Wayne Pixels

Tweets

1. Maintaining center throughout your fight, with strong center, you can defend and Attack easily. Try to go in deeper into your opponent’s Defence while maintaining your center before striking, this will make his shinai go off center so even if he counter Attack you are in advantage when both of you men together.

2. Maintain posture, do not learn forward, head, hips and leg should maintain one line.

3. When executing Do, left hand should always be in the center, right hand should be higher than left hand, do not take an extra step before cutting Do! Should be able to reach from issoku itono maai.

1. When executing Do, should always aim to cut diagonally (making sure left hand is below right hand such that the Shinai is tilted at an angle upon impact). After impact, maintain eye contact to express Zanshin.

2. During kihon, learn to garner the maai between yourself and your target for Men, Do and Kote.

3. When executing Kote-Men, it’s two moves done one after another, hence, seperate them by doing a proper Kote cut followed by a proper Men cut. Practice it seperately as if you combine them together, your Men cut may be slow due to the lagging left leg after the Kote cut. Hence, it is very important to keep the left leg right behind your right leg after every single cut.

4. Learn to finish the cut beautifully. Be confident in my Men. After cutting, follow through and do not doubt myself for not scoring that Ippon. Do not rush to turn around and rush for the next cut as I thought the previous cut was invalid.

5. Taaitari is just like Chudan. Hold it down during Taaitari at Chudan level not on the chest area. Maintain pressure from your lower body through the use of your left leg. Make room for your fists to flow during the Taaitari. Trick to intiate a Hikiwaza cut, be sudden be unexpected. For Hiki-men, jerk and punch towards the opponent’s Do. Then raise your Shinai to hit his Men. For Hiki-Do, use your left fist to punch upwards to push the opponent’s Shinai upwards to hit his Do. For Hiki-Kote, try to be on the left of his shinai(from your point of view), tilt your body rightwards and it should reveal his Kote. Cut the Kote at this point. Take note that as Hiki-waza is a Waza that strikes when you are “retreating” your Kiai have to be even louder to show your aggression for the Ippon to be valid.