Tips for Ouji Waza: Defensive Techniques

Hello everyone, 

Thank you for reading the following blog post!
I'm Kota Suzuki from Japan. I've been practicing kendo since I was seven years old in Japan－I am currently 3rd Dan. Right now, I am studying abroad in the United States and regularly practice at the university kendo club here.

Today's topic: Ouji-waza, which is one of the kendo techniques that you attack against an opponent's hit such as men-kaeshi-dou and kote-kaeshi-men. Many people can do shikake-waza which you are hitting first, but you need more developed technique when you do ouji-waza.

Today, I'm going to introduce 3 tips that help you do ouji-waza well. In ouji-waza, you are required to see your opponent very carefully in order to attack against the opponent's attack in the right way. I hope these tips are helpful for you to improve ouji-waza techniques.

1. Preparation for attack

The first thing you need to do is preparation for opponent's attacks. For ouji-waza, you generally predict the opponent's attacks and make waza against them, but the opponent might move differently from your expectation. In case it happens, you should prepare for dealing with different patterns, meaning you can make ouji-waza, you can protect, you can go back and so on. There are many difference cases in kendo.

However, it might be difficult to prepare for many cases at first. The easist way to respond to any opponent's movement is two things. First, you do ouji-waza if your opponent's attack matches your expectation. Second, you can protect if your opponent's attack or movement don't match your expectation. With these two simple ways, you don't need to worry about each opponent's movement.

2. Invitation technique

The next thing is invitation technique which means you should make your opponent attack. For ouji-waza, you should avoid waiting for an opponent's waza because it is going to be late and you get hit in the worst case. Instead, you try to make your opponent want to hit, and you can make ouji-waza very easily. Invitation techniue is a word that I made now, and it is called "sasou" or "sasoi" in Japanese which are used many times when they are talking about ouji-waza.

The generally basic way to make an opponent hit is coming close a little to the opponent from the usual distance (issoku-ittou-no-maai) because the distance is easy for the opponent to start hitting. This is going to be a great chance for ouji-waza. If your opponent hit as your expectation, you will be able to make ouji-waza perfectly.

3. Small movement

Finally, small movement is the other tip for make ouji-waza effectively. It means you should make smaller step for ouji-waza than shikake-waza because an opponent also comes forward at the same time. If you step largely, the distance is too close to hit correctly.

How much you should step forward is determeined by how much distance you have between an opponent. It really depends on opponent's swing size and movement speed. If the distance will be close, you should make a small step. On the other hand, it will be a little bit far, you can make a big step to the opponent. You are required to make a quick decision how much you should go forward, and you can train the technique in practcice.

Thank you for reading this blog post. Ouji-waza is the difficult technique for sure, but also it is a useful technique in kendo matches. Please remember the 3 tips in order to improve ouji-waza! 

If you have any questions, feel free to ask me questions anytime you want. I'm happy to help you. Also, please give me a comment if you have any requests of the blog posts.

#kendo #剣道 #頑張れ剣道