Kettlebell S&S and Kendo

[offwidth]

Not in Canada no.

 

[somanaut]

I practised kendo for 10 years in Denmark. Only sport I ever found interesting. There were several things that caused me to stop, but among them was back pain. @Kozushi is correct, in observing, that many of the top kendoka have broad shoulders, and I would add stocky builds. I am neither of those, slender build. And this probably did not contribute well to my health in the sport. We practised 3 times a week, at times up to 3-4 hours, and sometimes more when there was national team training. There was no strength component taught, only the sport. I wish that I had used some kind of functional training my self on the side, or that such a thing had been taught at practise, since I believe that it may have atleast spared me the back problems. And would have made me more resilient to handle the strenous activity that kendo is at a high amateur level is. When I did discover S&S, several biomechanical lights went off in my head linking it to kendo, and would have liked to have tested my ideas, but now I atleast get to use S&S for my job as a clinical massage therapist. Glad to see someone is enjoying S&S in tandem with kendo:-D
edit: S&S is described as a GPP, and there was no GPP focus when I practised. Maybe other GPPs' will also enable one to play a rough/hard sport well. But I am not surprised if S&S works well with kendo. It would be interesting to investigate any direct transference of biomechanical patterns from swings and getups to kendo.

 

[Kozushi]

I practised kendo for 10 years in Denmark. Only sport I ever found interesting. There were several things that caused me to stop, but among them was back pain. @Kozushi is correct, in observing, that many of the top kendoka have broad shoulders, and I would add stocky builds. I am neither of those, slender build. And this probably did not contribute well to my health in the sport. We practised 3 times a week, at times up to 3-4 hours, and sometimes more when there was national team training. There was no strength component taught, only the sport. I wish that I had used some kind of functional training my self on the side, or that such a thing had been taught at practise, since I believe that it may have atleast spared me the back problems. And would have made me more resilient to handle the strenous activity that kendo is at a high amateur level is. When I did discover S&S, several biomechanical lights went off in my head linking it to kendo, and would have liked to have tested my ideas, but now I atleast get to use S&S for my job as a clinical massage therapist. Glad to see someone is enjoying S&S in tandem with kendo:-D
edit: S&S is described as a GPP, and there was no GPP focus when I practised. Maybe other GPPs' will also enable one to play a rough/hard sport well. But I am not surprised if S&S works well with kendo. It would be interesting to investigate any direct transference of biomechanical patterns from swings and getups to kendo.

The swing, including of course the 2 handed variety, is almost identical to the kendo suburi movements (for those that don't know, suburi means the up and down cutting movements of the sword.)
On Monday at kendo, I was manipulating the sword the way the books say the highly advanced practitioners do - where it makes a "whooshing" sound and also where you feel that your fingers are actually controlling it rather than your wrists or arms. Our coach/sensei told us during practice that the strength for kendo is all in the shoulders and back and I could feel this exactly - because my shoulders and back are so strong my fingers are all I had to think about.

 

[pet']

Hello,

I did not practice kendo, but a friend of mine who was training for France championship used "Insanity" as a cardio / conditioning program. However, it was not involved in any strength training. What do you think about this program ?

Kind regards,

Pet'

 

[Kozushi]

I only know insanity as a state of mind, and I am very familiar with on a deeply personal level.