Why not to do hiki waza in jigeiko with high ranked sensei

by Olga
(Ukraine)

At a seminar with 8-dan sensei I heard one thing from other kendoka: during jigeiko with sensei do not do hiki waza unless he tells you to do hiki.

I wonder why we should not do hiki if there is opportunity.

Answer: What you were told is true but I have to make it clearer.

You can execute hiki waza but you do not want to do it often. I will list what you should/should not do in jigeiko with high grade holders.

- You should attack more than blocking or counterattacking.
- You should not even try to wait sensei to strike you to “test” your technique.
- You should not stay in tsubazeri-ai for a long time.
- You should execute hiki waza as soon as you come to tsubazeri-ai.

In my dōjō in Japan, we were told not to do “jigeiko” with 8th dan or above even at the jigeiko time unless we were the students of theirs. So what we did? We did kakari-geiko. Why?

The concept behind that is that we should be attacking because we are not even close to their level. It is too soon for us to do jigeiko equally with 8th dan or above.

Of course, when sensei told us to stop kakari-geiko and to let us do jigeiko with them, then we started doing jigeiko.

That is etiquette.
Well, at least in my time, it was etiquette.

Nowadays, I do not think this etiquette applies anymore. However, you can see why we should not really strike hiki waza on high grade holders.

We should never forget the spirits of going forwards and attacking. Not waiting. Not going backwards. We are always “kakarite (attacker)” .

Of course, under special occasions such as a seminar, 8th dan sensei are there to do jigeiko with you, I guess. So the etiquette I told you here may not be applied. But don’t forget to attack.

If you are a kyu holder, do just uchikomi on sensei. If you are 5th dan or lower, you still should have the spirit of kakarite. I am sure that 6th dan people also hold the spirit.

Hope this helps.

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