Comments for Starting nito at an early stage.

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May 08, 2011
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starstarstarstarstar 		Nito Sensei in Japan
by: Manuel Mota

Just a short comment to Tony:

If you are interested to study Nito in Japan, and you got no Sensei,
It is quite possible, that i can help you to get in contact with my Senseis from Musashikai. We got Dojos in Tokyo, Osaka and some other citys.

I think it is important to support Kendoka that are serious about learning Nito.

Please keep doing your best!

Greetings,
Manu

Kendo-Guide.Com: Maru, thanks for sharing your connection and your support!
May 06, 2011
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starstarstarstarstar 		Follow up on Nito
by: Tony

I have now been doing Nito for a year and I have to say that all comments are right:

a) Having other stances helps you broaden your vision on kendo and thus you grow.  There is no formal stage for that. You just need the proper guidance.


b) Nito is full of disadvantages due to added complexity, and the few advantages can distract you from a good path in kendo, because you win more and get hit less, but that is actually the way you learn less.  It gets attention and false respect, and false victories, and this plays against you.


c) 100 katate suburi a day is not enough, I need more and more strength and technique


d) I think nito is only benefiting me as long as I forget about winning or points and focus on taking a challenge against myself further and further.  In that sense you can more easily stop comparing yourself to others and only notice how you develop your own skills against yourself.

I am now in nidan and plan to continue doing only nito until I master the basics : men, kote, do.  I must travel to Japan to get good coaching from a nito sensei, then see how far I can get before going back, probably needing to relearn much.

A beautiful "double" challenge.

Kendo-Guide.Com: Thank you for sharing your thoughts! I really hope you can go to Japan and learn from a good nit? sensei.
Oct 23, 2010
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starstarstarstarstar 		Nito and itto
by: Manuel Mota

Imafuji sensei is right. Many times people ask me: why so many people don't like nito? Sensei said: it's not that everyone doesn't like it, but they just don't know about nito and are not sure how to handle it. Even in Japan, some sensei told me: Sorry, I don't want you to practice nito here.

I think it's not because they dislike nito. They just do not have that much experience with it and can't tell you if you do it right or not....but that's what a sensei is supposed to do right? So you will probably practice some bad habits and your sensei can't tell you that it's wrong. Not a good situation for both of you.

I hear often that we should wait until 3. dan to start nito. Of course, there is no rule for that but I agree. You need itto experience to practice nito. Not just because almost every of your "opponents" will use it, or you have to understand itto to know what to do against it. But it is because itto is the basics. Yes in nito you can choose your position with shoto and daito and your foot position, but still you need the kendo basics.

I started kendo with nito, but at the same time I started to study itto. Nito and itto help each other a lot. Some people asked me: which do you prefer, which is stronger, nito or itto? But for me it is the same thing, I don't prefer one or the other. Nito and itto help me to improve my kendo, and that's what I want in order to improve myself through kendo.

i will go on writing next time, sorry for my bad English.

greetings,

Manu

Kendo-Guide.Com: Thank you for sharing your experience and opinion. As I said somewhere, at certain point of our kendo shugyo (study of kendo), we should learn jodan and nito. This is my personal opinion, by the way. And probably many disagree with this. So do not argue with your sensei if your sensei do not agree with you taking nito or jodan. When the time is right, you can learn those.
Oct 19, 2010
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starstarstarstarstar 		nito practice
by: Manuel Mota

Started Kendo with Nito. First of all if you want to practice nito, be aware you will often not get ippon in a shiai. Many people will boycott you because they don't like nito, and it will be hard to study nito without a sensei who can teach nito.

But not just negative, I will write more tomorrow. I love nito, and I'm happy if people want to learn about it!

Kendo-Guide.Com: Thank you for your comment. Just to clarify that I am not one of the people who do not like nito. So not all the people do dislike nito. They just do not know what to do again nito.

Kendo after all is not about "hitting" although it is one of the tasks we have to accomplish.

Shikai appears in our mind. We have to get over it. We have to be brave. We have to face our opponent fair and square. To do so, we have to have a strong determination.

These are the things we have to work on during the course of our kendo training.

We should not dislike nito because we do not know what to do. We should not take nito because many people do not know what to do. There should be one reason.

That is to train our mind. As long as we keep it in our mind and humbly train kendo, we and kendo should remain pure budo, I think.

Looking forwards to your posts!
Sep 27, 2010
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starstarstarstarstar 		Conceptual nito dangers.
by: RF

You may also be getting hit less and finding your seme 'better' only because the people you practice with don't know what to do against nito.  In that case your nito is helping your partners more than it is helping you.

We learn by making mistakes. We improve by getting struck and thinking about how to change our kendo so that the mistakes that got us struck are fixed.  This is why you should welcome being struck rather than avoiding it.

Your partner in keiko is not an opponent.  S/He is a partner... and a mirror in which you can see your own kendo objectively. Keiko is practice, not fighting and not shiai.  I find this is a concept that is very difficult for many kenshi to grasp.

Kendo-Guide.Com: Very nicely explained. Thanks!  Just one thing to add. There is a saying in kendo,
We should train as we fight in shiai and we should fight in shiai as we do in keiko (training).

What it means is that we should not change our kendo and such kendo is the most ideal one.  Please also refer to “Do shiai as if You are Training, Train as if You are In Shiai” in one of the Newsletter, Kendo-Guide.Com Newsletter, Issue #002 -- New Tsubazeriai Rules.
May 31, 2010
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starstarstarstarstar 		Suburi to realize your inner speed
by: Anonymous

Suburi makes perfect, high ranked players

For example Teramoto or Shodai sensei practice suburi at least 2000 or 3000 in dayly practice.

Kendo-Guide.Com: Thank you for your comment. Those who are really strong do practice more than anyone else, don't they? We should follow them!
May 16, 2010
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starstarstarstarstar 		Things to think on
by: Matt

While you don't want to wait until godan, shodan is still quite early to try nito.

Ni-dan/sandan might be more appropriate as you likely will not even get a judge to consider you for passing until at least sandan with an alternate kamae (and even then I have been told to pass sandan with nito/jodan your kamae would have to be at a godan/rokudan level).

In particular this sentence worries me 'I get hit less and find it easier to do seme.' As it implies you are approaching practice incorrectly.

It says to me you place a high importance on not being struck in practice (wrong attitude to have) and that your concept of seme is very immature (mine is as well, I rely heavily on physical displacement)

Tenouchi is extra important with nito and jodan, as is ki. Make sure you have a good strong ki-zeme and work on wrist strength.

You may also want to look into the musashi-kai nito kata for practice drills.

I think everyone goes thru a phase where they want to do jodan or nito at a low dan level. From a competitive standpoint in my limited experience there are really on 2 types of nito, amazing nito (a la Matt Raymond in Canada) and mediocre bad nito (the guys that always go first round out).

If nito is truly your passion you really need 2 things: a teacher and to dedicate all of your practice to nito.

Kendo-Guide.Com: Another good post, Matt. Thanks mate!

Many do not want to get hit but if you take nito, you will get hit. The reason you don?t get hit is you are not fighting high ranks.

You will have to get hit to improve; especially you want to take nito.

If you think you can block better because you have two swords, then you are not really learning how to use two swords.

You must learn how to use a shoto in order for you to create an opening. Do not feel safe because you can block better. Do worry because you are not learning how to use two swords properly. Learn how to use shoto better if you want to be good at nito.

Hope this helps.
May 15, 2010
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starstarstarstarstar 		LOTS OF SUBURI WILL MAKE YOU IMPROVE
by: Gabriel Paredes

I reccommend doing at least 500 katate suburi per day.

: )


Kendo-Guide.Com:  Thanks for your post! Yep. I agree. As I said in the other post, a lot and lot and suburi!
May 14, 2010
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starstarstarstarstar 		Jodan
by: Neil Cleveland

I once read that until you can do shomen suburi with your left hand alone at least 1000 times, don't even consider doing Jodan...

Just something I read...


Kendo-Guide.Com:  Thanks for your post! Probably a lot and lot and suburi, huh?

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