Thursday, November 13, 2008

Lesson: Proper Footwork When Attacking

Recently, I spoke w/ Yamaguchi Sensei after the practice.  

He told me not to raise up my right foot (just before attacking) in order to consciously do fumi-komi.  Instead, I should just do regular Suri-ashi and reach out far.

He showed me that when I consciously raise my right foot up in order to do fumi-komi, my right foot stops in the middle of the attack, thus only my upper body pushes forward but not my lower body.  It also shortens my attacking distance.

However, when I just reach out my right foot as if I'm doing a regular (but longer) Suri-ashi, it reached out much further.  The stomping of the foot should then naturally occur.  I should not consciously try to stomp by raising my right foot just before the attack.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

thank you. 9 days of kendo so far and i can't get enough thrust out of my footwork. i think this is the explanation i needed! thanks again!

JKP said...

Thank you for your comment. I'm glad to hear that the blog helped you. Please keep it up and strive to be a good and proper kenshi!