Re-imagining shiai

Recently I wrote two articles that took a critical look at the current kendo style and the (obviously directly related) problems with modern shiai.

Engendering positive kendo

Zanshin confusion, sutemi, and hikiage

Of course, I am not the only person who looks at and thinks about the current kendo situation. In most cases, however, any criticism given or suggestions made seem to fall on deaf ears – the ruling kendo elite make decisions for the rest of us often unilaterally without seeking input from general practitioners (a rare exception).

Since I hold no official role in any kendo organisation and have no or little impact on the community at large, I have a lot of freedom when it comes to re-imagining or thinking about shiai… especially as I don’t have any responsibility to see any amendments through! Today I am going to riff out loud on this issue. Sure, it’s purely an academic exercise, but why not?

So, how could shiai rules be revised?

Yuko-datotsu (valid strike areas)

First, would be a re-examination of what a “yuko-datotsu” is. If you need to revise the official definition, check out the following article from 2009.

Yuko-datotsu

At the moment, the official definition is, I suggest, overly complex and somewhat vague. Let’s simply it:

1. Was the strike/thrust deliberate?
2. Was it clear? (Ai-uchi or near ai-uchi strikes are invalid)
3. Was a valid area struck?
4. Was the hasuji correct?

For point 3 above, if we were to many any armoured location a valid strike area (except the tare for obvious reasons) the datotsu-bui would then become:

Men – including yoko-men and men-dare (if someone bobs their head to avoid a strike);
Kote – right and left kote, including the kobushi;
Dou – including orishiki-dou (see pic below);
Tsuki – including mune and dou tsuki. Morote and left/right katate.

Any head bobbing or any overly-defensive actions could be effectively addressed by widening the datotsu-bui area in this manner. Personally, anybody that attempts to move their head out of the way of my men strike and is hit in the ear or shoulder deserves to lose!

btw, check out the mune-zuki at the 2:00 mark of this following video. My question to you is “why shouldn’t this be an ippon?” You would have a severely hard time trying to convince me that this shouldn’t be a yuko-datotsu.

Ashi-garami (leg sweeping) leading to an immediate strike or kumi-uchi (grappling) as a result of a leg sweep could also be considered, though I’d hesitate to reintroduce these as they were removed for a reason: not only because of the obvious dangers involved (especially with unskilled/unpractised grapplers which would account for most of today’s kendo practitioners), but also because kendo is the art of the sword, and it’s in the wielding of the shinai where we should place emphasis on. Takano Sasaburo et al plainly stated that this was the main reason that main senior people disapproved of grappling and what led to it’s very early removal from shiai and eventual disappearance in kendo in general.

(Though, to be perfectly honest, a little bit of leg sweeping and wrestling in jigeiko wouldn’t hurt now and then!)

Orishiki-dou

Ashigarami

Shinpan (referees)

For the first chapter of modern kendo’s history, there was only ever one shinpan. Another two were added to increase perceived fairness once kendo became democratic post-WWII, but let’s face it, one shinpan should theoretically suffice.

(Note that three shinpan were also used in the pre-war Tenran shiai as well, also citing fairness reasons.)

Actually, thinking about it, why not use shinpan as a sort of “mediator” only and allow the competitors to decide by themselves? If the shinpan declares something was an ippon, the receiver of the ippon (the person who executed the attack) could be able to cancel it if they are not satisfied. Of course, this assumes that the competitors are good sportspersons (i.e. are honest and have humility)… which is almost certainly wishful thinking!

Ippon-su (number of ippon in a match)

Either settle for a single un-timed ippon (mainly decided by the competitors themselves) or set a time limit and see how many ippon can be scored within it. The latter was experimented with in the past and, I suggest, would make for an easy and interesting change to shiai rules, especially for youngsters.

See below for why I think this might be a good idea.

Points value

In conjunction with the how-many-ippon-can-be-scored-in-a-set-time-limit mentioned above, why not award different areas different points?

George’s point system:
Men: 10;
Tsuki: 8
Kote: 5
Dou: 5
(Kumiuchi surrender: 4)

What values you give the datotsu-bui would strongly influence the competitors strategy, so we would have to be careful when deciding the point values.

Back in 2009 (article now archived) I translated part of an 1895 published book called “Budo Kyoshi” by Kumamoto (an ex-Battotai member who was at Keishicho at that time). Here is the kendo point-chart that was published within in it, showing past experimentation with a points value system:

* Heiji(?) kote (兵字小手): Based on an article written by Nagao (近世・近代における剣術・剣道の変質過程に関する研究：面技の重視と技術の変容) this is a kote scored from jodan. # Seigan kote (精眼小手): based on * above, I think its a safe guess that this refers kote scored from seigan/chudan kamae.

Jikan (time)

The addition of a fixed shiai time limit has caused lots of problems for kendo, and is perhaps it’s single most restrictive element. Shiai with short times results in competition with little seme-ai or tactics, just randomly rushing in and hacking away until some ippon is given. This type of shiai is commonly seen in school level over here in Japan. Once an ippon is decided, time-wasting and defensive strategies begin. Of course, very young students (primary and junior high age) are usually neither mature enough technically, tactically, and/or emotionally to act otherwise.

Longer or un-timed shiai would be good but the idea is far from practical in large competitions and rented halls.

Experimentation done in the All Japan Championships over the past few years has seen the shiai time in the final part of the competition changed to 10 mins. But, as discussed in the two articles at the top of this piece, even that is sometimes not enough time for an ippon to be scored.

Changing shiai time seems un-doable, but if we were to loosen up/simplify the yuko-datotsu rules, add in a points value system, and don’t settle on a two-ippon restriction per encounter (i.e. score-as-many-as-you-can within the time limit) then, I suggest, the problem could potentially become somewhat moot.

Shiai-jo (competition area)

The shiai-jo is probably the least contentious part of current competition rules. Basically, unless you have an unlimited space in which to hold a competition, you probably need to set a standard shiai-jo size. Once a size is set then rules will emerge dealing with it (jogai) and tactics will change to take advantage of it (pushing).

Since we want to see good technical kendo and nice seme-ai, a larger shiai-jo is preferable to a smaller one.

Conclusion

This article has looked at the past when thinking about how shiai could be revised for the better, but what about new ideas? What other areas could be addressed?

Equipment: shinai (length, size, shape, weight), bogu (for arms, legs?)
Scoring: electronic system, removal of human judges, video replay?
Weapons: mixed competitions – ken, yari, naginata, jo… !

One excellent idea that was floating about for a while (and never really caught on) was the red-white tasuki being moved to the tare, as shown above.

Anyway, like I said at the top of the page, this post is simply an academic exercise, a bit of fun. Although I do believe some of the ideas mentioned above have merit, I don’t expect any change in shiai rules any time soon.

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I’m sure kenshi 24/7 readers can come up with many more interesting and innovative ideas! Please feel free to comment on facebook or below.