Month: October 2019

Letting it sink in, growing into it.

On By gentlekendoistLeave a comment

I know all my posts since I’ve passed my 4th dan shinsa have been more or less about how different it feels compared to the times that followed the other successful exams, but here I am with another such post.

I believe what I experience is both motivation and a bit more clarity coupled with a desire to become more active in the community — not online, but within my federation.

Though questions start coming in too. Different kind of questions.

There’s something that is changing in the sensei I meet during practice also, more pressure. A lot more. I like it. It forces me to go back and forth with what I think I know, what I think I can apply. How well I think I can apply it.

The questions that I have right now? They’re broad and they’re about situations that I can’t really manage, at different levels, such as how to apply a threat to the centre line and mind/deal with a strong opponent’s kensen at the same time?

Another one would be : am I doing jigeiko right? Is my almost monomaniacal idea of trying to stick to some basic principles ultimately flawed?

I’ve had several encounters with people with whom I did gokaku-geiko that were difficult to deal with (they are usually in the 2-3rd dan ballpark). In contrast, the “harder” 4-5 and up don’t create these kind of situations that frustrate me because they’ll just search for their ippon strikes and for me, receiving those is not a source of frustration, rather the contrary.

While most encounters are usually satisfying, those few instances where we don’t understand each other with people of more or less similar level are a bit disappointing.

So I need help with all of that. Still need to find answers to gain more effectiveness against 4-5 and up, while at the same time finding a way to deal with 2-3s who just seem not willing to engage full force.

I’ll have to see sensei soon.
He’ll put me on the right track.

These are really interesting times.

Belgian Kendo by the numbers

On By gentlekendoistLeave a comment
Inspired in the middle of the night by a conversation with a friend about our monomaniacal tendencies and addictive hobbies led me to make the inevitable swerving into talking about kendo. After which I experienced an urge to get some numbers, inspired by this post by kenshijournal.
I came up with an approximate dan holder repartition graph for Belgium.

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The total population I sampled was 321 people, it might be slightly off because I don’t know if the online registry of the EKF deletes people who give up practice or not, but since the site got a serious update a few months ago, I’m going to go ahead and assume this is pretty accurate.

At least it’s good enough to get an idea. It is much different from Japanese numbers, because we don’t have institutionalised school-practice, which explains Japan’s huge numbers in the 1-2 dan bracket.

 

blank-1.pngBelgium has this noticeable particularity of having a high concentration of K7s, at almost 4% of the total yudansha population. For a small federation like us it’s quite remarkable (12 out of 321)

Going through the numbers like this helps me visualise where I sit and where I’m going. I’ve passed 4th dan only last month and I haven’t relaxed one bit, I’m still going through every practice with the next shinsa firmly in mind. I believe it is because that contrary to when I was at the beginning of my 3rd dan — when the requirements for 4th were still vague to me — I feel like I’ve got a good grasp of what I need to work on for the next step.