The Yoshiko Oda Sensei Seminar

Rather than the usual blow-by-blow account – so to speak – this article will try to outline the essence of the Oda sensei seminar through attendance, conversations with Oda Sensei, and personal musings.  

Recently the author had a conversation with a regular church going friend about the ordainment of female vicars into the Church of Wales.  It seems the initial push for this was done with aggression and met with some bitter opposition which still remains today due – inthe most part to traditions within the bible.  It is difficult to ignore the reduction of practicing Christians within Great Britain.  Not so long ago close to everyone attended Church on a Sunday morning.  It is clear – and rightly so – that we are entering a new era of acceptance where we strive to give everyone the same opportunities regardless of race, age, disability, beliefs, gender, etc.  Whether or not we are achieving this is a matter for a different and far more complex discussion but what is obvious is the difficult position some traditional ways of life are put in because of this – such as women clergy.  However, these days a young woman and probably most young men born into these new more accepting times would be put off by a religion or a group that would deny a person a position of authority based on sex – especially if they hadn’t had a strong religious upbringing which is becoming more rare.  In terms of bums on pews these young people are the future – so how do the church play it?  Do they doggedly stick to the old ways and slowly fade away or do they adapt to survive?  It is clear that the church have already done some serious adapting over the years to keep its flock – despite sometimes upsetting or isolating the traditionalists – otherwise we would not be able to read a translation of the bible into English and an article such as this would be heresy.

But what has this got to do with Kendo?  The simple answer is tradition and traditionalists.  Unlike many other sports and martial arts Kendo grips to its traditions like religious dogma and sometimes this is good.  These traditions make it what it is and attracts historians, Japanophiles, romantics, and artists alike.  However when it comes to traditional teaching we often ignore the fact that we are doing a physical activity and at best this can set people back while at worst it can injure or kill people – now and again we still hear stories of Japanese high-schoolers collapsing due to heat exhaustion.  Though the worst end of this might not be common within the BKA it is extremely likely that you know someone who has injured themselves recently at practice.  

Traditional practice within Britain seems to vary from those who do very little at the dojo until Ji-geiko – which echoes some of the practices of old sensei in Japan – to those who train flat out without a water break like Japanese high-schoolers.  Both are impractical in their own ways but both hold a similar possibility of causing injury – the former due to the body not being conditioned to the stress put through it during ji-geiko and the latter due to the body being overtrained to the point of injury.  After an injury some members might give up all together depending on the severity and their time practicing whereas other members might struggle on until they have to call it a day.  

As a lecturer in physical education and a seventh dan in Kendo – Oda Sensei strives to incorporate tradition with good coaching practice and new methods of improving strength and fitness in Kendo.  If you’ve been to a gym recently you might be aware of high intensity interval training – this is where exercise is timed in intervals of activity and rest.  This is the height of sports science – though some of you may be aware that ‘sport’ is sometimes a dirty word in the Kendo community ‘science’ doesn’t have to be and it doesn’t mean that we cannot use these systems to practice more efficiently, effectively, and safely and integrate the old with the new.  

The simplest and quickest form of this practice that Oda Sensei used is called the Tabata protocol.  The Tabata protocol is only four minutes long and puts activity of one-hundred percent intensity into eight twenty second chunks broken up by rests of ten seconds.  We used kakarigeiko but it could easily be adapted to uchikomigeiko or any other activity dependent on the level of the participants.  This has been proven to increase the efficiency of both aerobic and anaerobic systems in the body.  It is also flexible to the fitness of the participant – a sixteen year-old’s one-hundred percent will be different to a sixty year-old’s one-hundred percent so the participant can dictate the pace and increase it over time as they become fitter.  These four minutes can be shoe-horned into the end of any practice which is what makes it so useful and people will leave feeling that they have achieved something and over time will feel fitter.  

By integrating modern systems into our traditional teaching we might find that the instances of injury decrease meaning more members in the dojo practicing.  We might also find that the improvement people see in their own abilities helps to motivate them to continue.  The most positive change though might be that we see a new audience interested in taking up Kendo due to its ability to help keep people fit and healthy.

Though Denshinkan is already a forward thinking dojo – this seminar has made us re-evaluate our own practices and made us look for other modern coaching techniques that could be applied both physically and mentally to help our dojo members improve and keep motivated to continue practice.  We also hope we can use it to draw in a new and different group to help support the continuation and development of Kendo in the country.    

may be aware that ‘sport’ is sometimes a dirty word in the Kendo community ‘science’ doesn’t have to be and it doesn’t mean that we cannot use these systems to practice more efficiently, effectively, and safely and integrate the old with the new.  

The simplest and quickest form of this practice that Oda Sensei used is called the Tabata protocol.  The Tabata protocol is only four minutes long and puts activity of one-hundred percent intensity into eight twenty second chunks broken up by rests of ten seconds.  We used kakarigeiko but it could easily be adapted to uchikomigeiko or any other activity dependent on the level of the participants.  This has been proven to increase the efficiency of both aerobic and anaerobic systems in the body.  It is also flexible to the fitness of the participant – a sixteen year-old’s one-hundred percent will be different to a sixty year-old’s one-hundred percent so the participant can dictate the pace and increase it over time as they become fitter.  These four minutes can be shoe-horned into the end of any practice which is what makes it so useful and people will leave feeling that they have achieved something and over time will feel fitter.  

By integrating modern systems into our traditional teaching we might find that the instances of injury decrease meaning more members in the dojo practicing.  We might also find that the improvement people see in their own abilities helps to motivate them to continue.  The most positive change though might be that we see a new audience interested in taking up Kendo due to its ability to help keep people fit and healthy.

Though Denshinkan is already a forward thinking dojo – this seminar has made us re-evaluate our own practices and made us look for other modern coaching techniques that could be applied both physically and mentally to help our dojo members improve and keep motivated to continue practice.  We also hope we can use it to draw in a new and different group to help support the continuation and development of Kendo in the country.    

modern systems into our traditional teaching we might find that the instances of injury decrease meaning more members in the dojo practicing.  We might also find that the improvement people see in their own abilities helps to motivate them to continue.  The most positive change though might be that we see a new audience interested in taking up Kendo due to its ability to help keep people fit and healthy.

Though Denshinkan is already a forward thinking dojo – this seminar has made us re-evaluate our own practices and made us look for other modern coaching techniques that could be applied both physically and mentally to help our dojo members improve and keep motivated to continue practice.  We also hope we can use it to draw in a new and different group to help support the continuation and development of Kendo in the country.
Report by Rosie on the Oda seminar in Cardiff