understandable to students of every level, by a great practical demonstration.
Indeed so – in fact one of the very interesting things about the whole seminar was the way in which Chiba Sensei was able to make the lesson relevant to everyone, what ever their level, but operating within the same course material.
Set in the lovely countryside of Sussex and featuring onsite accommodation for most attendees (which enabled a relaxed couple of evenings on the balcony of a University Bar) the seminar was a real pleasure. Only sixty people were able to attend this year, due to the size of the dojo and I do not know if it will be possible to increase the numbers next year… So, based on this seminar I would say book early for next year because I’d guess most of those who attended this time will want seconds!
Paul Gray
BKA PRO
PS: Some video of the seminar, courtesy of eurokendo. Chiba Sensei demonstrates some Waza against Jodan.
Related Posts
Posted: July 28th, 2009 under Kendo.
Tags: Chiba Sensei, Kendo, Seminar