kote

I hit kote today, a very nice shot.

This is not, by any means, big news in the world of kendo. But this was, for me, a very special kote.

Kote is the wrist, one of the four targets in kendo. Getting whacked with a bamboo sword hurts but does not cut or (usually) injure. To allow people to practice together in a basically injury-free environment, kendo people wear armor which covers the head (men), wrists (kote), sides of the waist (dou/doh), and, for protection against thrusts (tsuki), a piece of armor covering the throat.

We can argue day and night about the realism or combat effectiveness of kendo, which limits strikes solely to those areas protected by armor (compare most schools of old-style koryu bujutsu, which are full of strikes exactly to those areas without armor or where the opponent’s armor would be weakest). Kendo allows us to strike (or cut, more properly) the opponent. Kenjutsu and other koryu bujutsu require that blows be pulled, just short of actual contact, though with full intention. So each has points to recommend it as well as limitations. Given endless time, energy and money for practice, as well as access to good teachers, you would of course do both. But here in the real world…

Back to the kote. In a typical kendo practice, you should try a variety of attacks to a variety of targets. But in some practice situations you practice with little or no variation.

One of the many excellent teachers at morning practice shares much time with me. Unlike the case with most opponents, we don’t have matches, though, trying to “win” by scoring a point. With him, practice is nothing but ai-men, the simultaneous striking of men by both parties. And it goes long, 20 or 30 minutes, sometimes longer, of doing nothing but lining up, crossing tips, probing and firing an attack on men. There is only one goal: driving directly down the center and taking men. No feints, no combination attacks, and certainly no head-dodging to avoid getting hit cleanly when receiving.

Every once in a while he will slip under and take my kote as I go for men. No problem, just go again and again. Men, men, men. But it can’t be mindless or robotic – you have to make each shot real, as if it were your only chance to strike him. And never look at the clock, no matter how tired you get. Just keep going with determination and don’t worry about the time.
Every once in a while I slip in a different technique but it usually draws a frown – it is only a distraction from the task at hand, an evasion.
My job is to throw a clean, orthodox men attack. It is, in one sense, an exercise in futility, because I am not going to land any of these attacks unless he lets me have one, perhaps judging that my set-up and technique were proper. And yet it is this hopeless practice which builds the correct technique which will someday blast through and land on top of his head.
This morning, out of nowhere, I dropped a kote which landed just right and drew the briefest of nods from him. It had the right snap at the end, not my usual heavy plonking down. I hadn’t planned on going for kote at all – it just dropped out of nowhere. But after that, it was men all the way.
People had long since faded off to work and the floor had gone from being more crowded than usual to hosting a single pair of combatants. The drum sounded to finish practice and we both fired off a final shot at men.