Miyakawa Sensei Visit - Preston

Last Sunday I attended special practice at Oni Kai Kendo Dojo Preston. The session was lead by visiting 6th Dan Miyakawa Sensei.

Gotta Have Rhythm

Miyakawa Sensei started the lesson with kihon practice, making us cut big men and then small men and told us that it is important to learn the different rhythms of big and small men. He said that it is necessary to be able to do all cuts with many different rhythms, if your big men is the same as your small men you will not succeed as you will become predictable.

He then went on to talk about the ultimate timing for a men cut. He stated the ideally the cut should be launched just as your opponent is preparing to launch, so that the cut lands a moment before their preparation becomes actual movement. This means they will be unable to escape. If you cut a moment before, they may be able to counter, a moment after, it will be ai-uchi. Miyakawa Sensei demonstrated this by having various seniors pair up, motodachi was instructed to launch on the count of three, shidachi to launch on the count of two. Motodachi was on the verge of launching for men when shidachi's cut landed.

Miyakawa Sensei also had us doing Kote-Men, but again with different rhythms. He again stressed that the important thing is not to simply do it as fast as you can, but to use the appropriate timing. The three major rhythms being Kote-Men, teMEN and Kote......MEN.

After a short break Miyakawa Sensei spoke to us about the importance of Reigi. He reminded us that Kendo is not simply a case of hitting each other with a shinai and that showing each other respect was necessary in order to learn. He said that for the same reason we should thank someone for cutting us as by not denying or dismissing the cut we can learn from it.

We then proceeded into a gruelling hour of Mawarigeiko (I say gruelling, I had got up at 6am and driven down to Bolton for the 10-12am practice, then gone straight to preston!). Everyone gave it their all, and after a short break we were into sensei-geiko.

Into the Fire

I queued first for Miyakawa Sensei as I had not had chance during the Mawarigeiko. Miyakawa obviously prefers debana to oji-waza and with good reason for it is something he is very good at and is able cut you as you're about to start you forward motion and therefore have very limited options available. However, his seme-waza is simply amazing. He is able to keep his kensen down until the very last moment (much further in than most) and then cut the most appropriate target, this means you never know what he will cut until he has cut it.

I came away feeling very tired but elated, and went on to have my best fence of the day against Andrew Fisher.

Conclusion

Miyakawa Sensei has some thought provoking things to say about Kendo, and in particular his comments about having an arsenal of different Rhythms in the same way we have an arsenal of different waza, is something I feel I could really use to help improve my Kendo.

Miyakawa Sensei finished the lesson with the following thought (heavily paraphrased). It is important to learn how to be cut and well as how to cut. Do not block and do not duck your head (sideways) when caught without ability/time to do proper debana or oji-waza. Doing so will give you a false sense of improvement (i.e "Well at least he didn't cut me"). If you are caught, then be cut and say thank you. If you do this you will get better at not being caught out. The way to learn is to do this thousands of times. If you do it this way, you will learn (vocal emphasis suggesting a silent eventually here).

I am certain everybody found this a very worthwhile lesson, I know I did.