Comments for Aggression in shiai

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Nov 21, 2009
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starstarstarstarstar 		what is aggression
by: aaron

Aggression can mean many things. 

1.  Anger:  aggression in kendo should never mean anger. 

2.  Persistence:  this has been very well explained already. 

3.  Willingness to attack.  In my dojo I have seen students who will parry an attack as many as 10 times without ever giving a response of their own.

 Such a defensive attitude is not good.  Eventually you will miss a parry.  Students must learn to attack more.

However, this does not mean "machine gun fire or in other words continuous attacking without control or plan".  Neither does it mean moving so fast that distance collapses between you and your opponent without you realizing it thus promoting an attack from your opponent you are not ready to deal with.

I tell my students that they must have controlled aggression or in other words do not move too fast or do continuous attacks that amount to little more than beating on your opponent.  I hope this helps.

Kendo-Guide.Com: Thank you for your post. The term, aggression, probably is the problem. It is hard to comprehend what it really means in kendo.

As described, in kendo we should not have anger. So aggression is not anger exactly in kendo.

However, probably, when people hear ?be more aggressive?, most of people get psyched up with their eyes wide open as if they were trying to beat their opponent to death.

Out strikes should get stronger and faster without getting tensed up when we become ?aggressive?. So our opponent feels like he/she are not capable with fighting us.

I think this is the important thing. How your opponent feels about your attacks.

We may think we are overwhelming our opponents but that is how we feel. It does not mean our opponents are overwhelmed by our seme.

If you study about a bit of seme, it may help you to understand what to do when you attack.

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