How To Practice Kirikaeshi

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, we have a special guest: Ryokichi, who is a Japanese kendo blogger. According to his article, he has been practicing kendo for thirteen years in Japan. He will give you some important points for kirikaeshi practice, so please read his article and develop your kirikaeshi practice!

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What I want to introduce today is important points of kirikaeshi practice. Every strong kendoka do kirikaeshi very well, hitting smoothly and strongly. I believe that kirikaeshi is the very first practice you learn once you put bogu (protective equipments). 

The basic kirikaeshi process is that you hit men from chudan (the basic posture), make a body contact, attack right and left men each times while going foward four times and going backward five times. You repeat these things twice, hit men and go through at last.

You probably wonder if there are important points in such a simple movement. However, kirikaeshi is very important because it has many essential components for kendo.

・Swing largely

What you should do in kirikaeshi first is swinging largely. If you swing very small, you cannot practice effectively. That's because you can train your back muscle, which is the important muscle for doing kendo, through practicing kirikaeshi. Some people think that arm strength is quite impotant. It is true for sure, but you need to train your back muscle as well since you will be able to go back faster when you do hiki-men (back men attack) if you train your back muscle enough.

In addition, you should step as far as possible. It might be difficult to take a balance in the beginning, but you can make the core of the body strengthen. When I was a high school student, I always focused on doing kirikaeshi largely. Through this practice in usual keiko, I changed to keep a correct posture even if I was pushed hard by a partner because of the streangth of the body. Although this idea about the core of the body is completely my own opinion, I came to keep my posture stable against my master's body contact through the practice.

・Don't walk

Some people just focus on doing kirikaeshi fast, so they tend to lack the correct footwork. Especially, they sometimes miss the point of suri-ashi (the basic kendo footwork when you move around), and the left foot is going over the right foot like walking. It is going to be useless because you generally don't use walking footwork in kendo matches. If you don't do that in real matches, you should not do that in your practice as well.

One common thing in strong kendoka is that they can do a great footwork. One of the examples is Kyushu-Gakuin high school, which has the strongest high school kendo club in Japan. The players' footworks are really great. They can avoid getting hit from a opponent, and they also make okori (the beginning of attacks) unclear to see because of this footwork. It is essential for any kendo players to improve footwork for developing kendo.

・Body contact

You always make a body contact in kirikaeshi practice, but do you pay attantion to anything about the body contact? If not, you need to work on something because the body contact happens many times in usual practice. What I always focus on is make a strong body contact. You can move on hitting right and left side men smoothly by making a strong body contact. You also use this technique for kendo matches.

You probably have a chance to come close to your opponent after you hit men. This is a chance to use a body contact since you can break down the opponent's posture, and have a chance to get a point at that time. This pattern is going to be a great chance because your opponent tends to lack much attention after your hitting.

・The way you breathe

A breath is one of the important points when you do kendo. You can learn how to breathe if you focus on the way in kirikaeshi practice. One way to train your breath is that you take a breath after you hit the first men, and then try to keep making a voice when you hit right and left men nine times. It's going to be double hard.

You are likely to avoid getting hit if you learn the way you breathe, because people basically stop moving when you breathe. The opponents have a chance to get a point in the moment you take a breath, and you probably give them an opportunity to hit once you breathe many times in kendo matches. A small chance can lead to losing a point in kendo, so you should learn how to breathe through kirikaeshi practice.

・Use your wrists

The last thing I want to introduce is wrist use (tenouchi). You hit both right side and left side men in kirikaeshi. You can learn how to use your wrists through kirikaeshi, which is benefitial for basic attacks (kihon-uchi) as well as matches. There are many chances to use wrists in kendo practice. 

For example, Dou-uchi is one thing you need to use wrists. The correct way to use wrists makes your Dou-uchi strong and accurate. Though many people are good at using the right hand wrist, you should pay much attention for the left hand wrist. 

There is another tip for using wrists is when you swing up the shinai after hitting. Even if you make hitting with the correct wrist use, you also need to see if you swing up through the correct way. This is a littele hard technique, but once you complete how to swing up shinai in the correct way, you can imitate to hit the opponent's right men as a fake attack, and then you switch the way to hit the left men immediately. So, you should check the way you use the wrists, including the way you swing the shinai up, when you practice kirikaeshi.

These thing I explained today is basic strategies that affect your kirikaeshi practice. If you didn't know the way you practice it, please try them from the next practice. Your kedno skill will be developed one month later!

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Thanks for reading this blog post! Ryokichi gave us useful ways to improve kirikaeshi practice that also affect the basic attacks and kendo tournaments. As he mentioned in this article, I think you practice kirikaeshi every time as well as I do. By concentrating on small things in kirikaeshi, you can improve your kendo much more effectively than when you don't think anything about it.

 If you have any questions, you are free to ask me. Also, if you have any requests for the blog posts, I'd like to write articles about the topics, so please give me comments!

In addition, Ryokichi is running his own kedno blog and post some English articles as well as Japanese articles. I put the link of his English blog posts below, so please check it out! 

English version アーカイブ | 剣道オタク | 剣道オタクEnglish version アーカイブ | 剣道オタク

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