Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Kendo @ ANU

I've started on a Kendo beginners course at ANU. 14 weeks. I had my first lesson Tuesday. A mate of mine, Mr C. did the beginners last year, and graded to 5 kyu over Christmas.

The course was bigger than I thought, with 35 people. It will be interesting to see how many stay.

I am terrible at languages, so one of my hurdles will be training my quite resistant brain into memorizing new words.

Things we started on:

Strikes:
Men - "Men" -  Head.
Kote - "Co. - Tay" - Gauntlet
Do - "Homers 'DOH" - Breastplate.

Practice drills:
Kiri-kaeshi: Striking the left and right men target points in succession, practicing centering, distance, and correct technique, while building spirit and stamina.

Amusing moment - we were all pretty new, and the instructor yelled a few calls in Japanese. Japanese doesn't mean anything to us, yet, good teacher :)


The only things that hurt - there was some strain repeating the sword strikes, and my throat was sore from over doing the shouts, or Kiai

Japanese Kendo Dictionary

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