Kendo for LIFE

Kendo-Guide.Com Newsletter, Issue #045 - Achieve your NY Resolution!

Thank you for opening the newsletter.

I hope you had great holidays!

I would like to thank you for your support in 2010 and wish you a super great year for you! Thanks to you, I really had a great year last year.

As I wrote in the last Newsletter, the visitors to Kendo-Guide.Com exceeded 10,000.

I really am glad that many people saw great values in "Interview with Alex Bennett".

I still want more pepole to watch this video for not only their kendo improvement but also to cope with their daily problems.

For example, we talked about kendo for different age groups. Youngsters are very athletic and can rely on their speed.

The elders should not fight the youngsters in their favour, i.e. speed.

Instead, we should fight them knowing their intention. We can tell because we've been there and done that.

We should still challenge physically but it does not mean we should fight with speed and power.

If we are lacking something (speed in the example above), we can always compensate for it with something (anticipation).

Kendo and our daily life should be connected in many ways; otherwise we cannot pursue our personal development through kendo nor we cannot improve our kendo using our own life experience.

This video, as you listen more and more, can give you many aspects of kendo. You will realise something different depending on where you are at your development phase.

So if you are a 1-dan, you may hear one thing in a certain way, But when you become 2-dan you may hear the same thing in a different way.

This is why I really want many people to listen to "Interview with Alex Bennett".

- Interview with Alex Bennett

Enjoy the Newsletter!

Announcement

- Kendo Guide in Russian

- Some articles from Kendo-Guide.Com in Russian.

- Kendo-Guide Social Network

- Facebook
- Linkedin
- Twitter

If you think I am not doing well with these Social Networking, please let me know. I do not want to be uncool!!

Kendo For Life, LLC Products

- Kendo Beginners eBook: Kendo Guide for Beginners
This e-book will give you great amount of information about kendo. It probably answers you most of questions you have when you start kendo. Download your copy of a sample today!

- Online Kendo Basics Video
11 kendo basics videos (139.8 min) are now available. You can watch them online or download to your computer. Get them all together with 32% discount.

- How to Learn Kendo Movements More Easily and Quickly
Are you having a hard time to get the kendo movements right? Try to find out methods that make easier and quicker for you to learn the movements.

- Interview with Alex Bennett
Do you think you are too old to continue kendō? You don't know how you should improve your kendo? Listen to Alex Bennett sensei who passed his 7-dan exam at his first attempt. He talks about how he trained for his 7-dan exam and how he performed in his 7-dan exam.

Thank you!

Now enjoy the updates!

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What we have in this issue is shown below. Enjoy this Newsletter!

Table of Content

- Kendo Q & A -

- Kendo Work Shop -

- How to Achieve Your New Year Resolution for Kendo -

- Comments or Questions -

There are links to change your email address for the newsletter or unsubscribe at the bottom of every newsletter. Thanks!

- Kendo Q & A -

- Age for kendo

- What is Hikitate geiko?

- What team is winning

- beaten after asking a question

- rudeness in kendo training

- Are karate and kendo compatible?

- Challenge

- psychological training

- How do I know if my kote is too small

- Kendo Work Shop -

- (Fumikomi = stomping)?

- Motodachi work without bogu

- Feet movement in hiki waza

- How to Achieve Your New Year Resolution for Kendo -

So…Have you made your New Year resolution for this year?

Could be passing your promotion exam? Could be win a tournament?

Whatever that is, the final goal of your resolution is to achieve it, right?

If you want to achieve your New Year resolution and don't know what to do, hope what I am going to write here will help you.

1. Write down what you need to do for the resolution
2. Prioritize them
3. Make small goals to the final goal

This is a very common way to achieve a goal. My job here is to help you to apply it for your kendo.

Now if your goal is to pass your next promotion exam, talk to your teacher and know what you need to work on in order for you to pass the exam.

You may have a lot of things to work on like every one of us does!

List them up.

Now you have to know how long you have until the exam day.

For instance, the federation I belong to will have the next promotion exam in May (I think).

It gives us 4 months.

Say there are two classes per week. That means 32 classes.

And provided that you don't have extra time to practice at home or anywhere else but only at your dojo.

You must know that it is not a wise idea to try to fix every single bad habit in 32 classes.

What you really want to work on is something that you can fix nearly instantaneously.

So what can you fix instantaneously? There are three important elements of kendo you can fix right away.

- Kiai
- Posture
- Basics

I might have said somewhere in the website of Kendo-Guide.Com or in an issue of Newsletter but kiai is the only thing that you can become a better kendoist than the high grade holder.

There are many instances that people with a lower grade beat people with high grade in shiai.

It is not because they are more skilful but they had a great kiai and more importantly they have this spirit of "I am going to attack him/her with everything I have in me".

In other words, the strong kiai (spirits/inner power) can overwhelm techiniques.

So kiai is the first thing you must work on. You must seek the best kiai of yours so your kendo will be sharp and strong instantaneously.

The posture is the second thing that you can improve right now.

We all know we have to keep our body straight while we are in chudan. But what about while and after striking?

In order to keep the nice posture while and after striking, you should know the right distance for you to execute strikes.

It is also important to know how you can keep your balance while striking.

The basics. This is the "must do".

Well, we must study the basics to improve our kendo. It does not matter how high you go in kendo, you can always improve kendo through the basics.

In the basics, we can work on

- footwork,
- distance,
- body weight shift,
- tenouchi,
- the angle/position of hands,
- feet positions,
- body balance,
- neck positions,
- shoulder positions,
- elbow movements,
- wrist movements,
- angles of the sword,
- hand-foot coordination,
- timing of fumikiri and fumikomi and so on…

There are so many things that you can tune up in the basics.

So pick some up out of the list above that you think you can work on right away and possibly you can improve before the exam.

If you are going for the exam this year, please do remember one thing. It is not competition.

So you do not have to win any matches in your exam.

What you need to do is to show the achievement you made in your kendo so far.

If you are seen to be appropriate for the grade you are going for, you will get that grade.

If not, you won't. That is all. Simple as that.

Hope this helps and good luck to you in 2011!!

- Comments or Questions -

If you have a kendo related question, please go to Kendo Q&A and use a special form for that.

If you want to contact me personally, please use a contact form.

If you do not send me email through the form, my email system does not pass through your emails. That means I never get your email.

Please do not use the email address I used to use at The Cyber Dojo either. It will not be used for communication purpose. This is the main website. Click here to contact us...

Thank you for reading the newsletter. See you in the next issue!

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