My body aspires to press on shinai after a contact of a shock point of the opponent, as though I press on a sword to cut the opponent.

by Andrey Selezenev

My body aspires to press on shinai after a contact of a shock point of the opponent, as though I press on a sword to cut the opponent.

I have such problem connected with blows in kendo. That seems to me that kendo and kenjutsu are connected among themselves by history.  My body aspires to press on shinai after a contact of a shock point of the opponent, as though I press on a sword to cut the opponent.

It is very difficult to me to get rid of it as it seems that the simple contact shinai on a shock zone will be not absolutely correct kendo. If I simply do a contact shinai at blow, it will be a withdrawal from old traditions kendo. I am asking you for a help in this question.

I cannot express my thoughts in English.

Yours faithfully Andrey

Answer: Thanks for your post. I think you mean that you tend to push your shinai hard against your opponent after your shinai touches a target. Am I right?

It is true that we should use our shinai as if it was a real sword. If we strike too hard as if we would want to cut through, then we’ll hurt our opponents.

We all want to learn a good tenouchi.  

Once we learn a good tenouchi, which takes a bit of time, our tenouchi is sharp and strong. People should notice that there is a big different between “just hard strikes” and “sharp and strong strikes”.

Grab your shinai more tightly at the moment that your shinai contacts a target. Your shoulders, elbows and arms are relaxed but only your palms are tight.

I have a good tenouchi video in the Newsletter Subscribers’ Only page but you need login information given when you subscribe to the Newsletter.

If you have not watched it, please do so. It is worth watching a lot of times.

Hope this helps.

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